The clock on the future of the combustion engine is ticking—but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After a century and a half of development, the internal combustion engine has reached, and likely passed, its pinnacle. With mass electrification imminent, each new sports car release - from the Toyota GT86 right up to Gordon Murray’s T.50 - is heralded as the swan song of the combustion engine. Engines have been perfected. Mastered. Porsche’s flat six, Ferrari’s V12, GM’s V8—looking forward, it’s tough to imagine what juice is possibly left to squeeze.

But what about looking back? Restomodding and reimagining cars and engines from previous generations is as old as hot-rodding itself, but at this critical juncture it may just be the canvas for the enthusiast of the future. It could very well be that continuing to challenge and build on the original idea of a vintage car will be the final frontier of expanding the engine as we know it.

Three of the world's greatest Nissan workshops have entered the chat. Meet 'Behemoth'—the brainchild build of Z Car Garage, Datsunworks, and Rebello Racing. Part Datsun, part Honda powerplant, Behemoth is 8,500 RPM of dual overhead cam JDM perfection. For those in the Nissan world, this is an earthshaking collaboration—a true meeting of the minds.

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The vision for the engine began as an ambition of Datsunworks to design a dual overhead camshaft for the Datsun L series engine block, which is well known for it's one two punch of reliability and horsepower, but limited by the single overhead cam causing a bottleneck for the engine to breathe. In period, Nissan themselves addressed this weakness with the exceedingly rare Fairlady Z 432 and and later OS Giken made just a handful of their own take on the DOHC L—but that was then, and this is now.

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Photographed by Naveed Yousufzai

Adapting the proven valvetrain from the Honda K series four cylinder, Datsunworks retrofitted it into a custom cast head—now a DIY kit you can buy yourself, dubbed the KN20. Behemoth takes this head and marries it to an uprated 3.2L block built by Rebello Racing. For those that don't know, Rebello Racing is to Datsun what Tuthill is to Porsche in terms of perfecting engine builds—top notch.

In come the specialists Z Car Garage led by Rob Fuller to bring it all together. “Datsun is kind of the Chevy of Japan; there’s a lot of parts you can take off of one car, put on another car. It’s cool,” Rob shares. With 30 years of experience dialing in everything from 510 racecars to R35 GT-Rs, they've led R&D efforts to developed their own parts and signature touches on the original Z. The engine was remounted at an angle to to clear the hood, a Haltech ECU controls fuel and spark, while air is provided by six individual throttle bodies fed by velocity stacks singing a siren’s intoxicating tune.

Photographed by Naveed Yousufzai

Rob can’t stop gushing about the result. “The Datsun L series engine just with its two valves per cylinder in its regular form it’s still a magical engine. But adding the Datsunworks cylinder head to it is an absolute game changer, it’s just ridiculous.”

“I’m not one of those guys that wants a 1000 horsepower, 2200 pound car,” Rob explains of his approach. “There’s definitely a time and a place for it but if you see any videos of [Behemoth] driving around, it’s art on wheels. It’s very powerful, it’s very fast, but it’s not about that. It’s about the ‘ahhhhhhh’ song it makes, the RPM, the sounds.

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Photographed by Naveed Yousufzai

Though they plan to continue development for the KN20 engine, they believe power feels right at its current 360 horsepower. ZCG has added their big brake kit, a CD009a six speed transmission from a 350z and other upgrades through the drivetrain and suspension. Combine this with a methodical attention to aesthetic detail to tidy up the wiring and remaining plumbing and what you arrive at is, in Rob's words, "a game changer."

Photographed by Naveed Yousufzai

Behemoth is a reminder that passion fuels imagination. Now, a Datsun 240Z with a dual overhead cam is a thing. Whether it's a DIY project or an artisan build out of a shop like Z Car Garage, the permutations to get creative with the combustion engine are out there, and we are here to celebrate them all.

This is certainly top of mind for Rob as he signs off, “What can we do to keep making the Z car better?”

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Photographed by Naveed Yousufzai

Meet our contributors

Xander Cesari started wrenching on classic cars before he could drive, eventually working in automotive engineering. He followed his passion into automotive photojournalism and now explores every corner of car culture in an Alfa Romeo Milano with camera in hand. For more from Xander, you can follow his Instagram (@merriman.industries).

As an avid driver and collector, photographer Naveed Yousufzai (@eatwithnaveed) captures California's car culture from a true enthusiast's point of view for various automotive publications.