Nissan Took a V8 From Titan To Make Most Highly effective Frontier

Nissan has taken a V8 engine from its full-size Titan pickup and stuffed it into the engine bay of the mid-size Frontier to make a robust but nimble off-roader that ought to put the Ford F-150 Raptor R and Ram 1500 TRX on alert. Or, on the very least, it’d persuade these huge vehicles to go on a weight loss plan — if Nissan had been to truly put a brand new Frontier with a V8 into manufacturing, slightly than merely displaying off an idea at a commerce present.

At this yr’s SEMA present, Nissan debuted the NISMO Off Street Frontier V8 idea constructed by Forsberg Racing. The NISMO idea truck replaces the mid-size Frontier’s 3.8-liter V6 engine with a 5.6-liter V8 from the full-size Titan.

That huge V8 engine makes 400 horsepower and 413 lb-ft of torque within the Titan, which isn’t even near the efficiency of the F-150 Raptor R and Ram 1500 TRX, however is sort of one-third greater than the output of the common Nissan Frontier, which wrings out 310 HP and 281 lb-ft of torque from its V6 engine.

As soon as once more, the honored custom of the engine swap has blessed a automobile on a relatively smaller platform with energy it was by no means supposed to have. However Nissan and Forsberg didn’t simply drop within the V8 and name it a day: the 2 constructed the Frontier V8 idea extra totally than that, upgrading the consumption and exhaust system, together with the truck’s suspension.

The Frontier V8 idea will get a customized NISMO chilly air consumption and cat-back exhaust, which should make that naturally aspirated V8 sound beautiful — guttural and low. And the Frontier V8 incorporates a wider observe courtesy of its suspension upgrades, together with customized higher management arms, Bilstein coilovers and customized rear leaf springs with Bilstein shocks. The Frontier V8 additionally has upgraded decrease management arms, entrance spindles, and even borrows wheel hubs and a rear axle from the Nissan Titan. Lastly, there’s a large physique equipment with carbon fiber throughout to suit the upgraded suspension and beefy mud-terrain tires.

Nissan additionally loaded up the Frontier V8 with a beneficiant quantity of NISMO equipment, to show the truck right into a “Baja-style desert runner,” because the carmaker notes. These embrace rock rails, a roof rack, winch, spare wheel carriers, and off-road auxiliary LED lighting. The temporary “Baja” point out could or might not be not a reference to different race-inspired off-roaders just like the Raptor(s), however it’s an oblique reminder of the planetary system the place for the Frontier V8 orbits.

There’s little question that the Frontier V8 idea remains to be missing outright energy in comparison with the supercharged V8 monsters from Ford and Ram, however I’ll at all times root for mid-size vehicles, particularly a Frontier with the guts of a Titan.