L24 Battles Six S20's. Guess who wins?

[HS30-H]

19 hours ago, 240260280 said:

After 233 laps of the 4.3km course, the 432R with L24, Car #31, got the checkered flag. It won the race and it won the class. More interestingly, Takahashi Kokoh and Motoharu Kurosawa in their "Datsun Sports 240 Z HS 30" easily took on, and defeated, six similarly prepared 432R's with S20 engines.

The L24 "lightened 240z" finished two laps ahead of the nearest S20 432R competitor. The rest of the S20 432R's  finished 34, 95, 146, 198, 210 laps down.  The L24 had no competition. It was strong, reliable, and a race worthy engine that proved itself on its first outing in Japan. 

As an epilogue to the race, there was great disappointment for the S20 engine.  The All Japan Fuji 1000 km results were the writing on the wall for the relatively new S20 power plant.  Going forward, it was generally not favoured by racers in classes where the L24 could be used. In fact, the following year's 1971 Race de Nippon 6hr was won by a Factory 240z L24 piloted by Kunimitsu Takahashi & Masahiro Hasemi. If you recall from the top of this post, this is the same race where, in April of 1970, the S20 432 captured its first win. The reign of the S20 was short indeed.

 

(My bolded highlights)

A couple of questions: Who was/is calling that 432R a "lightened 240Z"? The car was entered as an HS30 '240Z' because that was the only way it could qualify for the GTS-II class rules. Putting a different engine in a PS30-prefixed body would have bumped the car up into the R-III class (where they didn't want to be) so they called it an HS30 and stayed in GTS-II.

You write: "The L24 had no competition". Had you mentioned any of the other competitors in the race, this might statement might start to look a little more tenuous. Yes they won the race, and that's what the Works team set out to do. However, there's some extra context here if you take into account the fact that pole position was taken by TOHIRA and TERANISHI in the #32 432-R (almost two seconds faster than TAKAHASHI and KUROSAWA in the L24-engined #31 hybrid, who took 5th fastest in qualifying) and they crashed out of the race early after being involved in somebody else's accident. The winning car was run close to the finish by the #54 PGC10 4-door Skyline GT-R of SUNAKO and HASEMI running in the TS-III class, who incidentally turned in a quicker fastest race lap than the winning car, which they had also outqualified. No competition...?

I think it's also worth pointing out that framing this event as being one L24-engined car vs six S20-engined 432-Rs is to take it hugely out of context, but that those six 432-Rs were not even equal amongst themselves. The two 'hot' Works-entered 432-Rs were the #32 car of TOHIRA and TERANISHI (which took pole, but was taken out by a non-fault crash) and the #30 car of TOSHIMORI and HOSHINO (which had taken second on the grid but ran into trouble during the race, which cost it a couple of laps). The other 432s and 432-Rs in the race were all privateer efforts in cars nowhere near the development/parts level of the Works cars. The KUWASHIMA / TAKAHASHI 432 was even running steel wheels! 

"As an epilogue to the race, there was great disappointment for the S20 engine". Huh?! Says who? In July 1970 - the date of the race you cite - Nissan's Murayama works team were already well on the way to record-breaking run of domination in the Japanese touring car championship, and in the middle of taking 40+ consecutive victories. They ended up with 50+ victories with S20-powered PGC10 and KPGC10 Skyline GT-Rs. Your statement is - in this context - complete nonsense and has the whiff of a pre-conceived agenda about it. I find it interesting that you would frame the victory for the L24 (it was an 'L24R' actually...) powered 432-R as some kind of disappointment? Why is that? Nissan's Oppama works team certainly didn't find it a disappointment. Why would they? It was - after all - their car and their engine...  

 

 

Anybody who is seriously interested in the topic of Japanese racing during this period would be well advised to dig a little more deeply than one issue of Auto Sport Japan's '200 Great Races' series for the full story. Big topic.       

[240260280]

3 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Christ, what a mess. That's Motoharu KUROSAWA on the left, and Kunimitsu TAKAHASHI on the right.

This thread is going to be a real car crash. There are just so many mistakes and misunderstandings. Some really golden WTF moments.   

