Hi all

Does anyone have any specs on the VK56 including and most importantly dimensions. Width height and length.

Personal thoughts on Nissans newest V8 engine

Jason

It's not built for performance by looking at a cross section of the ports. I read an article on the 56 and it looked like a torquer rather than a performance based engine. I still like the sound of 5.6 though .Sorry dont know where I read that writeup, maybe on the titan site.

yo, its high X LONG X wide X heavy.lol i can get exact dimentions tommorow if you still interested. plastic intake and complex sump makes it hard to work with cheers

I have found the article I have but its a pdf file. If anyone leaves their email I can send it . Its about 300-400kb so quite small. However if u want to google its called:Development Of A New 5.6L Nissan V8 Gasoline EngineAs I said the ports are lower and less "downdraughty". However very flat torque and max torque 379ft/lb at 3600rpm, while 90% at 2500rpm and still hp of 305hp at 4900, yet still revving well to 6000rpm.Also Perana, let me know if ya come across that sump, and pickup. cheers.

The VK56 was actually touted as being lighter than the previous generation V8s. It is miles over square at 98mmx92mm and has a near perfect 1.68 rod/stroke ratio. Combine that with the near 0 failure rate we are seeing, makes it very desirable to me. The high torque comes a lot from the intake manifold and cam profile, I believe a lot of top end power can be had by going to a better(shorter runner) intake manifold or ITBs. I have one sitting at work, let me know what measurements you need.

