The definitive Z book

[SpeedRoo]

When setting up a new race program in a foreign market many companies send out one of their current cars to use as a benchmark in setting up a new team. Nissan may have chosen to do this with the Z432 and Z432-R when the first competition department was being set up stateside. Might be a good question to ask Peter Brock or Bob Sharp as they were directly involved in the USA. As there were problems with the cranskshaft vibrations in the first 240Z L24 engines, the S20 engined cars may have been needed to help get them established and up to speed until the problem was resolved. The Yankee boys would have relished beating the foreign invader on their own turf. All of this is supposition of course until someone asks those directly involved and gets an answer. I'm sure there are some people on the forum who have the right connections to find out.

Roo

[HS30-H]

21 minutes ago, SpeedRoo said:

When setting up a new race program in a foreign market many companies send out one of their current cars to use as a benchmark in setting up a new team. Nissan may have chosen to do this with the Z432 and Z432-R when the first competition department was being set up stateside. Might be a good question to ask Peter Brock or Bob Sharp as they were directly involved in the USA. As there were problems with the cranskshaft vibrations in the first 240Z L24 engines, the S20 engined cars may have been needed to help get them established and up to speed until the problem was resolved. The Yankee boys would have relished beating the foreign invader on their own turf. All of this is supposition of course until someone asks those directly involved and gets an answer. I'm sure there are some people on the forum who have the right connections to find out.

Roo

Sorry to say it, but you're barking up the wrong tree. In fact, you might not even be in the right forest...

[240260280]

Thanks Alan.  Learned something new and hoovered two pictures

 

 

And the strangest participant of the tournament: the Nissan team, which brought a model Z-432-R of 230 HP, which was piloted by Haruito Yanagida and Masami Kuwashima. At the time, it was not even known in Brazil who was Nissan: traveling thousands and thousands of miles, at great cost, with no obvious marketing objective, seemed at least curious. And to make matters worse, the Japanese arrived late and only disputed two events. Since the little car appeared in Europe, or in the United States (at the time the brand was known as Datsun in the US), Brazil's choice was certainly unknown.

 

 

[SpeedRoo]

19 minutes ago, HS30-H said:

Sorry to say it, but you're barking up the wrong tree. In fact, you might not even be in the right forest...

I look forward to hearing what Peter Brock or Bob Sharp have to say. Thankfully they were in the forest cutting logs rather than on the edge behind a tree peering in. If you don't ask you will never get an answer. It's amazing how the AEIC (Armchair Expert In Chief) can be so sure of things when he wasn't there.

[26th-Z]

Well, I was there.  I was racing in the SCCA at the time and both Bob and Pete were racing way before the introduction of the S30.  Here's what Peter Brock was doing https://bre2.net/the-racing/hino/Bob Sharp was racing his Fairlady 1600 and 2000 roadsters throughout the late 60s.  The Datsun USA competition department was established (bare with me, I have to look up the year.  I have copies of the original Bulletins) so Nissan was not " setting up a new race program in a foreign market ".  Further, the SCCA didn't have a class recognition for the PS30 or the PS30SB because it wasn't imported and sold in the USA.

And the crankshaft vibration problem; do you wonder how little is heard of Bob Sharp's problems with the crankshaft?  What does Bob's engine builder have to say?  I might suggest that you take Peter Brock's presentation with a grain of salt.  If you know Pete...   My point wants to be that the "armchair" guys have spent a lot of time, invested a lot of money (a big, fat lot), spent years discussing issues (how long have we been corresponding, Alan a decade?), and compiling libraries to have a pretty good understanding of what seems to be what.  Laddie, when I started in this forum thing, we were discussing Milbrecht Goertz!  In all probability, this forum is the definitive book on the S30.  There have been all sorts of topics discussed ad-nauseum within this library.

Oh!  If you want answers from Bob Sharp or Peter Brock, why don't YOU ask them?  Tell us what you hear.

Thanks for the pictures, Blue, Mr. Hoover. 

[SpeedRoo]

Thanks 26th, I was talking about racing with the 240Z and setting up the competition department focused on that car, not what came earlier. The Japanese had the most experience as they had campaigned it in Japan since January. Would make sense they would try and help their overseas divisions get up to speed so to speak. Glad you were there in the SCCA racing, were you involved developing the 240Z with the NMC competition department? Always good to have a benchmark to test your new race car against, hence my suggestion they may have used a Z432-R as a reference. Actually the cranskshaft problem has been mentioned here in the forum and in reference to Japan and the first 1000 L24 engines built, do you know when Nissan solved that problem and put the revised one into production. Well done to the armchair experts for all the work you have done, I enjoy asking questions and reading back through the archives to understand the subject, I also appreciate hearing direct from the sources who were there when it was all happening and involved. That's why I asked if anyone here could speak to Peter Brock or Bob Sharp and ask them as I do not know them not have I ever met them. A number of people have reached out privately and are doing just that. I will let you know what I hear.