Thanks Alan. I corrected it. Your input to help correct is appreciated.  I had to compare the photo in the victory lap car to other ones to ID correctly. I made an error.

 

 

[240260280]

1 hour ago, HS30-H said:

And Blue, what's the true purpose of this thread? You've titled it "L24 Battles Six S20s. Guess who wins?", but why? You seem to be framing it as a simplistic L24 vs S20 fight, but it wasn't actually anything as simplistic as that. What's your real agenda here?

The answer to the question posed by the thread title is, in fact, the latest Works car, with the 'ace' Works drivers behind the wheel...  . You might like to remind yourself that the car in question was still in fact a 432R, running all the 432R-specific homologated parts and having the benefit of all the factory team development carried out up to that point. The L24 being installed in that chassis was far (far!) from stock, with special Works-developed crank, rods, pistons, head and many other details, and was running at a displacement of over 2500cc (yes, 25% greater than the S20) allowed by the GTS-II class rules. You can hardly frame it as L24 = great, S20 = $^!#, can you?

Not only that, but I don't see any mention of one of the key points; The intra-company politics regarding the S20 engine and the fact that the very recently ex-Prince faction at Murayama regarded the S20 as 'their' engine and had effectively blocked the Nissan Works faction at Oppama from the better developments, updates and trick parts that the Murayama based team were using on their Skyline GT-R race cars. Murayama were not involved in racing the L6, so there was no potential for a reciprocal arrangement. Discussing the race career of the 432R without taking into account any of the Murayama/Oppama politics is to miss much of the point. 

And with regards specifically to the 1970 Fuji 1000kn race, you missed the elephant in the room for the whole event. Is that because you chose not to mention it, or because you didn't know about it? The big clue is what that particular event was supposed to be, and what cars were supposed to be taking part in it but for a recent tragedy. It had a huge impact on the race, and who/what won it.... It really ought to be taken into account.        

 

 

Thanks again Alan. Your input and knowledge helps make this a much better thread. It is interesting to have the insight on the competing factories to give better perspective.  

Mr. Matsuo also mentioned that there was a lot of internal team dissent throughout the company after the merger, even in the design groups.

Here is the 2nd place GT-R that gave the winning 240z a run for its money finishing on the same lap. It gives colour to the Prince/Nissan battle. I wish I could see the last few laps on video. It would have been great knowing this battle was taking place.

For the L24 being a better engine for this type of racing, you will have to take it up with Masahiro Hasemi as it is his opinion.  He was certainly right about the stiffer GT-R/S20 being better for these types of races than the flexing 432R/S20.

I was always curious how the S20 and L24 would do in an apples-to-apples comparison but never ever thought it would be done or if it was ever done. I was wrong. This race was it.

Knowing why only one 432/S20 car out of six even came close to finishing the race would be interesting. Were there shunts? Did the others suffer mechanical failures?  There is still more to this.

For the engine being more than 2.5 lites in this race, the JAF report the engine to be 2.4 litre (below).  It is not reported as >2.5 litre so you will have to take it up with the JAF to correct a typo or error. I only reported what they have recorded.

 

For engine parts modifications, I would have expected more modifications and parts development to take place after this initial "testing the waters" for a single L24 in its first race. If you have information regarding any L24 factory development during this period, I am sure we would all enjoy it and it would make my preliminary research more accurate.

The fact this is one of the earlier races with chin spoilers and looking at the engine compartment detailed photo makes me think that very little was done for modifications.  The joint in the upper rad hose is an easy point-of-failure to de-risk for an endurance race by simply installing the correct radiator for the engine... but they chose not to, even though they had this kit at their disposal. It seems like they just plopped the engine, made a few basic adjustments/accommodations, and went with it as it was an initial trial and they would not have know what L24 parts needed race-development until after the race.

JAF Technical Record for the Winning Car.

 

 

 

 

 

[240260280]

If someone could help better translate this then it could improve the accuracy.

