Earlier this year, Nissan announced that they will participate in the Australian V8 Supercars Championship. Nissan will join Ford and Holden next year in the above mentioned racing series with a 2013 Nissan Altima and recently Nissan has announced the engine that will power the Altima.


The engine that will be used is a racing version of the VK56DE V8 engine. It has a displacement size of 5.6 litres and it is found in several Nissan and Infiniti models such as the Nissan Patrol and the Infiniti QX56. But the racing version’s capacity will be reduced to 5.0 litres due to competition regulations.

The engines used by Ford and Holden rely on pushrod cam technology and only two valves per cylinder, while the Nissan engine benefits from a double overhead cam design with four valves per cylinder. The Nissan powerplant also features electronic fuel injection and a Motec ECU.

Due to the extra benefits of its engine, Nissan will work closely with the organisers in order for them to achieve fair play. On top of the 5.0-litre engine displacement limit, the engine must also have an rpm limit of between 7,000 and 7,500 rpm, a power output of around 650bhp and a torque curve that is equal with the Ford and Holden racing cars.

Racing team, Kelly Racing, will field four cars in the racing series and they will have the support of a factory-backed program. Engineers are currently fine-tuning the aerodynamics of the Altima-bodied race cars and expect to complete their design by the end of the year.

While the exterior of the race car will closely resemble the production Nissan Altima, the chassis underneath will be nothing like the production version. In the current V8 Supercars regulations, cars participating in the race can only use a single “controlled” chassis which is common to all teams.

The engine will be tested in the Altima-bodied car some time in October and the car will make its competition debut in March next year.