HS30-H

Well, first of all I would have great trouble in believing that it was an intentional tip of the hat to Nissan's works race cars. But secondly - and probably more importantly - it was originally a designation applied by Nissan themselves, and therefore is not something that a private owner, a restoration 'shop or anyone else can apply to a car at their whim. We simply cannot change the factory designations of these cars. I can't imagine somebody could do this with something like the Corvette 'Gran Sport' name, and get away with it without having at least a few choice words bounced off their skulls. Of course, the 'Z Community' ( whatever that is ) hardly ever have their radar switched on - so an equivalent malapropism passes unnoticed..........

'240ZR' was a factory ( Nissan ) designation for some of its works race cars in Japan. It seems unlikely that the people who used this moniker for the yellow VZ car would have known that, so they would also be unlikely to understand how inappropriate it seems for this car. Thanks for the reminder of the Evanow book. I just dipped back into it for the "240ZR" / "240Z-R" mentions. I'd almost forgotten just how much of a shambles that book was.

Q.E.D.

Well, zbane's excellent post already made the point I think. But just to reinforce it, I'll add a couple of pics to illustrate. Please don't take this as anything other than a well-intentioned bit of signposting. Nobody's out to 'break a butterfly on a wheel' here. 'NISSAN' logos on Japanese race cars, and a factory 'Honda NSX' race car in the Honda Museum - as used by Team Kunimitsu at the Le Mans 24hrs:

Beat my guest

It's been 'period correct' since about 1934. Nissan built it, after all.

Hey - look at that! Checking again today I see "5th update 19 April 2009", and Herrmann and Schuller's names spelled correctly all the way through. Great! We are actually getting somewhere. Unfortunately we still have a little work to do on the same page, so - firing up the old Ouija board again - let's see if we can get these fixed: "Toni Fall" = Tony ( Anthony ) Fall ( spelled correctly elsewhere on the same page ). "Shekhar Metha" = Shekhar Mehta ( spelled correctly elsewhere on the same page ). "Paul Ester" = Paul Easter ( spelled correctly elsewhere on the same page ). "Jean Todd" = Jean Todt. Oh, and Fall & Easter's '73 Monte Carlo car was registered 'TKS 33 SA 8514' not "TKS33 8514". OK - I won't make any 'Fifth Amendment" jokes...... Keep up the good work Alan T.

Checking again today, I see that the zhome.com page I referred to above ( www.zhome.com/History/rally.htm ) lists a "4th update 17 April 2009", but the names of Herrmann and Schuller are still misspelled in the text, thus: "The driving team of Edgar Hermann / Hans Shuller also became the first team to win back to back over-all victories!" ......so their names are now spelled both correctly and incorrectly on the same page. Some of the other crew names need correcting too. And Carl, your silence on this speaks volumes. I'm deducing that you supplied the information to Sports Car Digest, and that Sports Car Digest are not replying to my queries on their Amelia Island report page for this reason? I'm going to have to contact SCD's editors by direct e-mail, aren't I? Alan T.

Ha ha! They've corrected the spellings without acknowledging the original error, or the fact that it was pointed out to them. What a coincidence that the two names are still misspelled ( and with exactly the same misspelling ) over at zhome.com, so it's obvious where SCD got their misinformation from. Talking of misinformation, the official BRE site ( bre2.net ) quotes the BRE 'Baja' 240Z as having taken part in the "1970 Baja 1000". Whoops History. It's just one damned thing after another, isn't it?

Carl, Have you been comparing your car to a Works rally 240Z, or did the writer of that article make that bit up all by himself? I can't imagine how he could come up with the idea that your BRE car "...is similar to the Nissan factory works FIA Pro-Rally cars that ran the East African Safari Rally". It seems a completely bizarre comparison to me. They really don't have much in common at all, do they? And they didn't even spell poor Herrmann and Schuller's names correctly! Alan T.

Well "Dogleg First" makes sense to me anyway. At least it's universal, and describes something physical - something mechanical. Interestingly, the Japanese usually call this shift pattern "Low Back" - which also makes descriptive sense. I never heard that described as a "Euro" shift pattern before that's all. A matter of perspective, then. Thanks for the explanation. :classic:

What's a "Euro shift pattern"? Does it have a moustache, and speak with a funny accent?

