This Could Be The Best 4-Cylinder Engine Nissan Ever Built

While today's Nissan isn't quite the global behemoth Toyota is, the automaker is right up there when it comes to the variety of engines it has produced over the decades. As you'd expect given the company's history, Nissan's catalog isn't just wide; it also includes several generational standouts beloved by car enthusiasts and the broader consumer market alike. 

Nissan is probably best remembered for six-cylinder engines like the groundbreaking RB26 inline-6 from the Skyline GT-R and the award-winning VQ-series V6 that dominated the 2000s. Like Toyota, the company has even rolled out some very stout V8 engines over the years. What about Nissan's four-cylinder engines, though? Well, you could tip your hat to Nissan's early L-series that helped put cars like the Datsun 510 on the map in the 1970s, or the robust QR-family of four-cylinder engines of more recent times. However, our pick for Nissan's greatest four-cylinder engine has to be the SR20 and its wide range of turbocharged and naturally aspirated variants. 

Used in everything from family sedans and minivans to rear-drive sports cars, the SR20 has won over generations of fans worldwide with its stout construction and huge power potential. In the iconic Nissan Silvia, the SR20 also helped propel the homegrown Japanese drift scene into the global motorsports phenomenon it is today. 

The Skyline GT-R's legendary RB26DETT engine might be the motor that's earned Nissan the most street cred, but the SR20 isn't far behind on the list of great JDM tuner engines. We'll touch on the SR20's power potential in a moment, but it's important to highlight that the SR20 was far more than just a tuner or drifter favorite. The SR20 debuted in the late 1980s and was in production through the early 2000s, powering a wide variety of vehicles over its run.

Though widely known for its use in the rear-drive Nissan Silvia and 180SX, the SR20 engine also powered many high-performance, front-drive and all-wheel-drive Nissan vehicles. While the American market didn't get the turbocharged SR20DET in the Silvia's Nissan 240SX counterpart, the naturally aspirated SR20DE helped make the early '90s B13 Nissan Sentra SE-R a modern classic. 

Elsewhere, the SR20DET powered Nissan's rally-bred, all-wheel-drive Pulsar GTI-R, while the variable-valve-timing-equipped SR20VE engine from the '90s could rival some of Honda's famed VTEC engines for high-revving, naturally aspirated power. At one point, the venerable SR20 even featured in the Japanese-market Nissan Serena minivan. 

The SR20DET-powered Silvias of the 1990s were some of the most dominant vehicles in Japan's emerging drift scene, and that continued when the drifting boom eventually reached America. SR20DET engine swaps for the KA24-powered 240SX were extremely common, with the SR20 favored not just for the turbo's extra grunt, but because it was easy to add more power to the engine.

The SR20 platform's tuning potential has always been one of its biggest draws, and the engine's capabilities are still eye-opening today. For some, this means unlocking substantial power with relatively few upgrades; for others, it means turning the SR20 into a full-fledged race engine, with some builders now pushing this little engine past the 2,000-horsepower mark. 

Nissan's humble four-pot eventually became such a legend that Japanese tuners began building new SR20DET engines in the 2020s with Nissan's blessing, two decades after the engine left the market. More than any power figures or production numbers, that kind of dedication shows why the SR20, in all its forms, deserves to be called Nissan's greatest four-cylinder engine.