Regards

Roo

[HS30-H]

7 hours ago, 26th-Z said:

My point wants to be that the "armchair" guys have spent a lot of time, invested a lot of money (a big, fat lot), spent years discussing issues (how long have we been corresponding, Alan a decade?), and compiling libraries to have a pretty good understanding of what seems to be what.  Laddie, when I started in this forum thing, we were discussing Milbrecht Goertz!  In all probability, this forum is the definitive book on the S30.  There have been all sorts of topics discussed ad-nauseum within this library.

More like 15 years on here, I'd say. And still we are learning, aren't we? Indeed, we still don't know what we don't know...

Our impetuous new friend is currently paddling in shallow waters, unaware of just how cold, dark and deep are the waters that await him the further he gets from shore. 

[26th-Z]

12 hours ago, SpeedRoo said:

do you know when Nissan solved that problem and put the revised one into production

 

[NVZEE]

I don’t understand the drama this topic is generating. If there’s knowlege to be shared or gained, why not do so? Instead this has taken on the staging of a made-for-TV  mystery with plenty of sinister “you can’t handle the truth” and “if you only knew what I know” wink-wink implications. Great to see 26th-Z’s post, although there’s still the backstory of diagnosing the crank problem.

[SpeedRoo]

Excellent 26th, cold hard facts from the original source...that's what I like to see. Now were you involved developing the 240Z for racing with the NMC competition department here in the USA. They must have documented what they did in testing, do you know if they retained those notes?

Roo

[240260280]

I think the vibration was noted in the Q4 testing in North America.  @Kats noted this from his research and friends who where there in 1969:

 

P.S. I attached this file"report of test drive in the U.S. by Mr.Osawa"I will interprit this some day.But a little bit..

"...Vibration from the steering compornent and car shaking from the rear differencial unit was a big problem we had been considering.Thanks for the entire staffs related those kind of section,they paid a lot of efforts.As the results we managed to built [refined 240Z with advanced parts].The refined 240Z arrived by air on Dec 20th 1969,NMC checked and gave "satisfaction"to the car.But still there is a sensitive phenomenon of tire balance(choice?)"

[HS30-H]

1 hour ago, SpeedRoo said:

Now were you involved developing the 240Z for racing with the NMC competition department here in the USA. They must have documented what they did in testing, do you know if they retained those notes?

Here's a perfect example of this impetuosity I'm talking about. Within a couple of posts you've turned your imagined scenario into fact, and you're looking for "the notes" which document that imagined scenario. It's not scientific, it's not scholarly and it flies in the face of common sense. You told me that you are an "Automotive Historian" and that you have written books and magazine articles. I don't think this is how they work.

NEWS FLASH: NMC USA was not directly involved in "developing the 240Z for racing". They passed that task onto the likes of BRE and Bob Sharp Racing to take it on by proxy, supplying them with (mostly stock) hardware and supporting funds. The surrounding stories are all out there, readily available for you to look into and research yourself. We've touched on the topic many times on this forum in the past so there's a rich seam of knowledge to be mined here, but there's plenty available in period and contemporary publications too. You just have to do the due diligence yourself.

Nissan Japan - through their 'works' team(s) - carried out their own activities and developments, and it is a BIG topic. There's no single one-shot injection of knowledge about all this and - once again - if you want to research it then you have to do your own due diligence. At some point it will become apparent to you that the real truth about the activities of a Japanese company, a Japanese car and related matters largely happening in Japan are - if you're lucky - written in Japanese and passed between interested parties in Japan. Quite a lot of it is even now - 50 years later - considered as private corporate property not for the consumption of 'civilians' like us. The implication is that you will need to start mining Japanese sources in Japanese, getting in touch with prime movers in Japan and spending a fair bit of precious time and money gathering documentation and evidence. Sometimes you will be trusted with information and documents that you will be asked not to make public and not to 'share'. That's the nature of the beast.

My best advice to you is to slow down, research what is already out there and then pursue your own particular line of enquiry. Nobody is going to make a one-shot post for you on here, or give you a memory stick with 'everything' on it.