BMW M3 With an Attitude Gets a Taste of JDM Power, Takes 2JZ and Rotary Without Sauce

Two from the Far East, a third from the Old World, and all three motoring emblems of their times. Going from the oldest to the youngest, let us introduce the contenders. From 1987, a rotary-engined Mazda RX-7, a 2JZ-swapped Nissan 240 SX from '96, and a 1999 BMW M3.

All three cars have been heavily modified – or so the Youtuber who organized the quarter-mile event claims. Sadly, due to an editing error, the specs for the RX-7 have been lost in translation, so don't take the video for granted.

The Mazda sports the 1.3-liter rotary engine – the free-breather model, not the turbocharged version. Not that it would have made too much of a difference, as neither variant goes beyond 200 hp. Nowhere near the alleged 500 whp, as you can deduce by the race results.

The Nissan 240SX, on the other hand, does have the Toyota piston legend in it - the three-liter inline-six overkill engine makes around 500 whp, and it has a T56 Tremec six-speed manual linked to the rear axle. Lauded as one of the most tunable engines on Planet Piston, the 2JZ has been upgraded with forged internals and a Borg 372SXE turbocharger that fires 21 PSI on 93 octane gas.

However, because it is a daily driver, it has the complete interior and air conditioning and carries its spare tire. That's probably why it didn't beat the BMW in a head-to-head clash – but it could also  be that got frightened by the slippery Bimmer during the warm-up rolling race.

The yellow M3 went a little sideways and cut off the Nissan, and that's why the races run eliminator-style, to avoid potential metal-against-metal incidents. It is irrelevant whether the 520-whp output of the 3.2-liter inline-six BMW was to blame for the zig-zagging warm-up. The critical detail here is the 11.8-second quarter-mile time recorded by the turbo M3.

The tuned BMW had dropped the Mazda by the time it shifted into second – the aging RX-7 became a rotary-piston speck in the Bavarian's rearview mirror, crossing the 1,320-foot mark in 15.3 seconds. The German only repeated its performance against the other Japan-armed contender.

The 2JZ-powered Nissan 240SX put up a better fight than the Mazda, scoring 12.3 seconds on the quarter-mile sprint. It hit 60 mph (97 kph) just three-tenths of a second behind the BMW M3 (4.8 versus 4.5), while the RX-7 only managed 6.9 seconds.