HS30-H

So why write it under a comment about Spirit Garage...?

Spirit Garage have a long history in business and are well known and respected in Japan. I can personally vouch for them, having visited in person (to a friendly and generous welcome) and having used a Spirit Garage stainless exhaust system on one of my cars. I also got a thorough conducted tour and talk-through of this rather indiscreet car, which was built - and is usually driven by - Spirit Garage owner Itagaki san...

You see the bits that say "FOR CROSS FLOW" and "When using a cross-flow type of cylinder head...."? The 14004-N3120 MANIFOLD-EXHAUST is for the 'LY'/'Cross-flow' cylinder head. It was a Nissan Sports/Race Option part. It only fits the 'LY' 'head. Just as with the normal L-gata exhaust manifolds, the true 'Works' exhaust manifolds for the 'LY' heads were quite different from the 'Sports/Race Option' parts. Here's an example of a proper Works race exhaust manifold for an LY Crossflow engined Z: ....as you can see, it differs in shape and construction from the 14004-N3120 in the Sports/Race Option catalogue. That's the difference between 'Works' and 'Sports/Race Option'.

You don't need to avoid them completely. Just use them correctly...

Kats, Love, love, LOVE the 'Serusman-yo Setsumeisho' booklet! Super rare survivor there. Fabulous! I believe they made pocket-size information booklets too (for home-visiting, workplace-visiting salesmen - probably on bicycles! - to carry with them for quick reference when customers asked difficult questions...) and I have a Nissan Prince Automobile Sales one for the 1973 range. It's about the size of a smartphone, but has 70+ pages of data. Have you seen one that covers the S30 series cars? I believe the handbrake/e-brake lever seen on some of the pre-production cars was a C10-series Skyline item. It looks almost exactly the same. Like Gavin, I was always told the rear bumper end rubber 'sandwich' pieces were to stop pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists from being 'hooked' by a close passing Z car...?

Kats, I have an original set of prints from that sequence, and they came from Datsun Netherlands. Clearly a canal/kanaal in the background too. Dutch and Portuguese licence plates look very similar.

Hi Kats, Great! You are a codebreaker! Yes, I have the same set of Nissan ten-year report books as you. However, they are so big, heavy and complicated that it is very hard work to go through them. I found some treasures but I am sure there is so much more in there to be discovered... It's great to have all the K-section sub department codes in one place. I am going to cross-reference them all now.

As far as I'm aware (and I'm hoping if I'm wrong I'll be corrected) the 'Entreposto' HLS30s were built that way at the factory in Japan to Portugal-specific models. The factory may well have supplied certain parts in the car (headlamp covers?) to protect them during shipping, perhaps? All other 'European' models (HS30U, HLS30Q etc) were certainly built that way at the factory, so not the same situation as dealer add-ons and local market showroom 'options'.

Another example: S20 race ex. manifold. Note construction:

Sean, First of all, I would say that the description "Nissan factory race header" is kind of misleading. It would more accurately be described - in my opinion - as a 'Nissan Sports Option' or 'Nissan Race Option' part, or - if it was being retailed in the USA by 'Datsun Competition' - as a 'Datsun Comp.' part. Yes it was a Nissan part, yes Nissan qualifies as 'The Factory' and yes it was intended for race use however, Nissan themselves tended to use different - usually hand made, more complex and more specific (as opposed to generic) - exhaust manifolds than this on their own race and rally cars and it is usually these to which the term 'Works' is applied. Generally speaking - and certainly so in the case of S30-series Z race and rally parts - the proper 'Works' parts were not intended to be sold to the general public, they had part numbers that were only for factory logistics use and their costing was only for internal use and/or Customs carnet use. The 'Sports Option' parts on the other hand were designed and manufactured with the intention of sale to the general public, had full part numbers and a pricing structure, were listed in factory-authorised literature and customers could seek advice on their fitment and use. Two quite different situations. Looking at the parts themselves, they are something of a moving target. Especially true of the 'Works' parts which - by their very nature - were constantly evolving, being superseded and made obsolete. If anybody wants to claim that they have a genuine 'Works' or 'ex-Works' part, then provenance is the key. You've really got to know what it was originally fitted to, where/how it was used, where it has been up to now and how it has survived. If you see enough of these parts you can start to understand a kind of vernacular in their construction, and evidence of their handmade is clear. In the period I'm talking about (let's say roughly 1968 thru 1974) there were probably just a handful of guys making Nissan's Works race and rally exhaust manifolds and systems. You can see the same techniques, that same vernacular, on most of them. The Sports Option parts on the other hand were - in comparison - volume produced, and in different facilities. Here's an example: An RHD Works rally exhaust manifold from 1971:

The driveline vibration problem only occurred in the (Works) PZR race cars - not on the road cars - and at prolonged high RPM, especially at Fuji Speedway. I think it could have been cured pretty easily with a few small modifications to driveline installed angles (trans output, diff input), engine and transmission mounts. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the S20, FS5C71-A & R192 combination (it was perfectly OK in the GT-Rs) so I think it was just a body harmonic issue that could have been cured with a little more race-specific parts development. But the political issues going on between the ex-Prince and Nissan factions meant that there was not much momentum behind the race development of the S20-engined Z cars. The S20 continued to be developed, refined and improved in the Works GT-Rs and the ex-Prince guys were concentrating on the planning of the two-door 'Hard Top' KPGC10 which would be hitting the market in the latter half of 1970 and the race track soon after. They really didn't want to give the PZR the attention it needed, and with Nissan developing the L24-engined variants for a serious campaign in international rallying to start in late 1970 too the writing was on the wall anyway.

I'm not sure the spec was that firmly fixed. I've seen a lot of the Portuguese market cars wearing them and Entreposto certainly optioned their cars up through their great leverage with Nissan, so likely a lot of their cars got them. Always exceptions to the rule, I guess. And the change in European lighting regulations (minimum height) certainly made a mess... More on topic: It's interesting that much of the refinement work on the HLS30Q is framed as 'Stability' (especially in cross-winds) and 'Safety' (in control), when in effect it is making a sports-oriented car even more 'sporty'.

'Entreposto' HLS30 walkaround:

Kats, We are very privileged to be able to see 'Maruhi' (Secret) factory internal documentation such as this. Thank you! This was the testing that Takei san was involved in, yes? I see the name Takahashi on the report too. Datsun Netherlands was clearly a great influence on all this as Nissan's European base. I had heard in the past that Nissan had a lot of feedback coming from Datsun Netherlands with regard to product refinement and development, and Nissan took it seriously. Lots of sightings in period of mysterious Japanese cars on Japanese temporary-export 'Carnet' plates whizzing around on European roads. Some of them full of electronic measuring instruments and men with clipboards taking notes... For me, the 'Entreposto' Portuguese market 240Zs were the prettiest and nicest-equipped of all the Export market versions.

Sean, To nitpick: There's a huge difference between Nissan 'Works' and Nissan 'Sports Option/Race Option'. By their very nature, proper 'Works' parts were not usually for sale to the general public and were quite different than the equivalent 'Sports Opt.' bits. It might seem like a minor point of order, but the parts concerned - especially in the case of exhaust manifolds - were quite radically different in shape, material and construction. Your Street-Sport item will be based on one of the 'Sports Option'/Datsun Competition retail items.