Quite simply, the original question has already been answered. Everything else is just an unexpected bonus. Actually, all this "history garbage" makes this forum a better place in my opinion. Certainly a more valuable - and interesting - resource than a site largely written by one man, with no platform for real-time questioning, debate or final consensus. I think we all can learn something if we choose to take the time to read between the lines and sort out the signal from the noise. It's not difficult really. And if you don't like it, the IGNORE function is at your disposal. Arne, last time I remember looking ( admittedly a while ago now ) your profile listed you as a 'Super Moderator' ( whatever that is ), so perhaps you have the power to move this 'discussion' to a more suitable venue on the forum? You might also choose to delete the whole thing of course, which would be an interesting choice, but perhaps to be expected from somebody who refers to "history garbage"........ I'm always mindful that - as the immortal 'Yogi' Berra might have said - "It is difficult to write about history, especially when it is in the past". Don't underestimate the effort it takes to come up with that sh*t. Cordial regards, Alan T.

Erick, Sorry that your thread has been somewhat diverted, but you inadvertently brought up a topic that some of us ( or myself at least ) feel quite strongly about. Still, I hope that some of your questions have already been answered. This sounds like an L20A engine ( L20A was 6 cylinder, and L20B was four cylinder ) and in actual fact the early versions of this with the E30 cylinder head - which you appear to have - are actually very nice engines when they are running to their full potential. If you rebuild it to even stock specifications it is quite powerful for its capacity. Luckily for you Erick, all the bearings ( con rod and main bearings ) and most other service parts on the bottom half of the engine are the same as those fitted to Nissan's L24, L26 and L28 engines for Export markets. Therefore Rock Auto should actually stock suitable bearings for the engine, but you will have to ask for L24/L26/L28 parts if they do not recognise the L20 for what it is. If your local suppliers cannot help, then maybe ordering from the nearest alternative ( USA? ) will work? If you want to send me a PM I will tell you the Nissan part numbers that you need, and can help you with any other data that you might need for your L20 six. It's a good engine, and can be very sweet when it is working right. Good luck! Alan T.

Again, you're reading what you want to hear into this. The article makes the point that the four-cylinder versions of the engine design had the benefit of the increased lead time in their production use, and that they were therefore able to benefit from the refinements and changes that had been being made on the L20 six. If that isn't a clear example of later engines inheriting designs and refinements from earlier engines then I don't know what is. There's a smooth transition here - not any Year Zero type 'Now' with no 'Then'...... You're drawing that line again just to fit in with your Katayama quote, aren't you? You portray the L20A as having been "based on the L16" ( once again noting that you ignore the L13 and L14 ) when in fact they were developed at the same time! The L20A, L13, L14, L16 etc etc were part of the module for heaven's sake. I mean, where does this conviction of yours that the L16 is some new Cain come from? Do you honestly believe that these people were drawing up one capacity of engine at a time, and then realising - perhaps over lunch? - that they needed a few more different capacities? Come on, that's just stupid. No, sorry. You are putting words in his mouth. Where ( in the original Japanese article ) does it say that Iida san considered that the L20A was a design "based on the L16"? Again, the whole point is the L16 ( and the L20A ) are logical parts of the L-gata module which were designed at the same time. Where in the original Japanese text does it say that the L16 ( again - on it's own? ) was designed by the "First Engine Design Division" ( Engine Design Team 1 )? It is just common sense that the 'L-Gata' engine module would have been a collaborative effort between the two departments, and as Iida san was Chief of the 'L-Gata' module design team it is logical that he would have overseen both the four and six cylinder versions of the