Nissan V8 Nitrous Drift Engine - Engine Builder Magazine

Nissan V8 Nitrous Drift Engine

Using a VK56 Nissan V8, which was originally an off-road truck engine, the guys at AHM Performance changed up some key aspects to turn it into a nitrous-injected Formula Drift engine for Chris Forsberg's NOS energy drink Nissan 370Z. Find out what went into the build.

Chris Crossont started working at his dad’s engine shop, AHM Performance, in seventh grade, scraping gaskets and crud off of engine blocks and heads for $1 an hour. From there he knew engine building was what he wanted to do.

“I grew up engine building,” Crossont says. “I would eat, sleep and breathe cars. It was the same for my younger brother Tom. That’s how we got hooked into it. After scraping gaskets, I progressed into learning how to run the machinery, doing valve seats, reconditioning rods, boring blocks and much more. From that point, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I’ve been here pretty much my whole life.”

Chris’s father Chester opened AHM Performance in Rosedale, MD in August 1979. The family run engine machine shop is coming up on its 40th anniversary this summer, and business is better than ever.

“We started out doing standard rebuilds, but as time went on, we got more and more into performance and race engines,” Crossont says. “Now, we might see a grocery getter engine once in a blue moon, but pretty much everything has turned to racing and high-performance engine work. Of late, we’ve been doing a lot of stuff for other specialty shops.”

AHM Performance focuses mostly on automotive and truck engine work, but will occasionally take on a marine job. The shop does diesels, Subarus, Volkswagens, Fords, LS and Chevy, and Nissan engines for street/strip, drag racing, drifting, and off-road applications.

AHM consists of Chris, his brother Tom, his dad Chester and two part-timers. His mother Jean has also lent a hand on the business side of the operation through the years.

Not too long ago, AHM Performance was asked to be the engine builder for Chris Forsberg’s NOS energy drink Formula Drift car, a Nissan 370Z.

“For three years, we were doing the V8 Nissan engines for Chris Forsberg,” Crossont says. “The base engine was a VK56, which was originally designed for Nissan’s off-road truck. However, Nissan bailed on it, and Forsberg and the guys at MA Motorsports bought the whole ball of wax from them. They got all these engines and decided to go ahead and run them on nitrous.”

AHM got the engines in-house and were tasked with changing them from off-road competition truck engines into higher rpm, Forumla Drift nitrous engines.

“We just did some good solid machine work and put them together,” he says. “We went through and oversized the bores to 3.875˝. We honed the block and touched up the seats. We redid the piston design and the ring pack and altered a few other things for the nitrous set up. We also redid some stuff on the heads and with the cam timing.”

Another big change the shop made to the engine set up was added a better timing system. Due to the high rpms these engines run, the factory set up wasn’t going to cut it.

“I have to give a lot of credit to the guys at MA Motorsports because they got these engines dialed in on the tune,” he says. “We were having some pretty good success. Forsberg would go through the season with maybe two engines, with nothing more than new rings, bearings and maybe a touch up on the cylinders.”

For the build of the V8 Nissan engines, AHM used a Sonny Bryant billet crankshaft, Diamond pistons, Cosworth I-beam connecting rods, Total Seal piston rings, billet camshafts from COMP Cams, Xceldyne valves, Federal-Mogul bearings, and Pac springs and retainers.

“I was really worried about the nitrous working, especially with drift,” Crossont says. “In a drag car, you have a constant rpm rise. In drift, you’re on and off the throttle constantly. I was just really worried about the nitrous working with that, but it did, and it worked very well. The biggest attaboy goes to the tuners. We built these engines to stay together, but they definitely got all that to work and I was pretty impressed with how it all went.”

All said and done, these V8 nitrous Nissan drift engines made around 1,000 horsepower, and in the three years AHM Performance built Forsberg’s engines, he won the Formula Drift championship twice – 2014 and 2016.

The Engine of the Week eNewsletter is sponsored by PennGrade Motor Oil and Elring – Das Original.

If you have an engine you would like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder magazine’s managing editor, Greg Jones at [email protected].

You May Also Like

Supercharged 388 cid LS Engine

Hoping to reach new heights in the mile, this Cadillac customer brought his car and engine in for the School of Automotive Machinists & Technology to work their magic on. See what went into the supercharged LS engine platform.

Cadillac Supercharged LS engine

During our week in Houston last fall, we got the chance to visit several engine shops in the area, and we also wanted to spend some time seeing where many up-and-coming engine builders get their start and hone their skills, so we stopped by the School of Automotive Machinists & Technology, also known as SAM Tech.

Supercharged 521 cid Brad Anderson Hemi Engine

Amanda Hoover and Eddie Rogers have been campaigning their Chevelle from Hell for nearly a decade. Helping give the car its name is a screw-blown 521 cubic inch Hemi engine. Check out the details of this build done by Chris Duncan Race Cars!

408 cid Nitrous LS Engine

During a tour of SAM Tech, we also got a chance to speak to a few students. One in particular, Jaylon Victorian, was nearing completion of a 408 cid nitrous LS engine. He applied his new engine building knowledge and skill set to the build, and it shines through in our latest Engine of the Week.

408 cid nitrous LS engine
760 cid Billet Big Block Chevy Nitrous Engine

Despite what you may think about nitrous engines, and those that are stock big block Chevy bore spacing, these 4.840″ bore space big block Chevy engines have some significant R&D in them. Just check out this 760 cubic inch billet version done at TRE Racing Engines.

Naturally Aspirated 440 cid LT1 Engine

The folks at Late Model Engines in Houston, TX run a top-notch engine and machine shop. You don’t have to look much further than this naturally aspirated 440 cid LT1 engine build to see what we mean. It’s our Engine of the Week!

Other Posts

Steve Morris Engines’ Twin-Supercharged 454 Big Block Chevy Engine

It had been 26 years since the last time Val Morris, Steve Morris’ wife, was behind the wheel of a drag car. The shop had been working on this project car named Sugar Momma, and got it done in time for Sick Week 2024. When it came time to figure out who’d drive it, Steve

Formula Drift and Partners to Launch Student Program

The 2024 Driven Experience will be free for students and schools, and will include all eight rounds of the 2024 Formula Drift season. 

Stuffing a Supercharged 572 cid SMX Engine in a Porsche 928

For Danny Humphreys, drag racing is a progressive disease. Ever since he watched Tom Cruise outrun a pimp in a 928 Porsche, he’s wanted the car for himself. As soon as he got one, he pulled the engine and the horsepower has gone up from there. Today, Danny has a supercharged 572 cid SMX engine

Indy Cylinder Head’s Supercharged 588 cid Hemi Engine

We’ve been following Indy Cylinder Head and the engine work Ken Lazzeri for quite some time. We got a chance to speak with Ken on the final day of the PRI show when he was kind enough to walk us through the details of several of the engines they had on display, including this bracket

Ken Lazzeri Hemi Engine