HS30-H

Since that's an electrical part from a Works rally car, I would not place too much faith in any level of industrial standardisation being directly applicable. They are a law unto themselves! A lot of that stuff was either hand-made or involved some level of modification over stock. I doubt the dots on those screw heads are anything to do with JIS standards.

Thought they were too 'gay'. Stuff like that has no place on a car proudly MADE FOR THE USA. Those guys in Japan tried to get 'Fairlady Z' emblems past him too, but he headed them off at the pass. Real men don't need no pesky splash pans.

Mr K. removed them. Personally. He carried tools with him all the time. Did it at the ports of entry. Jumped up and down on them a few times just to make sure. A few might have got through when he was having lunch though. This works for lots of other inexplicably missing items too...

Here's where I start narrowing my eyes and looking at you a little sideways. I think - certainly with some of the things being pointed at here - that people sometimes want to be a little too definitive. In late 1969 and early 1970 Nissan Shatai's Hiratsuka plant was not quite the super-efficient sausage machine that some seem to believe. It was - clearly - a little more chaotic than that. The rear bumper end packing pieces certainly existed by mid-1969 and were present on some of the very first show and production cars. We might say that Nissan never intended for them to be fitted to North American market variants, but - I think I am correct in saying - they did show up on some early Exports, did they not?

Article said: "Each of the Datsun 240Z Super Samuris were built by Spike Anderson, a sort of British equivalent to Carroll Shelby..." Ha Ha! That's a reach even Stretch Armstrong would struggle to achieve. And the car in question was in fact not built by Mr Spike Anderson. Built with 'his blessing' might be more accurate. I believe it just sold for 50.5k GBP plus 3.03k GBP in fees, and is now on its way to a new owner in the USA. It'll need an extra 40ft sea container to ship all the nonsense written about Samuri Conversions over the years.

Please expand. Are you saying wrong for this particular car, or wrong for 1969/70 production date?

Almost inconceivable that they would not, as that is certainly what they were designed and manufactured to work with (rather than stock Hitachi SUs). Several people in Japan are using the Spirit Garage LHD-specific exhaust manifold on LHD Zs with Harada inlet manifolds and triple carburettors. Should be fine, but a heat shield/drip tray would still be recommended.

There are studs (six I think?) that are shared to clamp both in the inlet and the exhaust manifold. They use a dedicated washer (Nissan called it a 'Yoke') that is thicker and wider than normal, and with a distinctive dish shape. They bridge the inlet and exhaust manifold flanges, using a single stud for clamping force. You should still have them if you took the engine apart? The usual problem with these 'Yoke' washers is that aftermarket inlet and exhaust manifolds sometimes have differing flange thicknesses. The solution is either to machine the flange thicknesses so that they match at the shared stud locations, or to machine/grind a step into the 'Yoke' washers on the manifold side. I've used the latter option successfully in the past but the former is undoubtedly a better solution. That's not ideal. Quite apart from the interference in fit, you'll get a lot of heat transfer from the exhaust manifold into the inlet manifold. Could lead to fuel percolation problems. A heat shield might help that, but with so little clearance you'll struggle to fit one. I would investigate the possibilities for moving your inlet manifold up slightly, and the exhaust manifold down. A little clearancing of stud holes and flanges might allow you a few mm of shuffle without too much in the way of port misalignment? Every little will help. You could certainly shave some material off the inlet manifold casting at the points you indicated too. The casting is fairly thick at those points. Spirit Garage 'tacoashi' looks great!

Indeed. The author cannot have done much in the way of checking the bona fides of 'The Z Guild' and Mr Robert Jackson, and he certainly didn't do much fact-checking for the rest of the book either. The book was endorsed by Nissan themselves, which - in my opinion - illustrates how low calibre some sections of that company became under Ghosn's time as CEO.

Interestingly fast evolution. Yesterday they didn't exist on Japanese cars, and today they do, but only because of..... reasons. Within a few more days we may well see them blamed for Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, Global Warming and wearing Flip Flops on public transport. Impossible to know. Good luck with your quest. Me, I rather like them in the right context. Unlike the AMCO towel rails, which only their mother can love.

As mentioned privately, I honestly think this is case of mistaken identity. The dash control labelled 'Head Rheo' is - surely? - the dimmer switch for the navigator-specific auxiliary lighting ('P' Light illumination for maps, timers and Haldas). I don't see any reason why it would be necessary to have a rheostat-controlled dimming function of headlamps, spot lamps and fog lamps on a rally car. I've got one of the 'mystery' boxes too (leftovers from Works activities here in the UK) and - notably - the wire colours are different than on yours. I have three reds and a black going into a square 4-spade male connector: Referencing a factory carnet import inventory for the 1971 RAC Rally, I see Works part number 'Y9821-22438 Diode a**'y' which seems to fit the bill as it is listed amongst other auxiliary lighting parts. Would it not be more likely that this Diode box acts as a one-way 'gate' in the lighting system of the car, helping to protect against switching combinations that would otherwise overload/mess up the wiring? I'm absolutely not any kind of expert on auto electrics, but it seems to me that there's a lot going on with the Works rally car lighting system that is not apparent to us on the outside looking in, and certainly so with regard to the different combinations of lighting possible with the column switch, the individual fog & spot lamp switches, a master lighting switch and the push-to-pass momentary switch that (I think?) you have on the end of your car's indicator stalk?

