Nissan motor cloned off MB?

[Soulman]

Guys,
Is there any truth that a Nissan 6 cyl ie, 260z motor was copied off a MB motor?

If so I was thinking about a carby conversion for now , seeing  I need to spend serious $$$ on the pump.

Soul.

[RBYCC]

The more common motor swapped into Mercs, especially the W124 chassis is the Toyota "JZ" series of engines.
Looks a bit like an early M104.

[mdsalemi]

I once had an old Datsun (Nissan) 510.  That had a pretty sophisticated engine for the time, and for what amounted to a "rusting so quickly you can hear it" car made out of scrap metal. Fixing rust on this was like mowing lawn.

That had the Datsun L20B engine, which was a Prince head on a stroked Austin block (all modified of course), and with "Mercedes influence" as the lore goes...  Prince was once a separate manufacturer in Japan, but was acquired by Nissan in the 1950s and remained an internal entity.

Personally I thought the engine with its OHC design was right similar to the BMW M10 2.0L in my later 320i...

[Jack Jones]

Everything in the 60's and early 70's (including Mercedes) rusted before your eyes but everyone loves to label the Japanese cars like the were the only ones. 

[JamesL]

Oh no. I'll label anything made on these shores as prone to rust as well

[gerster]

Alfa Romeo's were the most rusty cars in the 70's, I've had 2 of them in that period and after 5 years they were completely rotten!

[mdsalemi]

I will postulate that there are far more 1960s and 1970s survivors of Mercedes, MG, and all the Detroit makes than there are Datsun and Toyota. I've had them all and clearly the worst of the lot were my 1972 Corolla and 1968 510. Yes everything may have rusted worse than cars of today, but some were better than others. The gauge of the metal used on those cars from Japan contributed to the problem.

[Palolo]

Looping back to Soulman's question,

Is there any truth that a Nissan 6 cyl ie, 260z motor was copied off a MB motor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_l_engine#Straight-6

"The Nissan L series of automobile engines ranged from 1.3 L to 2.8 L in both inline-four and inline-six configurations and were produced from 1967 through 1986. This was the engine of the Datsun 240Z sports car as well as the Datsun 510 and the first Nissan Maxima. These engines are known for their extreme reliability, durability, and parts interchangeability. It is a two-valves per cylinder SOHC non-crossflow engine, with an iron block and an aluminium head. The four-cylinder L series engines were replaced with the Z series and later the CA series, while the six-cylinder L series engines were replaced with the VG series and RB series.

The design is often incorrectly attributed to Mercedes-Benz. In 1966 Prince Motor Company merged with Nissan. At the time of the merger, Prince was licensed to produce copies of the four- and six-cylinder engines. Prince Motor Company later refined the design such that it no longer needed licensing. The engine still resembles a Mercedes in many ways, particularly the valve train."

You'd have to go back a long long way for an engine that was essentially an MB/Nissan, and would likely end up spending a bunch of time and money redoing it, and adapting it, then undoing it all when you're ready to back to the MB engine, compared to just fixing whatever problem you're having.

My .02...

Pat

[Jack Jones]

If you notice, all 60's and 70's are long gone from areas where salt is used and most of what you see are southern cars or cars with way too much money spent on there rusty hulks. You could have built cars out of 16 gauge metal but with no rust protection, they still turn into dust. 

[Desertpagoda]

I cant imagine that sourcing and installing a Datsun engine would be cheaper than fixing your MFI. Have you shopped for a good used inj pump? Easily found. I have several, exactly what do you need? Keith

[garymand]

Good work guys, I helped a friend with a 240Z do a valve job in about '71  I was visiually impressed with the similarity to my 250SL head.  Except it was cross flow (good) but used 2 SU-like carbs (bad).  I can understand, Why design from scratch when you can start with something MB has already proved to work?  But to the point, why buy a mercedes if you want a datsun motor?  Makes no sense to me...  except, no its not cheeper. It will cost you time, trouble and $$$ to monkey a datsun or any other non-specific to this car.

And too, it hardly pulled the z around well, ;like a 230 not a 280: an sl is, despite the L for light, maybe 1000 lbs heavier than a 240Z.  Can you immagine how a 240Z would move with and extra 1000lbs?  What a disapointment that would be.  But then you could buy all the hop-up after-market rice rocked race stuff and maybe get close to a 230SL performance for a short period of time before the motor gives out, or some weld, or the clutch or, or,..  Just my thoughts, but trust us, its not easy to pack in the torque, HP, and reliability that MB does on their high end motors.  And these motors are pretty economical to mechanically repair.

[Rolf-Dieter ✝︎]

I agree with Jack Jones ... If you watch Season 3 Episode 8 you will see Jeremy Clarkson point to 2 piles of rusted metal (once cars from the 60s) then point to a Pagoda as having stood the test of time ... that was in 2002 BTW

check it out ---> http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-season-3-episode-8-all-rightsbbc-uk_part-1_2196804.htm

[garymand]

Is the 280SL really that slow?  I remember test driving a few 69's and they moved very well, and the passing gear did work. 

[Peter van Es]

No it isn't. It is well documented here at this site, that the particular example he test drove was crap. Even then he liked it. Just look for Clarkson and read all the threads.

[mirkwood]

Back in the early 1960's I was lookng at the engine of a Prince Gloria six. my Dad mentioned in passing that it looked just lijke a Mercedes Engine. This was long before the urban myth about Nissan copying the mercedes Design arose . In fact it was long before Datsun took over the prince car company. Today Prince GT's are  huge dollar cars and highly sought after. The engine of the 240Z was a prince derived design but instead of triple side drafts as the prince GT  had,they had sidederaft SU's and Hitachi's. One look at a Prince engine will show they are nothing like a mercedes, apart from the cam cover appearance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUJS4ldxuLQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuqhhRPQvuE

[mirkwood]

One more time....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjAwijzqcVc