HS30-H

By the way, the engine in the Ford MK.1 Lotus Cortina was indeed developed by Keith Duckworth's team at Cosworth Engineering. It was based on the Ford "Crossflow" block. The cars were built up to the bodyshell stage at Ford's Dagenham plant and then trucked over to Lotus at Cheshunt. There they had the full Lotus treatment ( alloy panels, special A-arm rear suspension and Lotus diff, special trans etc etc ). The MK2 version was actually put together at Ford's Dagenham plant with some components supplied by Lotus. There's not that many full-spec MK1's left on their original bodyshells. Most of them had a very hard life. Many of the survivors are still used as race cars. The Lotus Cortina is a real legend amongst car fans over here. Good ones are mega money. Alan T.

Hi all, I really hate that word "copy". It implies that the person who is "copying" has not asked permission or paid any licensing fee to the holder of the patent or original design. Its a word that has always been used in reference to Japanese industry ( and other areas of Japanese culture ) and it used to be used in an almost pejorative sense. Car journalists were some of the worst at throwing this word around. The truth is that at the start of the Twentieth Century, Japan's industrialisation was playing catch-up with the rest of the world after the country had been all but closed to outsiders for a long period. This meant that the easiest way to get on terms with the rest of the world was in many cases to manufacture locally-made versions of foreign designs under license, hence cutting out a lot of expensive and time-consuming R&D and allowing them to get straight on and make components. In almost all cases, fees were paid to the licensing companies ( who did very well out of it ) and very little was pirated. Some small component manufacturing companies were guilty of copying without permission ( indeed, some cases of fakery were discovered ) but this was not all that widespread and not tolerated for very long. After the Second World War, Japan's industry was left in devastation. The whole process started again with the country under American military control. Companies that had previously been engaged in the manufacture of aircraft and military vehicles were now forced to change tack. This is how the Prince Motor Co. was formed ( morphing from an aircraft manufacturer to a light car maker ). They needed to save time and get their products out into the market as soon as possible, so of course once again they started licensing foreign patents to use in their cars and trucks. Stuff like brakes ( notice all those Imperial sizes on Japanese brake components? ), carburettors and transmissions were big licensing areas, and companies like Girling, Solex, Bendix and many others had Japanese licensees making their own versions of the patented designs. Of course, this phenomenon is widespread across all countries and industries. Most of the time you don't hear about it, but when Japanese companies did it they had the word "copy" thrown in their direction........ Prince paid a fee to Mercedes for licensing some areas of engine design ( I think this was to do with valve train and cam drive / distributor drive design in relation to one of the many iterations of the Prince "G" series engines ) but I do not think it was a WHOLE engine design. Its one of those things that people talked up, as it made the Japanese product sound like it might be better. You can't blame them for taking a little "shine" off the association... That "Lotus supsension copy" statement is a little bit stretched. This most often refers to the rear suspension on the S30-series Z being similar to the "Chapman Strut" idea first used by Colin Chapman at Lotus. Basically, this was just the use of a McPherson Strut on the REAR of a car ( in this case, the first Elite ). It was never patented by Lotus, and once it had been done for the first time everybody else had a go at it too. Its more like a design principle than anything else, and Chapman's name will be linked to it forever. The first person / company to do something will usually get credited in this way ( ask Mr Panhard and Mr De Dion ). The "Porsche gearbox copy" thing is also stretching it a bit. The synchro design used on the "A" series transmissions that were the first type fitted to the S30-series Z were actually patented by Porsche. Later on, Nissan switched to Warner-patent syncros. Lots of others used these patents under license, but its Nissan who get the "copy" thing thrown at them................ All the best, Alan T. ( ps - I used to own a Cortina-Lotus MK.1 - wish I still had it. )

Hi Roger, On release in the UK, the 260Z ( RS30 ) was quoted at 162 BHP ( SAE ) at 5600rpm in all the press releases and sales brochures. Does this help at all? Best regards, Alan T.

