STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

THE NISSAN SD AND A 1968 CHRYSLER NEW YORKER

The 1973 oil embargo scared Uncle Sam right out of his red-and-white striped pants. With a new focus on fuel economy, the American auto industry began studying diesel engines. They were a new concept for the auto and light-truck side of the industry, but not for the medium- and heavy-truck side, where diesel power was everyday business. There were no light-duty diesel engines manufactured in the U.S. suited for powering cars or 4x4 trucks, so American firms had to look to foreign manufactures for ideas. One line of suitable Japanese engines sold here at the time was the Nissan SD series.

SD HISTORY

The Nissan Diesel Motor Company started in 1959, when Nissan acquired Minsei Diesel Industries. Minsei began in 1950 as a branch of another company and debuted a 2-stroke Uniflow truck diesel in 1955. In 1969, Chrysler and Nissan created a joint venture to market Nissan diesel engines in North America, with a primary focus on the marine and industrial markets. The engines would be badged Chrysler-nissan. Chrysler was heavily invested in marine engines at that point but wasn’t averse to selling automotive diesels. In fact, they were among the first to test SD series engines in their own lines of cars and trucks, though none of those tests evolved into a production model. Additionally, a small cottage industry evolved doing conversions using the Nissan SD.

The Nissan SD series engines debuted in 1963 with a 2.0L fourcylinder (the SD20) and evolved from there, with a larger fourand a six-cylinder derived from the original design. At the same time, a 264ci, 128-hp V8 was developed but wasn’t produced. The SD line continued until 1987, when Nissan developed the LD series. The SD engines were indirect-injected and naturally aspirated for the most part. Some of the last engines were turbocharged for a modest increase in power.

THE NISSAN SD

Starting in 1973, International Harvester began looking at a

The only semi-funky-looking part of the conversion is the exhaust pipe crossing over the top of the valve cover. The clearance was too tight to drop it down on the driver’s side, so it was crossed over and fed into the original 440 single exhaust system. In production, International rated the NA 198 ci Nissan at 81 net horses at 3,800 rpm and 138 lbs-ft at 1200-1600 rpm. This engine, built in March of 1975, was bought new by Shaeffer around that time. The peeling paint shows some of the engine’s convoluted history. Once the Chrysler-nissan deal was reached, the valve covers were cast with that name in it. Normally the Nissan diesels were painted blue, but for use with Chrysler, they were painted yellow and the peeling yellow paint shows both origins. The marine and industrial engines were similar in most ways to the automotive engines, save pump calibration, governors, and so on. All shared the same 198 ci displacement, 3.27 x 3.94-inch bore and stroke, 22:1 compression ratio (later 20.8:1), four main bearings, and indirect injection. For 1980, Nissan developed a turbocharged version that featured a number of internal development such as piston oil cooling jets and improved bearings and oil flow. The result was 101 hp and 175 lbs-ft. An adapter is required to mount it to the big block TF727 automatic.

The New Yorker came standard with a 350 hp 440 V8, with the 375 hp TNT optional, both backed up Torqueflites and 2.76:1 gears. Coupled to the original Chrysler 3-speed automatic, the 81 hp diesel (89 hp gross) doesn’t offer the blistering acceleration of the Mopar big block, but it’s better than you might think. AND, the 24 gallon fuel tank can take it a minimum of 480 miles and up to 768 miles. Shaeffer reported 20-25 mpg in town and 30-32 highway on trips to Florida family vacations.