In Japan they were a buyer's choice. You might agree that it was nice to have a factory showroom options list to choose from rather than an independent dealer's choice of additions adding to your bottom line.

Overriders were an extra cost showroom option on Japanese market variants. They were listed in the sales brochures and in the factory parts lists.

'The 240Z Guild' is a restoration/sales business owned by a Mr Robert Jackson and based in Madill, Oklahoma, USA. Mr Jackson has a certain amount of 'baggage'... https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/robert-jackson-scam.219934/ http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=343369

You would only have been able to fit 4-point harnesses on the driver's side, as there were no shoulder strap mounts/anchor points on the passenger side. Mounts could feasibly be added after the fact (I've done this on my 432-R replica project car because I wanted both sides the same) but they need a doubler underneath or - preferably - the welded-in L-shaped factory reinforcements and captive nuts as seen on the driver's side. So this is another one of those Works rally car-specific differences. The Works rally team fabricators were able to specify non-standard additions and modifications literally before the bodyshells were welded together.

Yes! 432-R was certainly 'driver focused' and standard equipment 4-point Takata harness was only provided on driver's side. Similarly, 432-R only got a headrest on the driver's side. Early Works rally 240Zs were a kind of 'hybrid' of 432-R bodyshell parts mixed with upgraded details, Sports/Race Option parts and hand fabrication. The bodyshells were built in small batches designated as rally cars and therefore could incorporate a little extra attention and detailing on the line at Hiratsuka (such as the extra doublers for the passenger side four-point harness shoulder strap mounts under the 'cheesegrater' deck panel) before being transported as bare shells to the Works rally shop at Oppama where the build-up could begin. Attached photo shows stock 1970 432-R rear 'cheesegrater' deck with shoulder harness mounts on driver's side only:

In fact it seems it was restricted to the 1970 RAC Rally and 1971 Monte Carlo Rallye batches of Works cars, as the 1971 East African Safari Rally batch and onward batches of cars didn't have the cut-away finisher panel holes. There was clearly - as is so often seen on these cars - an evolutionary process going on here. The very first batch of cars sent overseas - for the 1970 RAC Rally - featured the cut-away finishers, but not the extra self-tappers. Instead they had threaded studs inserted where the normal fixing screws would thread into (those pesky...) captive nuts in the plastic lamp housings, and butterfly nuts were used to hold them in place. This allowed the lamp units to be removed fairly quickly without having to take off the finishers: Obviously the 1971 Monte Carlo Rallye batch (an event where rear quarter damage was more likely) improved on this with the addition of spring nuts on the body and self-tappers passing through the plastic lamp housings, so it was no longer necessary to fiddle around undoing butterfly nuts inside the car. Better! However, for the 1971 Safari they reverted to uncut rear finishers. The finishers were secured by self-tappers (rather than the stock plastic rivets) so could at least be removed fairly easily. That area of the car was a good place for storage. They tended to store the onboard jack near there, as well as a host of spares, ropes, jack base, shovel etc housed inside a fabricated pocket. LOTS of storage on these cars:

Page 4 in the 99996-CAT04 Nissan Motor Corporation in USA 'Datsun Competition Parts' catalogue (April 1976) lists the 99996-E1031 'Slalom Camshaft':

A Saab (Ford Taunus) V4 with quad SUs? That would be more over-carbed than Carby McCarbface.

That seems likely, and logical, to me. I have no idea what these minor differences were, and Nissan doesn't seem to have been too forthcoming with data to explain them either (possibly in line with their 'Do Not Fiddle!' stance?). That difference of '-8' suffix on manual trans '73 L20 and '-9' suffix for the Auto trans version does indeed seem to point to differences being minor. Yes. Pretty much. The top boxes are up to very late '72 whilst the bottom two are the 'Showa 48' (1973) versions. I don't know enough about that to comment, except that it seems - again - likely and logical. I've been sifting through factory parts lists to see if I can see any corresponding (full) part numbers, but no dice so far. I wonder if that too is part of a 'Leave Them Alone!' thing?

That's a 'Boxer Quad SU' for the Rover V8, an aftermarket setup created here in the UK by a guy called Martin Goodwin. You can read more about it here, towards the bottom of the page, in blue: https://www.mez.co.uk/ms12-new.html

Hi Ian, Very late 1972 and then 1973 year L24-engined Fairlady 240Z, Fairlady 240Z-L and Fairlady 240ZG got the HMB46W-1Bs as part of Nissan's drive towards reducing emissions. Specs here, in bottom right box: ...which says the jet needles were 'N-66'.

I reckon - if he was nicely cashed up - he'd have already bought one of the PGC10 Skyline GT-Rs that were released in February 1969... ...as a nice compliment to his 911S 😄 Hmmm. Well, Nissan Shatai's production figures tell us that - by the end of October 1969 - they had built a total of 67 'Domestic' (Fairlady Z, Fairlady Z-L, Fairlady Z432 & Fairlady Z432-R) cars and 58 'Export' (LHD & RHD '240Z') cars, so they would have had a fair few cars knocking around that theoretically could have been available for show duty.

Thanks. Would be nice to pin down the colour of that Fairlady Z-S in the B/W photos. Something makes me think it looks kind of metallic. I wonder if it was #901 Silver Grey?

I feel it too. Wish I had been there.