Nissan VRH engine

The Nissan VRH engine family consists of several racing engines built by Nissan Motor Company beginning in the late 1980s. All VRH engines are in a V8 configuration, with either natural aspiration or forced induction. Some VRH engines are loosely based on Nissan's production V8 engine blocks, including the VH and VK engines, while others were designed from the ground up for racing and share no components with production blocks.

The name "VRH" comes from the engines' V configuration ("V"), their purpose as racing engines ("R"), and the fact that all of them have eight cylinders (with "H" being the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet).^{[citation needed]}

In 1987, Nissan began work on an engine exclusively for race use; the result was the VEJ30 engine, developed by Yoshikazu Ishikawa. This engine was based on old technology, and was not a success. For 1988, the VEJ30 was improved by Yoshimasa Hayashi and renamed the VRH30. Changes included increasing the displacement to 3.4 L (3,396 cc).

This engine was, however, still based on the obsolete VEJ30, and development of the all-new VRH35 was started in parallel with the VRH30. In 1989, the VRH35 appeared as a new development engine and was used in the Nissan R89C.

A 3.0-litre variant of the VRH35Z was also used in the 1998 Courage-Nissan C51 at the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans. Both C51s failed to finish.

The design of the engine was later sold to McLaren, where it served as the basis of their M838T and M840T engines (which were used in all of McLaren's line-up since the McLaren MP4-12C).

The VRH30T was used in the R88C.

The VRH35Z first appeared in 1990 in the R90C.