EricB

I think I can go one better than you Alan... Have you see the other Honda mini-cars with strange names? Let's see alongside the Life there's a THAT'S & a LET'S The HOMER nameplate has been resurrected BTW - I saw it in France when I was there this summer for my wedding. It was either a Renault of Mercedes white panel (delivery) van... let me see if I can find it real quick... Haven't you noticed that basically only the US market is in to letters and numbers for car names? for example RX330, IS300, G35, 240SX, M45 whereas in the rest of the world they have NAMES: Harrier, Altezza, Skyline, Sylvia, Laurel now changed to Fuga. I don't know about you but I prefer a name over a series of numbers and letters... details details... Now about that HOMER van: Let's see on the german mercedes website so far i find Vito, Vanio, Sprinter (they just brough it over saw one the other day labelled as a Dodge Sprinter), Actros, Axor, Atego... hmm must have been some other brand... whatever..

Just like Will said... I don't know what he's selling for $1800??? a flat sheet of material he could have bought pre-made and that he cut out to replace a door panel? so he molded ac owl panel and the rear taillight trim - wow! What skills! You know what - I'm going to email him right now asking exactly what you get for $1800 -e

One final note, as for comparing an ultra low-volume high comp race motor which may require 100+ octane and wide open roads to a mass-produced eminently drivable Honda S2000 motor I don't think the comparison stands... You still have to hand it to Honda for daily driven & reliable mass produced highest HP/Liter engines I think. -e

FYI If it isn't obvious to you yet my avatar pictured at left is an actual 432 piston I was given as a token souvenir during one of my prior trips to Japan. -e

Phill, I'll answer this one before HS30-H has to repeat the history of Nissan racing engines all over again... Z 432 & 69-73 Skyline GT-R had a 2L DOHC 6cyl S20 engine which featured a cross flow head. 432 actually stands for 4valves per cylinder, 3carbs, 2L - a magical formula by any brand (look at the 60s British sports cars and you'll see it's a common setup) Some of the works Z racers featured the LY28, which was a 2.8L 6 DOHC cross-flow. The OS Giken TC24 is a take on that old cross flow and if you download the PDF that's attached to "Part2" of the TC16 story you'll get all the specs including as I recall a quoted 300+hp and a ton of torque to boot... As far as a new run of OSG 6cyl - don't count on it - many people more influential than you or I have asked and nothing's come of it. Like many other Japanese specialists it's a small place with limited R&D & finances and rightly so currently focused on modern cars such as the R34 GT-R... Make sense? Search through the archived postings with the keywords: 432, GT-R, OSGiken, LY, Works Rally, etc and you'll find detailed answers to all your questions... -e

Hey all, That Best Motoring Fairlady Z japanese video that a member graciously uploaded screen shots from in the gallery last week was apparently produced in '02 although it's still currently listed on the japanese Best Motoring website as a currently available video special. Regardless I had the local Japanese bookstore here in Los Angeles see if they can order a copy (they are available in both VHS and DVD but there's some discussion as to whether the Japanese DVD is zone encoded or not...) FYI the retail for each in Japan is right around 2500yen which is roughly US$20.- If I hear more from them I will let you all know... http://www.bestmotoring.jp/digest/BMS/index.html For those with real player there's a small sample of the video available online... -e

there's an additional video on the site of interest http://www.osgiken.co.jp/video1001.wmv

awesome - thanks for the link! -e

Carl that's the ex-SCCA regional champ I referred to in a different post... Same year, same exterior/interior colors as the my Z... -e

I've got the answer to that one... Get yourself a heat gun, heat until it softens and then scrape with any heavy duty scraper you have, finish off the remaining spots with Goo Gone (or was it called Goo Off??) - yellow 12 or 16oz container with a red logo and commonly found at Home Depot. Pour some on the tar, let soak for like 10sec and rub out with a rag... Good ventilation helps because that stuff gives you a headache after a while... Did three floorpans like that on the various cars I've owned and it came out perfect - Best part is that it doesn't attack the paint under the tar so provided you didn't get too crazy with your scraper you've got a nice clean floor pan when all is said and done. -e PS: Although I don't have a final clean pic of the floorpan of the pictured car handy right now take my word for it it came out super clean. Pic1 is initial 30yr old tar paper, Pic2 is after heat gun and scraper but before Goo Off applied...

