The guy that runs in the 12s is named Norm and he lives in Seattle Washington. I believe he drives the car on the street as well as the strip. . :classic:

Perhaps there is another Norm that matched him in that area. The one I know moved from FL to NC 'bout 14 years ago.

Norm Simpers is his name. He lives in North Carolina. Just talked to him yesterday. He was well known years ago for his 12.9 sec time with a N/A L series. (Old screenname was 12secdualSUdude on hybrid Z) He says that those days are gone and now he just picks on corvettes, mustangs and any other sucker in need of a good thrashing.

I met him 15-16 years ago and used to race all over town with my '71 vs his '72. Even then he was faster because he "willed" his car so. He had a few external mods to his Z but would easily leave me due to his natural ability. He was/is very scientific about measuring times to X speed and knew when to shift and what speeds to race to when racing other cars. His mind is full of performance capabilities of other cars. He picks his "fights" well! Norm has always been a clutch dumpaholic and was bragging to me about stripes leading into his garage. His daughter eggs him to do it much to the chagrin of his neighbors.:tapemouth

From a brief description he gave me his engine was a 2.9L bored 280 motor. He used Diesel crank and caps and had his SU's venturis bored at a machine shop. He screwed around with his headwork at home with only basic tools and had very well polished combustion chambers and valves. There was a lot of inuitive detail work he did on his heads. For track running he took off his exhaust and ran straight from the header.

His 5 speed tranny was cobbled together from several trannys to get the best ratios for the track. He also used more durable shift forks from one style of 5 speed.

The amazing thing about Norm is that he does everything extremely low budget while yielding high results. On his side is a gent who owns a JY with lots of Z's etc for him to pick parts from.

2c

Jim

Here's a pic of Norm' s headwork and just how crazy he is. Look at the tach!

The bellhousing was blown when his clutch decided to explode. He kept all of his toes and both legs.

Hey stick with a japanese 6 cylinder - 2jzgte: stock 320 rwhp. Check out

2jzgte, 240z on you tube to see a 240 eat a mustang (?) no question there about dyno results from a straight 6.

Beyond the manifold/carb set-up and possible poor compression, only one person mentioned anything about ignition. Without adequate ignition to fire the fuel/air charge, all the other stuff is a waste of time if you think you want better performance......it's the proper combination of all aspects of the engine that really makes great HP. Just my 2 cents for thought!

Tom

This one really came back from the dead. Apparently JimmyZ is using the search function...

This one really came back from the dead. Apparently JimmyZ is using the search function...

What's that? The pics/info of Norm's Z? I just found him with google a few weeks ago. After getting on this site I saw mention of him and thought it would be cool to catch up. He filled me in on his car's accomplishments/tragedys since I last saw him.

He sent me a buttload of pics to fill in the missing years. He's a great guy and was/is a good friend. Can't wait to do some bodywork/painting next time he's down. It would be like we were in our early twenties again:) Like a lot of Z enthusiasts we spent time helping each other with car problems, talking about chics etc... Come to think of it the same stuff that goes on in the board here.

To me the greatest thing about Norm's accomplishments were that they were put into reality by willpower. We are both men of limited means and have to rely on creative methods of attaining goals. I repect anyone who can scrape together something out of nothing.

Sometimes catching up on old thread can be a lot more interesting than the regular daily stuff here.

This is why not to go with a v8...

That's fricken AWSOME. I watched it about 10 times then came back here to say THAT'S FRICKEN AWSOME!!!!

I want that motor. period.

sign me up, i'm in.

Does anyone know if 12 second Norm dude chap is still running his car and does it still make the 12's

Someone mentioned that it was a bored and stroked L6 using the diesel crank

He's still quite active at Zcar.com. The actual name he uses is "norm(The 12 sec Dual SU Dude)" without the quotation marks.

I tried to edit this into the last post but it had timed out. Norm says that he hasn't run the car in question for about three years.