module. Unless you think that these two teams were in some kind of competition with eachother, and that Nissan would think it sensible for two teams working on different versions of the same core design to ignore eachother even when their projects were going to be made in the same foundries and assembly plants? You might like to note that the mention of the two engine design departments was made at the beginning of the article, and when Iida and his team was given the brief to start work on the new L20 six. I don't see any mention of division of responsibility when it came to fours and sixes in the L-gata module. Again, no. Iida san moved over to Engine Design Team no.1 in 1968, after the newer L-gata module engines were signed off for production. There he was given the job of developing the A-series engine range ( the A10 already existed ) with particular emphasis on the A12 and the A15, and stayed with that up until 1972. He continued to work for Nissan's engine division until 1988, when he was sent to work at Aichi Kikai Kogyo. He retired in 1999. Once again I question both your commissioned translation and your apparent understanding of it. The point being made about 'fours into sixes' was just to demonstrate that all of Iida's team's equipment and data up to the point where they started work on the new L20 six related to four cylinder engines. They simply had not designed any passenger car sixes up to that point - therefore everything that they based their work on was naturally biased to the previous four-cylinder work they had done. This is not the same as saying that they simply "added two cylinders" onto a four-cylinder engine and - hey presto - had a six. You missed the point, again. Hmmm, I think you might be swimming in waters that are a bit deeper than you normally venture into. Japanese domestic model variants are certainly not one of your specialist subjects, are they? I think you might want to have a little bit more reference material behind you before you go into too much depth about what was released, and when - let alone what that is meant to signify. After all, I don't think anybody is trying to tell you that one particular engine capacity variant of Nissan's L-gata module is 'Uber Alles' - despite the fact that you seem to be fixated with just the L16 and L24......... Sorry, but to me this seems to be unintentionally ironic - particularly considering your own very obvious misinterpretation of the content ( as detailed above ). You appear to believe that you yourself are immune to misinterpretation and self-obfuscation? I wish I was that confident. I don't think you are in any position to be deciding how accurate - or inaccurate - was Manabu Komano's understanding of Iida san's story. The translation that you have commissioned - and linked to - is NOT a full and accurate translation of the Nostalgic Hero article ( I'd call it more of a precis, as large sections of the original text are absent ) and your dissection of that commissioned translation is flawed because you bring your own preconceptions to it - especially your belief that the L16/L24 were some kind of genesis that everything else was based on, which appears nowhere in this article and is particularly arcane when one considers that the whole article and story is one of an engine family, and where that family's roots were. What a waste. You get access to a story from as close as possible to the horse's mouth ( unless you get on a plane and seek out Iida san himself, and interview him in English ) and you only want to read into it what you already think you know, whilst you seem to damn the journalist who chased the story up with faint praise or none at all. You might as well have ignored it, and continued to spread the story that the L16 and L24 in their 'Export' configurations were what was driving Nissan's engine developments, and that all else was secondary to that. For the record, nobody is telling you that any particular engine was 'superior' or that any other random measure of perceived status trumps another - just that there was a single engine design brief from which a bigger story, and a bigger family, grew. That they were related ( this is indisputable ), and that to understand and appreciate that makes us all slightly wiser and more roundly educated about our chosen subject ( 'our' cars ), which in itself is a story of family, shared heritage, shared parts and shared dreams. Alan T.