Kats, I don't want to clutter up your thread with a big off-topic diversion. There was a recent thread here (now much edited and revised, and even with some of the photos I posted in reply subsequently cut-and-pasted back into the first post, a habit which makes nonsense of much of what we do here) in which I attempted to answer some of the same questions: It's impossible to answer such questions without going into the complex interdepartmental politics at play (ex-Prince Murayama/Ogikubo vs Nissan Oppama et al) and the conflicting interests, power struggle and growing pains that soundtracked it all. Nissan and Prince were only a few short years on from their (forced) merger, and basically the ex-Prince guys were never really happy that *their* blue-blooded race-derived engine was being used in an S30-series car in the first place. A lot of what we observe was simply a function of that... In trying to undrestand the 432 and 432-R (especially the 432-R) I always find it helpful to look to Nissan's clear inspiration: The Porsche 911S and the 911T/R and 911R. The 911R in particular was a big reference point for Nissan when they created the 432-R, and there are many parallels. I sometimes hear - and read - people talking about the 432 and 432-R as though they were some kind of failure because "Nissan gave up after making just 420 or so". I don't think I've ever heard the same thing about cars such as the 911R, 911RS or 911RSR, and that's hopefully because people understand a little more about the reasons for their existence and their context. These are homologation specials that we are talking about here. Cars created and sold to the general public with the specific purpose of legalising them - along with many of the parts they used - for race use in certain categories. The 432 was created to qualify for sports car racing's 'G.T.' class and the 432-R was created to qualify for sports cars racing's 'Prototype' class. The minimum requirement for the Prototype class was for 25 cars of the same specification to be manufactured, which Nissan satisfied with the 432-R just as Porsche had done with the 911R. Nissan - like Porsche - never had any great intention (let alone the capacity for production or projected sales...) of churning out thousands of such cars. Rather than looking at production totals for the 432/432-R as "only" 420-odd I'd say that - all things considered - the whole thing was a success as a halo model, as an exercise in homologation and racing/rallying and an important step in becoming a world class auto maker and I'm actually surprised that they managed to sell as many as they did. Once the 432-R had been created, and had won, it had served its purpose as far as Nissan were concerned. The parts, specs and knowledge lived on through 1970 in domestic circuit racing and through to the end of 1971 in international rallying (the FIA outlawing the 432-R's legacy parts for the 1972 international season). 'Job done'.

Only if you worked for Nissan's sales and promotions department in 1969...

Kats, For quite a long time I've been trying to get people to understand that the first of those first works '240Z' race cars were still 432-Rs, but with LR24 engines installed. They might have been called '240Zs' for convenience (that's what Nissan was selling...) but they were still very much PZRs.

Gavin, You'll find that - in practice - you don't need to do anything with your rear brakes except make sure that they are working perfectly. Both the solid rotor and ventilated rotor MK63s are plug and play for street and mild sporting use and you don't need to worry about F/R bias. I have used both solid and ventilated MK63s on all my cars and can tell you from experience that unless you are going racing you don't really need to worry. The 13/16" rear cylinders were same size as those used stock on some of the C10-series Skylines, so parts are available but I wouldn't bother personally. If you get that serious about (period correct) brake performance you'd be fitting MK63s on the rear too, as per homologation... The TOPYs might need a thin shim type spacer between hub and wheel, as used on the C10-series Skylines:

Correct (S30 type) emblem on left. Incorrect (S130 type) emblem on right. The 432 going to auction has the incorrect, flatter profile (and plastic...) S130 type bonnet emblem.

Hello Ben, The pictured headrests are C10-series Skyline items. You can modify them to fit the Datsun Compe seat (by cutting off part of the metal stem and welding on a new - longer - section) but you can buy an acceptable replica/substitute for the original Datsun Compe style headrest from Kameari Engine Works in Japan. You can buy direct from Kameari in Japan by mail order.

Not only that but, considering comments made by the OP more than 16 months ago, it would seem wise to see the level of fit, finish and 'feel' before parting with money for something that is not necessarily going to be an accurate reproduction of the OEM items. Quote from Metalman5151 from further back in the thread:

You would probably want to confirm that the total length of the strut tube (and therefore the distance from the spring platform to the hub) was the same as that on the E7213s. But if they are the same, then - surely? - you're good to go, no?

The E7211 springs are paired with the E7213 struts because the spring lengths are matched to the (fixed) spring platforms on the struts. If you try to fit the E7211 springs onto stock struts - especially north American market struts - the ride height and geometry will be wrong. You could either cut and re-weld your spring platforms to suit the springs, or convert to adjustable platforms? The E7213 struts were hydraulic type and non-adjustable, so you can use any cartridge type insert that matches the springs.

Thread title changed to "White 432R", but still (clearly!) a 'normal' 432. Try again, Blue...