 

確認できた事で一定の成果を収めたレースと見る事ができた。 この結果を受けZ432の開発は急テンポで

進められると考えられていたが わずか半年後の富士1000ｋｍにはダットサンスポーツ２４０Ｚが登場。

４バルブＤＯＨＣの２リッターではなく２バルブＳＯＨＣの２．４リッターが選ばれた形だ。 Ｒ３８０の直系の

Ｓ２０型ファンにとっては落胆を隠せない出来事だったが たまたまシリーズの選択肢に２．４Ｌエンジンを

持っていたフェアレディＺならではの結果である。 「排気量が同じなら当然Ｓ２０型を選ぶ事になるがＬ２４型が

持つ400ｃｃの排気量差は大きかったね。 トルクの絶対値が大きく しかも中速域からトルクがあるからＬ２４型

の方がレースに向いていた」とは この年から日産に戻った長谷見昌弘。 「まったく他の車両がいない状態で

コースを回るのなら当時のＳ２０型とＬ２４型ではそれほど差は無かったと思うが混戦の中で常にラインを変えて

走らなければならない実戦ではトルク型のＬ２４型エンジンは大きな武器になった」と言う。 Ｌ型エンジンを

使う２４０Ｚにはもうひとつ大きなメリットがあった。 メカニズムがシンプルだったためメンテナンスやチューニングの

作業に関してＳ２０型のような高度な技術（といってもレース用であるためそれなりのレベルは必要だが）を

必要とせず チューナー単位で運用する事が可能なエンジンだったのである。 ＧＴ-Ｒが現役を退いた後

プライベーターに２４０Ｚが支持された理由はこうした点にあり ７０年代のモータースポーツを支える貴重な

戦闘力となっていた。 ２４０Ｚの開発に終始関わってきた長谷見昌弘が最後に興味深いコメントを残してくれた。

「実を言えばＺはあまりボディ剛性が高くなかった。ボディ剛性という点ではＧＴ-Ｒのハードトップボディの方が

良かった」Ｚの話をするべきなのだがＧＴ-Ｒのハードトップボディがレーシングユースまで見越したものだった

ことには改めて感心させられる。 「レースの日産」の呼び名はやはり伊達ではない事を思い知らされる。

この時代で言えば特に旧プリンス系の人たちだが ここから十数年を経てＲ32ＧＴ-Ｒに繋がっていくのだから

やはり敬服せざるを得ない。

一端表立った活動を控える７０年代の中後半はその存在は希薄だったと解釈できるのだが プライベーターによる

モタースポーツ活動の灯を絶やさぬようにその下地作りを行ったという点では日産ワークスが行った２４０Ｚの

開発・熟成作業は非常に大きな意味を持っていたのである。

[grannyknot]

2 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Predicition: Values of diamond rings and oil paintings will most likely not drop through the floor just because somebody delivered a message telling you what you already should have known.

:rimshot:

Value is meaningless, it is subjective.  Ability is measurable which is why the numbers are so important, if a sports car can't stand up to scrutiny of its numbers then I guess you are being  "delivered a message telling you what you should have already known"  but will never admit to it. The 432R was a very good attempt but the engine was it's weak point, it was heavy, overly complicated and too small which is why they dumped it.  A+ for effort, B- for execution. The 432R with a better engine would have been formidable and as we see here in this thread, it was.

 

1 hour ago, HS30-H said:

The big clue is what that particular event was supposed to be, and what cars were supposed to be taking part in it but for a recent tragedy. It had a huge impact on the race, and who/what won it.... It really ought to be taken into account.   

Your ability for for self delusion is remarkable Allan, you just don't seem to understand what racing is all about.  The winner of the race should not be taken into account? Are you serious?! Give your head a shake man.  You are looking through the wrong end of the telescope again, racing and racing history is about objectivity, that is why the numbers are recorded in the first place. Please, at least try to keep yourself out of the equation.

[240260280]

11 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Couple unharnessed wires up and over the left strut tower. Is that stock?

 

 

Many thanks CO.  I am now thinking it could be for an electric pusher fan in front of the rad and out of the shot?

[Captain Obvious]

I was thinking the same thing. It also looks like that group of wires splits at the back side of the rad. Some of the wires go in front, and some head towards the distributor. I'm wondering if maybe they used a special race simplified "wire only what's needed" group of wires for critical functions. Stuff like ignition and cooling. Simplicity = reliability.

