Some hardcore JDM enthusiasts may baulk at the notion of swapping an American V8 into a Nissan S15. But Martin Oberheim can’t hear them over the bellowing mayhem of his 6.2-litre hater-baiter, and you can see it this April 13th at Japfest!
There’s a very clear rule when it comes to swapping non-Japanese motors into Japanese cars: don’t. Just don’t. It really irritates people. Or at least, that’s what some bores will tell you. But who cares what the purists think?
There’s clear evidence here to suggest that the idea of shoving a vast American V8 into a slippery and sylph-like Nissan S15 is actually a bloody good idea. Just look at it. We can feel our awesome-o-meter bursting at the seams and threatening to fire its trembling needle clear through the glass and into the dartboard over the other side of the bar.
Yes, of course we’re chewing over the relative merits of LS-swapped drift weapons in the pub, still eddying in the turbulence of Ade’s stellar shoot. Because the pub is the natural environment for zany ideas like this one: the notion of hoiking the trusty SR20DET out of an S15-gen Silvia and doubling the cylinder count with a meaty hunk of Detroit iron is the sort of thing that crops up in conversation at the stage of the evening when your dodgy mate’s insisting on swapping from pints to Jägers, and your even dodgier mate is trying to suggest that karaoke isn’t a terrible idea.
The difference here is that this isn’t all pub bluster – Martin Oberheim has actually done this in real life. And the results are, quite frankly, superb.
Martin’s car history
It’s an escalating enthusiasm for power that’s led to this particularly unhinged move; it all started out with a Vauxhall Corsa many years ago, and the stepping stones between that point and this one have been pretty colourful. “My first car was a Corsa C with a Combat kit,” says Martin. “It was running 18s, painted Arden blue, with a full Alpine sound system. I had a few other Vauxhalls after that, then moved onto Hondas. The first Honda I had was an EK9, and to this day it’s one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. Just for driving fun it was hard to beat! I then had a few JDM EP3s, a DC5, and a Nissan 350Z, and then moved onto a Mitsubishi Evo VIII MR FQ-340, which is what led me to the S15.”
You can almost feel the vibrations of Martin’s inner megalomaniac slowly going mad with power, and it’s this lust for thrust that opened the floodgates for what we see before us today. After owning the Evo VIII for around six months, he quite simply got bored of it.
It was tuned up to 380bhp, so it wasn’t exactly what most people would call slow, but this fella obviously isn’t most people. “It just wasn’t exciting to drive,” he shrugs. “At the time, LS swaps were just starting to take off and I thought a V8 S-body would make an interesting drive… I hadn’t specifically intended to get an S15 – I’d actually put a deposit down on an S14 rolling shell, although that fell through when it turned out to be kinda stolen! After having the Evo advertised for sale on Pistonheads, I contacted a guy in Aberdeen selling an S15 and asked if he was interested in a deal – and luckily he was.”
The Nissan Silvia S15 project car
The Silvia was pretty rough-and-ready, and actually pretty hideous to behold, but this was never about buying a show queen and calling it a day; as a project base, it ticked a lot of boxes. The shell was solid, and it had all the right bits – a Nismo 1.5-way LSD, Bride seats, Tein coilovers, GReddy intercooler… it was just a shame about the URAS Monkey Magic bodykit! But eminently happy with his canny purchase, Martin drove about in it for a few months, did a drift day at Crail, then took it off the road for a quick engine swap over the winter.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the notion of ‘quick’ rapidly slipped from his grasp, and it was a full four years before the finished build finally emerged from the garage. Well, it’s easy to get carried away, isn’t it? It’s like that episode of Father Ted when he’s trying to tap the tiny dent out of the Rover and just can’t stop himself. Except in this case, of course, it was a relentless cycle of improvement rather than destruction. The S15 today is a world away from the shabby starting point of the process; in fact, we’d go so far as to say it’s one of the finest S15s in the UK today. The attention to detail is just fabulous.
LS-powered Nissan S15 engine swap at home
“The whole build, bar a little exhaust fab, was done in my garage at home,” Martin assures us. “The engine was fitted by myself along with a few friends; I modified exhaust manifolds to fit, modified the steering column to clear the starter motor, did the wiring, fitted the cage, everything really.” It helps a little that V8-swapped S-bodies aren’t a totally alien quantity, and companies like Sikky exist to provides mounts and so on, but there’s no way you could claim that this has been an easy build – everything you see here is the product of hard graft in the garage, and the pristine finish and engineering excellence of the end result are testament to Martin’s tenacity, skill and, of course, patience.
“The paint was done by myself at home too,” he continues. “I’m not a painter by trade, I’ve just picked it up over the years and I used to paint the odd thing for mates. And don’t get me wrong, there were times I shut the garage door and deliberately forgot about the car for months on end, because it was so much work and stress trying to figure out how to get everything to fit well! An S-chassis LS-swap on a left-hand-drive car is a doddle. Right-hand-drive, not so much, due to clearance issues just about everywhere!”
Tuning the LS-powered Nissan S15
It wasn’t just a case of forcing in a bone-stock LS2 either, the 6.2-litre motor’s been sneakily upgraded with a Power Plus intake manifold, Pacesetter long-tube headers, AEM air filter and a whole bunch of other tricks, with perhaps the greatest flourish being the full Apex 3-inch exhaust system which sounds utterly brutal, like the devil gargling with gravel while fireworks go off in the background. Hanging off the back of the V8 is a T56 6-speed manual gearbox, mated to a Sikky prop to allow the American front end to communicate with the Japanese rear – because that Nismo LSD was one of the most important parts of the car as-bought, and it simply had to be retained for reasons of heightened awesomeness.
“Since completing the swap, the car’s had a few changes over the years,” says Martin. “Just little things like changing wheels, adding the aero front bumper, and having the interior trimmed by Del at Optimus in Glasgow. The original plan from the off was to build it as a drift car, it had the full rollcage, hydraulic handbrake, and the fuel and brake lines are hidden inside the car to protect them. But it turned out a lot nicer than I anticipated! So I’ve ended up just using it as a summer car and taking it to shows and meets; it’s been on the quarter-mile a few times and done a drift day at Driftland, but if I’m honest I’m just too scared about damaging something, as S15 parts are getting stupidly expensive and hard to find!”
LS-powered Nissan S15 verdict
This makes sense really, given the years of hard and extremely personal effort that have gone into the build. And the gleaming endgame has been met with universal approval on the scene, with everybody who sees it immediately falling in love with the look, the sound, the flawless finish, the cunning engineering solutions.
Well, almost everybody. Naturally there are always going to be a few naysayers and keyboard warriors throwing their two-penn’orth in. “The only real negativity is usually from kids on the internet, who just hate on V8 swaps for no reason,” Martin shrugs. “But I don’t give a f**k if they like it or not anyway.” Fair enough really, he’s built this car because he wanted to rather than to impress a bunch of strangers. Forget the haters, the cynics, and the meaningless pub boasts. Martin wanted a V8-powered S15, so he built one – and, by taking his time and getting the job done right, he’s built one of the finest S15s in the UK. We’ll raise a glass to that.
Don’t forget, you can see this car in person at Japfest Silverstone this April 13th! Hit the buttons below for more info.
Photos: Ade Brannan.
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