^^^WHS

The VK56 engine onboard the Nissan Titan is a interesting beast. Living with it since it's debut in 2004 brings a flicker of hope to my heart that one day I can and will overhaul and bring out the performance inherent to such a balanced system. As mentioned before, the internal component sizing and selection of intake manifold/head/cam components gives this motor a lovely character. The 5.6 as a concept is far from utilitarian; in fact the short block belongs in the Nissan GT race car, and is not so far fetched as you may think from the GT-R motor . Currently extremely stable after 13 years on the job, our Titan (from the family, now MY Titan) is absolutely indistinguishable from the day it left the dealership new. It still throws you straight back in your seat off the line, and in the mid-to-high RPM range feels unbridled and savage (not that we're there much. In fact I have strongly considered rev limiting to 4k). When we talk about a "torquer" motor, we usually mean one of the old Buick blocks that feels like the head bolts will eject at 4000 RPM. Not so with the 5.6. It's a shlick all the way up. The smooth transition to the higher RPM feels nearly German in the way it develops a linier sort of power curve. It certainly, however, could use a boost in the mid-range if you expect high speed, something I'm sure an 80-95mm supercharger would provide for quite well. The fact is, not one single component has given us issues we cannot fix. The rear-most exhaust flange rusted at 130k, and was replaced with a Flow-master cat-back system, which added some growl. The o2 sensors failed at a mere 50k, and were never corrected, something that incidentally resulted in an increase up to 22 mpg, and we can't explain why. The brakes were $870 to replace when the lines degrade and leak onto the axle seals, but my 02 Passat was $1250 for the same repair, so you would consider it a complete win (brakes are something I actually call a shop over). Past this, no major service has even needed to be considered. Why? Who knows? But one thing is clear. Titan is reliable.
Now, let me give you an actual engineering review of this engine. The VK56 is a powerplant designed by Nismo engineers originally in Japan, and built in America. This setup in the Titan is a unique hybrid. The CONCEPTS - and I cannot stress this enough - used to make this engine do what it does are what make it special. It is as a whole, a complete and balanced machine. max torque, which it delivers 70% of from idle, is immense. You kind of just know you'll have to baby it in traffic or end up inside the car in front of you. This means that directly off the line, the pulling power of the vehicle is astronomical. No other engine in it's class even holds a candle to WHERE this engine builds it torque: LOW. Now, where most older "muscle" V8s really suck is between the 3800 and 4200 rpm range - because that's the "no mans land" between the torque band and the power range. The titan though, was given this nifty induction manifold runner that pretty much fixes that. It has what I conjecture are little flaps inside which route the vortex of air through different "runners," changing the actual physical distance the air travels before entering the black hole where money only ever goes in: the intake. From there, infinitely variable valve timing borrowed/loaned from Infiniti was applied with a unique cam profile to give the engine a "tune" right from stock. Unlike most vehicles built at any time before it, it had a dynamic timing system that slowed or sped up the valve timing based on where the engine was in the rev range. On a Lamborghini? Maybe. We saw it with Audi, and Honda may have cracked it with V-tec, but even vtec was a hard "switch," which resulted in all kinds of dropouts in other areas of the rev range. The VVT of the 5.6 was a discrete solution, which in conjunction with aforementioned fancy intake runners, makes the head of the driver impact the seat at velocity sufficient to dislodge gray matter. The bore and stroke on the block may have played a role in why the engine has such a "bottom-endy'' dynamic, where you feel like you are being pushed along by jets instead of rotating tires, but to me, I like the engine as an entire PACKAGE moreso than any individual component under there. It certainly is exciting to drive. And when you first get in it, it teaches to use your big toe.
As far as the high-rpm range goes, I am one of the few and proud who have had my titan up to max speed in excess of 140 mph...once. You only need to do that...once. You see, we have this great, big tunnel, preceded by an length of the smoothest, flattest and well-lit blacktop you are likely to find. Which means if you are going on this 4 mile bridge-tunnel, come onto the straightaway and stamp on the throttle, you find nothing which would impede your travel at autobahn speeds. The Titan is stable at max speed. It is aerodynamically limited to it's top speed, which it does at slightly over 4000 rpm in fifth gear. However getting there is not as big an event as I thought it to be. Fourth gear is very, very long. Sometimes taking upwards of 15 seconds to actually pull through and shift up to 5th. But from a 50 roll, where I pegged it, it dropped down to third gear and the power was there immediately. I believe the noise could be described as "cataclysmic." The steering gave me the sensation we were certainly moving, so in this regard it was dissimilar from the Germans, but what it fed back was straight-line stability. Amazingly, as fourth gear hit and the revs dipped, I actually got kicked back in my seat. We were certainly well into the hundred and teens by this point and still no signs of shimmy or shake, though you started to get that "air around the cockpit" noise unique to ultra-high-speed travel. As the needle approached 5500 rpms, I was amazed at how long it hung there. Once this engine is over 5000, it's done it's work, and its ready to retire to 5th gear. But push and push I did and as 5800 crept up on the dash the transmission seemed to remember it had another job to do, and eventually, with great dismay, it did shift up finally. With a great lurch forward it saddled the engine with a load it probably knew straight from the factory it would never overcome, and so the revs came to rest just over 4300. And it sat there. And sat there. . I believe the speedometric gauge said something with a 40 after it but I wasn't looking to hard. I simply cruised there with it in 5th and my foot down for a minute or so before I decided I liked my truck enough to discontinue my dubachery, though I really think that block was designed for much worse abuse that what I put it though. Realistically I had learned something. 3900-4600 ISH RPM is the grunt zone in the middle, but 53-5500 is totally devoid of all torque. At low speed, high acceleration, this works great. Not when you have a full headwind at a buck fourty. When 4th gear hit, the power was on tap. But 5th gear was too great a chore even for the big V8. There is just no realistic way to move 4000 plus pounds of aerodynamically-impeded Titan down the road much faster than 145. But i'll tell you this. And that's fine. If I want it to go faster, i won't look to the engine, ill look to the aerodynamics. Had the truck been lower, and had the Aerodynamics been right, the grunt was there to go all the way up to the maximum gearing-limited speed of 168. which is why as soon as the money is right, there will be a much lower titan sitting in my front yard. But as for now, I guess Germany is out of the question.

Dumuzi, great post. I'm glad the VK56DE still elicits lots of excitement and amazement even today.