......or how about we discuss the whole family of Nissan's 'L-gata' engine series, rather than starting out with the mistaken preconception that the "L16/L24" was some kind of Big Bang from whence everything else evolved? What a strange thing to write. Hiroshi Iida was the head of the design team that produced all of the Nissan 'L-gata module' engines up to early 1968, including the first L20, the L20A, L23, L24, L13, L14 and L16 - which led to all the other versions of this engine line that continued on well into the 1980s and beyond. What's with the "take the word of the man", and mentioning just the L20? I think you're playing games already........ First of all Carl, I must say that it is quite amusing to see you apparently taking this article seriously, as when we first starting discussing it on this forum you appeared to be completely writing off its contents - and the testament of Hiroshi Iida - without having even seen it. I don't want to be rude to the "professional source" who translated the article from Japanese into English for you ( as I know how hard true translation - in the real sense of the word - can be ), but it seems quite clear that they are not all that familiar with the terms used in automotive engineering. For example, I'm wondering quite what the "....several others who read/write both Japanese and English....." who checked the translation of the article for you made of Iida san's "cold water" ( sic ) engine design study? Did none of them suggest that it be corrected to 'water cooled'? I could go on, but I think any native English speaker who reads the translation you commissioned will understand the point I am making. You make it sound as though this is an unimpeachable professional translation ( to back up its gravitas, no doubt ) whereas I say - quite objectively - that it is written in Japanese-style English with something less than a full understanding of the techical subject that it relates to. I also note that the translation misses off a chunk of text. What happened there? Was it surplus the requirements? Yes, journalists can be very sloppy. We know that. So can the authors of web sites. So too can the likes of you and I be sloppy, and misunderstandings are human nature. However, I don't see how you can be pointing the finger at Mr Manabu KUMANO when your own understanding of the topic is so young. Your writings on zhome.com still say that the design of Nissan's L-series engines came directly from Prince - which is quite clearly erroneous. And I also notice that you have put the translation of the Nostalgic Hero article on a zhome.com-addressed ghost web page without the courtesy to mention the original author Kumano san's name. Nice. I don't understand this. You now want the names of the men working in 'Engine Design Team 1', and you specifically mention the L16? Surely you are missing the point of the whole topic? Who are you asking these new questions to, and why did you not ask them before now? Are these the people that told you that the Nissan L-series six design was acquired by Nissan after the merger with Prince ( as seen on zhome.com )? Why are you singling out the L16 unless you are trying to reinforce your long-stated misconception that all of Nissan's 'L-Gata' / 'L-Series' engines grew from Katayama's claim to have 'ordered' an engine 'suitable for the USA'? I'm afraid that this stance owes more to Creationist theory than logical Darwinian explanations. Why do you insist on singling out the L16 and L24 from the rest of the family, and pointing to them as though they are L-series Genesis? I believe that you are looking for scraps of thread that you will attempt to sew together into a tapestry that depicts the L16 as the Adam and Eve of Nissan L-series engines, giving birth to that "All New" L24 ( "for the USA" ), and completely ignoring the big picture. That's not scholarly or even logical. It's worthy of a prize from the Flat Earth Society. I presume that - once you have got a name to pin the 'L16' design on - you will move on to vaunt him as Lord Creator and totally expunge Iida san's name from your specialised branch of "Datsun" history? Ah - now we are really getting down to the nitty-gritty, aren't we? So basically, you want to take what you want to believe from the interview, and disregard the plain fact that Iida san, Nissan and indeed Kumano san all saw Nissan's L-series engines as a family that had several generations which had their root in that design brief of creating an answer to Toyota's new six cylinder engine for the Crown in 1964. You insist on drawing a hard line between that first Nissan L20 six and everything else that was either designed alongside it or followed on from it - when in actual fact the whole article ( and Nissan's own corporate history ) makes it clear that this was a family with shared DNA. I believe the only reason you do this is because you grew up with NMC USA's Pol Pot-style 'Year Zero' policy press releases and internal 'newspeak' - which made a studied point of ignoring what was going on in Japan. All that and you actually have the brass neck to question Kumano san's "perceptions", and imply that he 'simply misunderstands' the subject? Just amazing. Or alternatively, I believe that Mr Beck says that this is what he understands from the writings of a journalist who quite possibly has his own 'perceptions', and may 'simply misunderstand' what Mr Iida told him - and that Mr Iida may not have understood what he was doing anyway. That's pretty much what you have been alluding to above, isn't it? You now go on to write out what you want to take from all this. To wit: No. You already misunderstand. Iida san was assigned to Engine Design Team 2 ( with responsibility to 'Mid Class Capacity' engines, including the Cedric and others, and also large truck engines ) when he returned to Nissan from secondment at Hitachi. This was not in July 1964! You are already misunderstanding the translation that you commissioned. The date of July 1964 relates to the design brief to come up with a new engine for the H130-series Cedric, which was some time after Iida was installed in Engine Design Team 2. Again, I see what you are reading into this. You want to make mileage out of that 'Bluebird division' vs 'Cedric division' thing, as though the two teams would be in competition with eachother and not consulting / sharing resources and ideas. You are disappearing up a cul-de-sac when the road signs quite clearly tell you otherwise. Are you not - again - missing the whole point of what is written? The nuance - quite clear from the article in its original Japanese - is that getting such a new engine to market in such a short space of time was a huge achievement. It allowed Nissan to give an answer to arch-rival Toyota's new six cylinder engine for the flagship Crown model. They started off on the back foot, but caught up due to the hard work of Iida and his team - working round the clock, and testing the new engine in the dyno room for ten hours at a time for twenty days - after coming up with a running pre-production prototype just four months after starting the project........ You're reading-in negativity when the whole point is that they did well. Yes, there were problems in the first production engines - notably in valve stem seals ( soon improved ) and oil control rings on the pistons ( also cured by changing to a different design of ring ), but many problems were overcome on the test bed and well before production release. Why the negative spin, which is not a true 'translation' of the feeling and spirit of the original Japanese article? Again, you are reading just what you want to hear into this. Yes, Iida san makes the point that they were able to start with block casting data that already existed ( for obvious reasons ), but this is not really any different than referring to a book of cosines and tangents rather than working them out for yourself each time you need one, is it? The point being made is that they started design on the new engine quickly because they used design data from a block style that already existed. Don't confuse the mention of a 4 cylinder 'L' engine ( meaning a generic Longitudinal configuration ) with the name given to the L20 six, and the rest of the Nissan 'L-gata / L-series' range that shared its DNA. You misconstrue the meaning of the point being made about 'sixes from fours' in the original Japanese text. Iida san was alluding to the fact that at that time all Nissan's small and medium capacity engine data and know-how ( aside from truck, marine and stationary engines ) was in four-cylinder engines. When they started drawing and laying out the new six they utilised this existed know how rather than starting from nowhere. That is logical and natural. It should not be misunderstood to mean - in any practical sense - that the new L20 six was 'based on' an existing four-cylinder engine, or that they 'added on' two cylinders to make a six from a four. Why would you want to pursue that train of thought unless you wanted to - perversely - rewrite history to match what was nothing more than an advertising blurb? Iida san admits - rather candidly I think - that he and his team "referred" to the Mercedes OHC six design with respect to the valvetrain design for the new engine. He does not say that they simply copied it ( neither does he state baldly and somewhat flippantly - as you have done above - that they "used the M/B OHC design" as if it was a blatant copy - as if they had then surely MB would have had something to say about it ) and it is clear that they had a good look at Prince's G7 engine too, some details of which were apparently properly licensed from MB. Nothing is created in a vacuum, after all. Iida san seems to be quite open in acknowledging his team's influences. Why are you making so much mileage out of the initial problems they had - even when many of them were cured before production? Is it part of your attempt to draw that line between the L20 six and the L16/L24, as though the L16/L24 were some kind of immaculate conceptions? It is quite obvious that the L16 and L24 ( and all the other variants in the family ) benefitted from the problem solving on the first engines, and were the better for it. That's the big picture that is quite clear from the spirit of the article. Ah - here we are getting to the bottom of your Creationist-style theory. Now you again want to highlight that L16, as though the L13 and L14 never existed and talking as though the L20 six - which was being updated and improved simultaneously with all the other L-series variants - had stopped dead in the water. It had not! This is the whole point: It was a continuous process of evolution that was going on here. You point to the L16 as being a "better design" once again as though it was made on another planet to all the others ( you fail to mention above the L13 - which kind of puts your skewed perspective in a nutshell, as it is quite clearly mentioned in the original text and even in your commissioned translation ) and bend the story to suit. Nonsense! Once again you misunderstand the translation you commissioned - let alone the original Japanese text. Iida san was the chief of the team that designed all of those early 'L-gata' engines, and their design and development was being led by what they went through to get the H130 Cedric Special Six's engine into production. If you can't see this for yourself then at least I hope others will see it, and recognise that this was a homogenous effort that naturally included both basic engine design teams. Where did he mention the 'L16' on it's own? That's your line! But you can't have your cake and eat it. Of course the later engines were the result of an extensive design and development cycle - but you seem to want to draw a line between them and all that went before. That's quite clearly an error. The fours and later sixes were all the result of the testing, development and production refinements of the earlier sixes. Iida and Nissan themselves make this very clear. Do you honestly think that they just threw all that data and experience out of the window and decided to start again? A quick look at the layout of the engines would show that this was clearly not what they did. The only major change to the core design was the change in bore spacing - a refinement that allowed a bigger range of capacities to suit both domestic and export requirements. The later ( let's say late 1968-on ) engines were clearly developments of the earlier designs rather than the pure clean-slate designs you want to portray them as. You are quite correct that the L16 was not developed by "removing two cylinders from the L20" ( who on earth thinks that this represents any kind of practical description of engineering method? ), as the whole point is that the L16 - and its brothers and sisters - were drawn up alongside the L20, and by the same people. They DID utilise the L20 as a 'base design' from which others grew ( the whole article makes that very point! ) and drawing an arbitrary line anywhere in the sequence of events with the sole intention of proving some kind of immaculate conception following on from a Katayama quote is positively absurd.........