[HS30-H]

1 hour ago, grannyknot said:

Value is meaningless, it is subjective.  Ability is measurable which is why the numbers are so important, if a sports car can't stand up to scrutiny of its numbers then I guess you are being  "delivered a message telling you what you should have already known"  but will never admit to it. The 432R was a very good attempt but the engine was it's weak point, it was heavy, overly complicated and too small which is why they dumped it.  A+ for effort, B- for execution. The 432R with a better engine would have been formidable and as we see here in this thread, it was.

 

Your ability for for self delusion is remarkable Allan, you just don't seem to understand what racing is all about.  The winner of the race should not be taken into account? Are you serious?! Give your head a shake man.  You are looking through the wrong end of the telescope again, racing and racing history is about objectivity, that is why the numbers are recorded in the first place. Please, at least try to keep yourself out of the equation.

You are - quite simply - completely out of your depth. What - really - what value is there in your first post on this topic? That 'diamond rings and oil paintings' meme is all about the road cars. It still holds true (and don't forget it's usually an answer to somebody telling us that the 432 is "sh*t"). You get something put in front of you about one particular Japanese race (apparently it's news to you too...) and it's like you just realised that a G-Shock tells the time better than a Girard Perregaux. Hold the front page, huh? Perhaps there's a parallel-universe style scenario on a Porsche forum somewhere with somebody saying that the 2 litre Porsche 911R was "dumped" because the 2.7RS was "better". Hopefully the Porsche forum has one or two people who understand just how stupid that is...  

As for my comments regarding the real story behind that particular race (the context following tragedy...) you seem to have - once again - missed the point. Who said "the winner should not be taken into account"? Not me. Do you know what I'm referring to? My guess is that you have no clue.

 

 

By the way, if anyone wants to see the original 'net based source of much of this thread, it's from this personal blog: http://vital.sakura.ne.jp/NISSAN SKYLINE KGC10 HP/index.html ...and this page in particular: http://vital.sakura.ne.jp/NISSAN SKYLINE KGC10 HP/S30kei.html

....which means it's already been filtered and weighted with some personal opinion. It is worth taking that into account.

[HS30-H]

1 hour ago, 240260280 said:

 

Many thanks CO.  I am now thinking it could be for an electric pusher fan in front of the rad and out of the shot?

These cars didn't have any fans, let alone electric radiator fans.

The wires you are looking at are from the 432-R's wiring harness. Your list of specs (it's more like a guess sheet, and should have a ? after each item) mentioned "stock wiring harness" (stock for what?) and "stock battery, alternator, distributor, radiator, coil, starter". The distributor isn't 'stock', and nor is the coil. The car was running electronic ignition. The radiator is an (aluminium) 432 item.

[240260280]

Alan, this stuff is new to most of us in North America.  I just received the Brian Long Fairlady Roadster to 280zx book and it piqued my interest so I started digging around to learn more...there are many gems to be shared in North America like the 3 litre 240Z in 1971. I was simply looking at the JAF site and translating with Google Translate. Apart from some books that skim over the topics and some web sites in Japanese text, and some old videos on youtube,  it is all I have to work with. The differentiation between 240z and FairladyZ (on the JAF website) in the winning car columns led me to find the first instance of the 240z L24 engine racing and the July 1970 endurance race a Fuji.  

Your expert knowledge and input would be most helpful and welcome to improve the accuracy and content.  Just the 432 engine compartment data above that you shared  is *very* interesting.  I'll keep revising the top posts as corrections are made and new information comes in.  I left a blank section in the top post to put more information and pictures of the race as I have none yet.

Many thanks for the corrections and clarifications!

Edited January 15, 2017 by 240260280

[HS30-H]

Here is the 2nd place GT-R that gave the winning 240z a run for its money finishing on the same lap. It gives colour to the Prince/Nissan battle. I wish I could see the last few laps on video. It would have been great knowing this battle was taking place.

More to the point, it would have been nice to see it mentioned in the context of your original thread, especially as you coloured it as some kind of L24 vs S20 battle. There was an S20-powered sedan, punching well above its weight, but you didn't even tip your hat to it. You didn't mention the fact that the winning car had been outqualified by four other cars including that GT-R, all of them S20-powered, and hadn't taken the fastest race lap either. Why not?  

