HS30-H

Hi Eric, Don't know about anywhere else in the world, but this has been quite common here in the UK for a number of years. Essentially they gut the Webers ( or Dell'Ortos / Solexes etc ) and use the bodies and butterflies as the base for injection bodies. You can buy all the parts you need from Weber ( throttle position sensors that fit on the end of the throttle shafts etc etc ) and it can be quite effective. In fact it was so effective that companies such as Lumenition started to make their own kits that bolt onto side-draught manifolds. That's the big advantage; being able to use the manifolds. Weber are even marketing their own versions now too. I think you can find them on several websites ( try the Lumenition one ). Cheers, Alan T.

Another:

Hi Eric, Long time no see. Yes - the Works Skylines were injected from '69 ( on the PGC10 GT-R ). They first used LUCAS sliding-throttle ( mechanical ) setups, and later went onto Nissan's own "ECGI" ( electronic ) setup. The Works 432Rs and 240ZRs were also run on the Lucas and Nissan ECGI systems, on 'normal' LR engines as well as the SOHC LY engines. Many of the Works cars lower down in the pecking order were on carbs - but the top-level Works cars were often on varying forms of experimental FI. The ECGI was sometimes used on Works rally cars too - but they found that carbs were often more reliable at that time. Here's a couple of pics:

Hi Guus, I thought you would be less than impressed. The exchange rate and the cost of freight and taxes makes it even more painful. However, I have to say that they are PERFECT replicas of the real thing - and in many ways they are more practical and safe than the magnesium originals. Mr Nishi told me that he commissioned the tooling and stumped up the investment needed to cast the first batch at his own risk. It cost a LOT of money, and I don't think he has made much profit on them.......................... You can take some encouragement in the knowledge that you might be able to pick up a used set of Mr Nishi's replicas in the future. Quite a few owners bought them and installed them on cars, and might get bored with them and want to change or upgrade. I'll keep my eyes and ears open for you. You never know what might turn up. A set of these would really be the finishing touch to your car wouldn't they? Alan T.

Great minds think alike? Here's one of Mr Yoshihiko Matsuo's original styling sketches for the S30-series Z project:

Hi Guus, I spoke to Nishi san yesterday about other matters, and while I had him on the phone I asked him about his BEST price for a set of the repro Rally Mags that he commissioned. They are PERFECT replicas of the Rally Mags, except that they are made from Aluminium and not Magnesium. They come painted in the correct colour, and with the correct type of dome-shaped chrome wheel nuts. He told me he only has about 10 wheels left out of the initial run that he made a couple of years ago. He has no plans for a second run............... His best price would be 60,000 Yen each - so a set of four would 240,000 Yen plus 5% Sales Tax. Then they would have to be freighted over to you from Japan, and there would be Customs Duty and TVA / Handling / Customs Clearance Fee etc.to pay on top. If you want to go for it, then let me know and I'll do my best to help. 26th-Z, The page from the Club S30 newsletter that you posted is one of the excellent research articles written by Dr Makoto Suzuki. He has contributed some very informative and interesting articles to the newsletter, and I converse with him fairly regularly. He is a very kind and generous man. The picture at the bottom of the page is of the "Maglloy" wheel that Kobe Seiko sold to the general public from around 1973~4. That was a modified version of the original Mag wheels seen on the Z432, and you can guess that Kobe Seiko were making use of the tooling that they had made for the Z432 wheels. The top photo is of the original Works Rally mag wheels ( notice the cutouts in the spokes ) which were made by Kobe Seiko. The picture underneath it is of Nishi san's replica - which Dr. Suzuki uses on his car. See my pic of his car from when we visited Nissan's Zama warehouse: Dr Suzuki's car There were subtle differences between the different castings of wheels and there were a couple of different wodths available at any one time. The important points are that the Works-type Rally mag was never sold to the General Public, the Z432-type mags were offered as an option on the 432 and 432-R ( not as standard equipment ) from 1969 to 1973 and the Maglloy was produced AFTER the 432 had stopped being produced. Alan T.

Hi Jeff, There is no "advantage" - as it is not possible to simply bolt the stock L28 Rods and Pistons onto the LD crank and have a working engine..................... You are going to need to read-up on your options for custom pistons to use for this application. I'm not going to suggest any one combination in particular as there are lots of ways you can do it with different combinations of rod length and piston pin heights. There is plenty of info out there on the web - but I'd buy some books if I were you. Some of the best English-language books on the subject of tuning the L-series engines are still available ( try "How to Modify your Nissan / Datsun OHC Engine" by Frank Honsowetz ). Basically you will have to compensate for the extra stroke that you will get with the LD28 crank. If you don't, then your pistons will be popping up above the deck of the cylinder block and hitting the cylinder head and valves. You would not even get the thing fired up..................... Good luck, Alan T.

