Ah yes, horsepower. The 1982 ‘Datsun by Nissan’ 810, or Nissan Maxima, didn’t really have any.
Whatever you call it, with a quarter mile time around 20 seconds and a potential top speed of 107mph (172km/h) — I say potential because I don’t think anyone ever actually got there, but rather died of boredom first — it isn’t something you’d call fast.
That was fine though, because mostly they were used for safely hauling kids around or getting groceries. Jeremy Gomez’s wife (somehow) doesn’t much like his LS-swapped 240Z, nor his 3.5L 240ZG which I’ll be sharing with you soon, so he ended up picking up the wagon as his personal baby hauler.
But the story obviously doesn’t end there, or it wouldn’t belong here. When I stopped by to take a look at the two S30s, Jeremy casually mentioned the wagon was also engine swapped.
Truth be known, a RB25DET NEO was the last thing I expected to see. Good for nearly 300hp out of the box, Jeremy hasn’t fiddled with the motor much since picking the swapped car up from his friend Ray at Fitted Garage. The RB25 fits really well into the car, even using the stock Maxima driveshaft, and a lot of other Nissan parts also carry over.
An R34 Skyline GT-T donated its guts for the cause, and an RB 5-speed with an H190 rear end using a Nismo 2-way LSD are also installed into the car. As the last of the RWD Datsuns, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of these modified.
Of course, you don’t lose any of the practicality of the wagon by doing the swap, so everyone wins.
I’d say the real winner of the situation, though, is Jeremy’s daughter. The best part of this car to me is not that it’s a total sleeper, but the fact that she gets to grow up in it, and will sooner or later realize it’s a sleeper, too.
I poked around the car a bit more and noticed signs of the identity crisis that Nissan/Datsun was having in the early 1980s.
A few other performance parts have found their way onto the car along with the motor. The black 16×8 inch BBS wheels look quite cool wrapped in 225/45s all around, contrasting the blue wrap job that Jeremy did himself.
The front brakes are from a Z32 300ZX with the rears from an S12, and Techno Toy Tuning coilovers were put in to help the car go around the twisty bits at speed.
From the factory roof rack to the front emblem, which was taken from the Skyline the motor was sourced from, the wagon has a full-circle feel to it.
It’s an ideal daily driver that’s been chugging along nicely for Jeremy over the past three years; a car you can’t help but grin at.
Trevor Yale Ryan
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