For the L24 being a better engine for this type of racing, you will have to take it up with Masahiro Hasemi as it is his opinion.  He was certainly right about the stiffer GT-R/S20 being better for these types of races than the flexing 432R/S20.

Hasemi's loyalty was firmly in the Murayama camp. At that time he was a Skyline man. He was right in that the 432-R body wasn't stiff enough on its own (it was supposed to have a full multi-point cage...) but ALL the cars we are talking about were 'baggy'. The HS30/HLS30 certainly wasn't hugely better than the PS30/PS30-SB in that respect. Hasemi was talking in retrospect about the engines of course. The LR24 engine wasn't eligible for the race categories that the S20 (both in GT-R and 432/432-R guises) was designed to take part in. The Japanese market wasn't due to get the L24-engined HS30 models until late 1971, so there was no imperative to push the HS30 through domestic race development. Meanwhile, Nissan was gearing up to take part in a selected international rallying program with what amounted to 432-R bodied cars running LR24 engines (they were already testing them, and had one running on the roads around Monte Carlo in January 1970...) except they were running HS30 and HLS30 chassis prefixes (that being what was eligible to race, and what Nissan was selling...), so it's not like Nissan had their own internal conflict about what was 'best' (they had more than one horse for each course...). 

Some of the shade being thrown at the S20 engine (here and in other threads) in favour of the L24 doesn't seem to take into account that there was very little stock about the race and rally LR24s. I see weight being mentioned, but a full-house LR24 in race guise isn't going to be much different in total weight than a full house S20 in race guise, and the weight distribution of the LR24 is quite different too (much taller, and with a lot of weight biased to one side of the chassis with induction and exhaust both being on the left side).   

I was always curious how the S20 and L24 would do in an apples-to-apples comparison but never ever thought it would be done or if it was ever done. I was wrong. This race was it.

This particular event was hardly apples-to-apples though. In fact, the Oppama team got what they were pushing for and it was something more of a political demonstration based on practicality than anything else. The intra-company wrangling was coming to a head and the way forward was clear. Painting it as some kind of simplistic 'S20=complex rubbish, L24=simple and superior' equation (yes I'm looking at you Grannyknot) is to ignore all those politics and the even more complex battle of wills that was going on behind the scenes. Even JAF were involved, changing the race classes and eligibility rules to suit what was coming.

Knowing why only one 432/S20 car out of six even came close to finishing the race would be interesting. Were there shunts? Did the others suffer mechanical failures?  There is still more to this.

You bet there's more to this than looking at one race will at first reveal. Yes there were crashes, mechanical failures, punctures, the whole gamut. 1000km races are always going to have their fair share of drama and Force Majeure. However your description is overly harsh considering the big difference between qualifying and what happened in the race. Painting this as complete domination by one car is way wide of the mark considering that the win for the LR24-engined car was the politically expedient - and somewhat telegraphed - result on the cards. Like I say, politics...

About the swept volume/capacity thing: A 5% increase in homologated capacity was legal for GT-II, so the LR24 engine was running bigger than its stock configuration. Race organisers (and JAF...) were not necessarily party to the exact capacity unless the engine was protested or suspected way oversize, so the capacity was usually recorded as stock. 

[HS30-H]

8 hours ago, 240260280 said:

Knowing why only one 432/S20 car out of six even came close to finishing the race would be interesting. Were there shunts? Did the others suffer mechanical failures?  There is still more to this.

You'd better believe it.

I don't want to read flippant comments dissing these cars or the people who were racing them. The title of this thread and the first post doesn't reflect the true scenario. Many of the guys taking part in this race were little more than enthusiastic amateurs in home-prepped cars. One of the 'six' mentioned in the thread title was a white 432 (not a 432-R) prepared, entered and driven by amateurs Isamu MIURA and Hajime SAKURAI. This is how their race ended on lap 35:

Sakurai was 20 years old. The crash ended his race, but also put him in hospital with injuries severe enough to end his working career at that point. Sakurai had been a promising amateur racer marked out as a coming talent, but never raced again...

Edited January 15, 2017 by HS30-H