RACING MATE was a driver's accessory company formed in the late 1960's by well-known race driver Mr Shikiba. Shikiba san was famous for his part in Prince's giant-killing attempts in one of the support races of the 1964 Japan Grand Prix at Suzuka. He was driving a Porsche 904 and spent most of the race dicing with a Skyline 2000GT ( S54 ) driven by Tetsu Ikuzawa, which was giving him a fairly hard time. This was one of the drives that started the "sporty" Skyline legend. He still won the race, but Prince and then Nissan have been making mileage out of it ever since. The fact that the Skyline was able to keep up with an exotic German race-bred sports car - and even lead a lap of the race - was great publicity for Prince. RACING MATE started out making stuff like driving gloves and gear shift knobs, then moved into exhausts and other tuning parts. However, their main area of specialisation was in driver's accessories ( race suits, helmets etc. ) - kind of like a Japanese Les Leston. They used to sponsor a lot of race cars, and that's why the four-leaf clover Racing Mate stickers became a popular add-on for sporty-minded drivers of Japanese cars. Shikiba probably nicked the four-leaf clover mark from Alfa Romeo's 1930's racing efforts, but its always been seen as a Good-Luck charm for drivers. Now that the company is defunct, the stickers are most often seen on old Japanese cars as a "period" accessory. Mr Shikiba is alive and well, and sometimes works as a car tester for the Japanese magazine that I too work for - "ENGINE". He's one of those Japanese car-racing legends that are all but unknown outside Japan. Alan T. Edit: PS - Shikiba san got married to 1960's Hong Kong-born Japanese pop star Oyan Fifi, and they are still together I believe. He's also still an extremely cool and stylish bloke!

Hi Cuong and Alfadog, PMC.S = "Prince Motor Club. Sports" The Prince Motor Company, like many of the Japanese car manufacturers in the late Sixties, made their race teams like little supporters clubs. PMC.S was formed as the Prince in-house race team, and fans could join the club and get extra benefits at race meetings and regular newsletters etc. When Prince were merged with Nissan, PMC.S became a focus point for sporting Skyline fans in particular. The Skyline factions inside the Nissan organisation kept up the traditions of the club and still used the famous white on red PMC.S stickers on their cars. Even to this day, the GT-R-supporting areas of Nissan Motor Co. are still somewhat autonomous. That's why you still see cars with the PMC.S stickers on them ( especially on the rear quarters of C10 and C110 Skylines ). Alan T.

Sure, the "guts" can be switched - but the complexity of the actual dash frame and covering is pretty frightening isn't it? The wiring loom is handed too, so to do a full conversion you need the correct LHD or RHD loom for your application. Cheers! ( opening bottle no.4 before ascending the wooden hill to Bedfordshire )... Alan T.

Gentlemen, ( Alfadog, Zedrally & Bambikiller ), Thank you for your kind attention. I've necked three large bottles of "ORION" beer since my last post ( an amazing find at my local supermarket - since it's brewed and bottled in Okinawa, Japan ) and I've toasted you all. CHEERS! ( hic! )...... Alfadog, I am NOT going to attempt to list the differences between RHD and LHD versions. Over here in the UK, there are quite a few cars that have been converted to RHD from relatively rust-free imported LHD shells. You would not BELIEVE what it takes to do this properly ( even the bracket that holds the windscreen washer bottle is different )............... Zedrally - I believe that you are right, the Handbrake mountings on the bodyshell are relatively simple ( just a flat section and some captive nuts and stuff welded onto the tunnel ). The handle itself would need "handing" - but that's easy peasy in the scheme of things. There's no provision for the mount on the left side of the tunnel, but it would not be rocket science to put one on there ( like they did in those LHD rally cars ) and the challenge would be more cosmetic than anything else. Bambikiller - you may well be right. Could it be that Nissan thought the USA / North American drivers needed more space? ( but I STILL think it does not get in the way on the RHD cars.... ). Maybe this thread has run as long as its natural life. I don't think we will be able to get any closer to the truth on what Nissan's original intention was ( although I've met Mr Matsuo and he told me what he thought ). I'm pretty sure that Nissan thought they could get away without "handing" the Handbrake for the LHD market ( I'm sure that the RHD shells were engineered with no compromises, and that the LHD shells were in no way a "definitive" or "datum" version - as some have claimed ). Cheers all! Alan T. ( ps. Carl - is Pleasanton anything to do with "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by the Monkees? ).