There were lots of changes in the 'L20' six engines from 1964 through 1969, and there was no single design change that differentiated an 'L20' six from an 'L20A'. The reason for adding the 'A' suffix was to differentiate the six cylinder engine from the new four cylinder engine when capacity was two litres - hence 'L20A' and 'L20B'. Of course, if you prefer to swallow NMC USA corporate and advertising mumbo jumbo whole then you might be happy to believe that the L24 was an "ALL NEW!" design based on the "JUST FOR YOU" L16, but "WITH TWO ADDED CYLINDERS"........... Erick240: Keep the head and cam that came on the engine originally. If you want more performance, modify the ports slightly for better flow, increase compression slightly and consider changing carbs and exhaust. If you want to change the camshaft, go for an aftermarket item rather than another stock factory piece, as no stock factory camshaft is different enough to justify the swap. And don't try putting L20A parts onto an L20B. Some of them won't fit!

As discussed a few times on this forum in the past ( and in personal correspondence with Mike Cammerata ), quite a lot of that is just plain wrong. I thought zhome.com was carrying an updated and corrected article now?

Sorry for the late reply. They are 245/60-R15 on 9.5j x 15 and 295/50-R15 on 11j x 15. Fred, here are some pics of the 185/70-R14 Avon CR6ZZ on 7j wheels. I don't think that they look particularly 'stretched', and the sidewall still extends out beyond the rim of the wheel. They should still work OK on your 7.5j. I recommend that you order direct from BMTR, and ask them to make a quote ( and ask for some discount! ) before you place your order.

jerz, Welcome from a fellow south-east Englander here. I'd like to compliment you on the shut lines of your car, which looks like a really good one. In my opinion, the UK market RS30 models are some of the nicest all-round packages in the whole S30 range, and make excellent all-round road cars. Pretty rare too. Those Hitachi carbs are subtly different to those seen in other export markets, and don't really deserve half of the bad rap that they get by association. I believe RIP260Z is crusading on their behalf. Last time I visited him he had a couple of sets on his living room table! Cheers, Alan T.

OK Doug, I'll settle for that. It's nearly as good as "Surely one of the best collections of HLS30Us in the world". That would be both an honour and a pleasure. Certainly on my 'Must See' list should I ever make it over to that side of the Atlantic. Has anybody here seen all the Z collections in the world? Without having travelled a fair bit around 'The World', and gained access to some of the very private collections that exist, I can't imagine anyone would be gauche enough to suggest that they'd seen 'THE Best'. Surely such superlatives are subjective anyway? At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I'll make the point once again that these are Japanese cars we are talking about here. Different models and sub-variants were sold across a pretty wide part of the globe, and they were raced on a number of different continents. In my mind, a 'Z Mecca' worthy of that description would need to represent as many of those models, variants and factory race and rally cars as possible. Meanwhile, back in reality, such a collection seems fairly likely to be impossible - more's the pity. :bulb: So - for all practical purposes - maybe the most realistic candidate for our own little 'Z Mecca' could actually be here, on this forum........? :bulb: Alan T.

Yes, I agree ( of course ). I'm not advocating the fashion of 'stretch', but needs must, as the saying goes....... And to be honest this amount of 'stretch', and with these particular tyres, is not really as extreme as you can see on a lot of modified cars in Europe these days. Take a look at the photo I posted. Do those tyres look stretched to the extreme - or indeed dangerous - to you? The rim widths there are 9.5j and 11j, and the tyres fitted are not as wide as the 'approved' sizes...... Fred, I told you they were a bit expensive! But with tyres you get what you pay for. They are one of the most important components of your car, and it is not worth cutting corners as far as quality is concerned. You might be able to find a Chinese tyre in the 'right' size, but most of them are absolute junk and there's a point of view that they are downright dangerous in their low levels of performance. Japan has a much better choice of tyres for this kind of wheel on this kind of car. Some of the Japanese Dunlops are superb, but they are often not 'E' marked, and therefore are technically illegal to use on European roads. You can use them of course, but vehicle inspectors and insurance assessors are starting to take notice of this kind of thing lately, and it's a good excuse for them to avoid a payout..........

Yes, I've used them. Excellent tyres. Very stiff sidewalls - well suited to 'historic' type suspension systems. Here are some ( 15 inch ) that I've had on the GT-R:

I'd recommend AVON CR6ZZ in 185/70R-14. Basically a road-legal ( 'E' marked ) historic tarmac rally tyre, and absolutely superb on the road. They'll stretch onto your 7.5j wheels OK, and won't look silly. You'd be surprised. Bit expensive though..........

You certainly outfoxed me by talking about four parts in a pair of headlamp covers. In my mind, that's either two or....er.....lots ( if you count the foam rubber seals, the mounting plates and all those little screws....... ). All covered by two Nissan part numbers, in two boxes. Tricksy question! On the 'Price per Pound' question for hard stock parts ( as opposed to repro stickers or one-off sales of rare plastic doo-dads ) I was going to nominate the painful personal experience of an S20 water pump assembly, at 170,000 JPY retail ( ouch ). Made all the more painful by the total of around 22% taxes and import duties levied on the cost of the part and the cost of the postage ( double ouch ).