Hey guys do all of you weld at home??? That's one thing I don't know how to do & I've long wondered where I could take my Z to have at the very least the passenger floor replaced (what's with the passenger side behind the seat anyways it seems that more often than not that's where Zs have a problem)... Anyone here in LA who didn't do it themselves recommend a place? -e

Ok thanks guys... will do. -e

It underwent the same startup procedure I was recommended here when I rebuilt the L28 in the Z. Namely: start it up, check for leaks, revs at 2-2500rpm for 10-15min, check temp, make sure fan comes on, etc. Turn off, once over including pulling the plugs. Start up again, let fully warm up, drive leisurely around the block using only minimum revs (like 1/2 the range-ish)... That's about as far as I got... & then it just stopped... I'll pull the axles this weekend and report back if I see anything obviously wrong, otherwise it's off to the machine shop for a professional opinion. -e

it's hard to tell what the headgasket looked like because it tore as I pulled the head off the block... of course i'll know better once everything's disassembled I was just wondering because those 3-4 hrs were under little to no load as is customary for a brand new rebuild and the fact that i didn't hear knocking or anything else suspicious... thanks though

Hey all, Right off the bat I'll say this isn't Datsun related but maybe someone will have some wise words of advice? So years ago I bought an ex-SCCA regional champ '73 Civic from some guy who used to race it out at Willow Springs. Same year & color as the Z & needing some assembly it was cheap and looked perfect next to the Z. Without getting into the nitty gritty of the Honda part numbers it's a 1.2L 4cyl bored out to 1.3L using forged Venolia pistons for a 78 Goldwing (yes motorcycle!), big valve head, big cam, 4-1 header, twin 35mm Dell'Orto DHLB, etc. After I had block honed, head re-freshed, and installed new rings/bearings I got it started. Ran fine for 3-4hrs then just quit on me without a bang or knock or anything - felt like the throttle cable had been cut... Not finding anything wrong other than the plugs looking a bit lean I pulled the head off and found a lot of coolant in #1, a little in #2, and #3/#4 looking just fine the way they are supposed to. I haven't yet pulled pistons and rods out of the block so I don't know if one of the brand new rings just gave up (that requires first pulling axles and tranny on this little FWD which is always fun...) or if it's just the headgasket. So with that said, & remembering how the previous owner told me his setup was good for roughly twice the power of stock (from 50 to 90ish HP), is it possible to think that the stock torque specs for the head bolts aren't enough for this little guy? BTW the setup is legit as I found old Honda racing parts brochures describing the exact same hop-up kit for competition... What do you all think? -e

Aaahhhh thanks Alan! I always found it strange that Nissan had such a small space, never did bother to ask anyone about it though - at least I was there for the farewell to the R34 GT-R and got a neat hardcover book out of it - free too! I know exactly what you mean about the ever helpful and oh so cute receptionist girls from various visits to Honda (Aoyama Itchome) Subaru (Shinjuku) and Mitsubishi (Mita) over the years. -e

Alan, You're saying that there's another showroom in Ginza than the tiny hole in the wall place that's right there on the corner of that big intersection with a subway entrance right in front of it? I didn't know that.... in which direction does one take the 10min walk to get to the "real" one then? -e

ahahahaha is it just me or is that thing funny? what would you put out with a firetruck like that? a campfire? hahaha sorry.. too funny.

As always Alan comes to the rescue... wow thanks for the great info. With such exclusivity I'll be happy to stick to my Watanabes only possibly swapping them out one day for the lighter "R" variant and/or something with a little bit more lip. Thanks again. -e

Hey 240ZX Absolutely that helps. I hadn't thought as far as a constantly flowing fuel would be cooler... should i mention i didn't do too good in my fluid dynamics class when i was in engineering school? ok then i think that i might have my fuel delivery to the Z all mixed up then... Didn't drive the Z to work today so I'm going off of memory, but as I recall I've got the fuel tank feeding to one of those low pressure Holley fpr's which I've got mounted to the firewall. From there it feeds the first carb, which feeds, the second, which feeds the third and from there I believe returns back to the tank. My fpr having one input and two outputs, I used one of the outputs for the fuel pressure gauge. Should I change my system around completely? It seemed to be working fine, but who knows maybe it could be many times better??? Thanks again for your help, -e