That doesn't add up for me. Naturally they would have been trying to save money, but look how many other components were "handed" for LHD and RHD versions. The whole base started out as either RHD or LHD at the bodyshell stage, and look how different they were from eachother at the firewall and bulkhead area. The linkages for just about all other controls were different from RHD to LHD - so why not the Handbrake too? Its just too big a part of driving and enjoying the car for Nissan to have just left it - and yet they did. The only thing that I can think of is that they must have decided ( and you can bet your life that they talked about this ) NOT to have LHD and RHD Handbrake positioning versions, and because they thought it was not going to be enough of an ergonomic issue to make it worthwhile. I find that amazing. When I drove an LHD Z car for the first time I was gobsmacked that the Handbrake was on the other side of the tunnel to my seat. At first I thought the car I was driving was some kind of mistake or hybrid, until it dawned on me that all LHD Z cars were like that. Its just a lot more inconvenient than in the RHD version. I honestly had never noticed the LHD Handbrake positioning before........... Think of this in the context of all the other small things that they solved in engineering the car. Although not as complex as the kind of cars we see coming out of factories these days, it was still a big job to make both LHD and RHD versions. I would have thought that it would have been not that much of an extra step to have two Handbrake position versions. I make the point again - from a purely theoretical viewpoint, one of the versions has to be less ergonomic than the other. They can't both be right. I sounded out a few Japanese Z owners about this point after I noticed it. Every one of them told me that they thought the RHD version's Handbrake position was "correct", and that the LHD version must be difficult to use. Did Nissan think that the USA / North American market customers ( being taller on average than their Japanese / Australian / NZ / British RHD-market counterparts ) would be happy to reach over to the other side of the trans tunnel to use the Handbrake / Emergency brake? OK - I'll get my coat.............. Alan T.

NTP = "National Tapered Pipe" NPT = "National Pipe-Tapered" Now commonly referred to as "NPTF" threads. Most pipe threads including JIC & Metric are defined by the outer diameter of the male thread. However, BSP and NPTF are defined by the bore of the hose that they fit ( hence a 1/2" BSP fitting fits a 1/2" hose ). Measure NPTF threads at their mid-point BSP and JIC fittings seal on a coned seating if in a port with a washer or seal, but NPTF fittings seal by slight deformation of the thread. Hence a satisfactory joint can be made between NPTF male and BSP ports. Just block the BSP-tapped ports with the appropriate NPTF plugs. Alan T.

Ah, BSP threads! Where would we be without BSP threads? ( up to our knees in water, probably ). BSP is also sometimes described as "British Straight Pipe"........... The BSP thread system is a tapered design, mainly used in sealing water and gas lines. In the USA, you will find that NTP ( National Tapered Pipe ) threads are very close to their equivalent BSP sizes. Simply running the appropriate NTP tap down through the BSP hole will enable you to use an NTP pipe plug in there. I think you will find that both EARL'S and AEROQUIP make BSP fittings ( and presumably plugs ). If not, re-tap to the equivalent NTP size and use an NTP plug. Good luck, Alan T.

For the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally, two LHD and one RHD Works car were entered. For 1972 and 1973 there were only LHD cars. The car in the pics is one of the 1972 entries. Not sure that the Scrutes would necessarily smell a rat; the conversion looks so good that it looks as though it "should" be that way! Maybe if questioned they would have tried to convince the Scrutes that the LHD was a mirror-image of the RHD car. Mind you, I'm not so sure that it WOULD have actually been illegal. It might just come down to an interpretation of the rules. Better not call it a cheat just yet! Alan T.

I should imagine that the front sway bar mounting bracket was removed to give access for that front pulley to come off? Have the "sugar scoop" lamp housings been blended into the front wings ( fenders )? Its hard to tell in photos of yellow cars - but it looks that way to me. Maybe its just the paint colour that makes it look that way. Strange that in the USA you should call those bumpers WITHOUT the rubber corner trims the "Euro" bumpers. In fact, all European import Z cars always had the rubber trim. The no-trim bumpers are the no-frills base model Fairlady Z ( S30-S ), and Fairlady 240Z ( HS30-S ) items. The "Luxury" spec. Fairlady Z-L ( S30 ) and Fairlady 240Z-L ( HS30 ) had the trim. Alan T.

All the UK-market HS30's came with rear anti roll bars. Alan T.

No - this was a specially fabricated conversion just for some of the LHD Works rally cars. The console was specially fabricated in hand-laid fibreglass by the Competition shop in Japan ( you can see the chopped strand underneath the console if you pry it up ). Apparently, the Works drivers insisted that the Handbrake be moved on some of the LHD cars. Seems that they could not get on with it on the right side of the tunnel. Note that this never happened in reverse with the RHD rally cars. I think you picked out one of the most interesting points about it Mike; the shape of the Console around the side of the lever is obviously clearanced to suit it, and not get in the way of the hand. They went to a lot of trouble to make that part. Of course, an even more interesting point is whether this would have been legal or not. If the car was homologated for Group 4 with the Handbrake on the right side of the tunnel, then that's where it should have stayed. They were probably hoping that the Monte organisers did not notice, and perhaps they didn't........ Alan T.