That's why they are called 'spoilers'.................

No problem. If you are going to use that Valance with the captive nuts as the Factory intended, then you will need to use the Quarter Valance panels as well - as they also have captives for the Spoiler in them. We have LOTS of rusty ones here in the UK if you are interested:classic: Alan T.

And here's the page that shows the listing for the spoiler. That's it right at the bottom of the page:

Here's a scan of the parts list that shows the Valance ( "ASSY-FRONT APRON" ) part numbers:

The pictures that 26thZ posted are of the Factory "Euro" spoiler and its dedicated front valance panel. The corner valance panels were also fitted with captives when this spoiler was fitted as standard equipment. They came on all but the very first of the UK-market HS30 cars, and continued through the RS30 models. The Factory parts lists describe it as a "Europe" model part, and I know that other countries apart from the UK had them - but I'm not 100% sure if it was all of them. Certainly the UK models had the spoiler from early 1971. I know there were subtle differences across the years of production, but essentially they stayed the same. Factory parts list description called it "98300-E8100 ASSY-FRONT AIR SPOILER". I've scanned some pages from the parts lists so that you can see how they showed it. I've also scanned the pages that describe the companion Valance panels, which you will see have superceding numbers too. The spoiler was made from an expanded Urethane foam material, with the steel mounting brackets cast into it. It looks like rubber and has a smooth outer surface, but when you cut into it you see small bubbles in the material. The problem ( especially for the UK and its weather ) was that the cast-in brackets tended to go rusty and swell up inside the body of the spoiler, and eventually cracked it. Apart from that, the Urethane became brittle over time and started to contract and expand - making it look a funny shape. They are fairly hard to find in good used condition, and I believe that NOS items that anybody has tucked away are now going to start commanding higher prices. I have friends in Japan who have asked me for these spoilers in the past and supply here in the UK has just about dried up. I have not seen a new one for ages. Alan T. ( Here's a pic from the parts list ):

Rob's a good friend of mine. His site is fantastic, isn't it? That's pretty-much all self-built and self-written. Amazing. He's slowed down a bit with it over the last year or so. Pressure of work and other commitments ( read; LIFE ). I'll scan some pics up for you and post them. Nissan were VERY secretive about the engine and tried to stop anybody getting a good shot of it at the '66 Japan GP. I've seen pics of what's left of the engine, and its very interesting. I hope it will end up in a proper museum one day. All the best, Alan T.

Hi Victor, I didn't know you had an interest in that car. In Japan, it was always called the "Fairlady S". I don't know who said that the engine was a 'prototype' of the S20 engine seen - apart from in the GT-R - in the 432? The engine of the Fairlady S was coded "UY" and it was badged as a Nissan. It was indeed a 2 Litre DOHC six with hemi chambers, but it was a 12-plug design. It was a Nissan in-house development. The S20 engine on the other hand had Prince blood in its veins. It essentially evolved from the Prince GR-8 engine used in the R380 Sports racers, but was re-designed for its first use in the PGC10 Skyline GT-R. The GR-8 had quite a different distributor drive setup from the S20. On the GR-8, drive for its twin distributors came off of the front end of each camshaft. For the S20, a single distributor was used at a right-angle to the cams. This took its drive from a sprocket rolling off the cam chain. There were other differences in the water and oil pump drive layouts too. When Prince merged with Nissan, it was the Prince design rather than the Nissan "UY" that was chosen to provide the basis for the new Nissan-badged powerplant. This went into the top of the range Skyline - the new GT-R. The "UY" was rather troublesome, and lacked development. When it appeared in the Fairlady S the merger with Prince was already on the cards, and it could be seen that Nissan would be inheriting an already-formed and fairly successful race department from Prince. Its clear that this is one of the reasons why the "UY" was not developed further. The Fairlady S was a VERY trick Fairlady indeed. Got any pics Victor? Regards, Alan T. ( PS - sorry to pull the thread off topic ).

If anyone is intending to do some serious ( ie - Gravel or Forest stage ) rallying with an early Z car, they would be well advised to give ANY oil-filled damper a wide berth. The pummelling they receive on this kind of surface overheats the oil in no time at all, and the resultant loss of performance is usually enough to cause enough damage to the internals to mean its rebuild time........... I've heard of Koni, and other brands of oil-filled dampers, being totally useless even before the end of ONE rough British forest stage - let alone a whole event. The Factory rally cars used gas, and I would recommend that as the way to go. Oil-filled dampers are fine for most tarmac stages, and of course are OK on the circuits too, but proper ROUGH stage rallies cause them to fail very quickly. Alan T.

I want! Somebody has put their grandmother to good use. Now I know what I want for Christmas. Well spotted Lachlan!