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Yet Another S30Z Register?


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Another thought...Original and Current transmission.

 

The same goes for Interior Colour and Differential.

 

One of the problems with the WA register is that you don't know whether you should enter the original or the current spec of a car. 

 

...Some suggestions to counter these issues...

  • Fields for 'original' and 'current' details for interior colour, transmission and differential...
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I propose pre-filling the database with 'empty cars', which information then gets added to as it is found. Owners aren't stored on the car, as that's a bad design decision. Instead, owners are linked to cars, which makes tracking new and past owners easy. There would be a little 'description' field, but not for storing 'history' to the extent proposed now. Instead, historic events of the car would be stored in a list, by date.

 

 

If you're going to invest time in a register, this is the way to do it.

 

The current register, and all other existing ones, are owner registers which is backwards. I'm not saying they're not useful, just cumbersome and their design prohibits participation and completeness.

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Do we also add fields for

 

Rims - sizes and offsets.

 

"Other mods" - coil overs, ITB's etc

 

That is a good question Pete.

 

I think we need to strike a careful balance between having enough information to make it interesting/useful and asking so many questions that it puts people off adding their cars details.

Maybe the best tactic is to have a text field entitled 'Other modifications' - where owner's can add anything they feel like contributing.

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Would the compliance date be useful as the build date is an unknown? ???

 

Definitely Nick - for cars that have an Australian compliance plate. The WA Z register uses the compliance date.

 

Some cars, like early 240Z's and (obviously) cars originally sold in other markets, eg. NZ, did not have Australian compliance plates.

For these cars we can only estimate their age by the sequence of chassis number, original engine number and date codes found on parts.

 

There has been a lot of discussion about the age of various cars, but it is all a bit academic and raises questions such as - What is the actual build date of a car?

Is it the day the chassis number was engraved into the firewall, the day it rolled off the end of the production line, the day it passed quality control? etc.

 

Even the date shown on Australian compliance plates are a bit vague because we don't really know when they were fitted (i.e. some time between the day they rolled off the boat and the day the dealer took delivery).

 

The registry should therefore probably have the ability to store the compliance plate date or the estimated build date, and a way of distinguishing which has been used.

For sorting the database - I think the chassis number should be used.

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Even the date shown on Australian compliance plates are a bit vague because we don't really know when they were fitted (i.e. some time between the day they rolled off the boat and the day the dealer took delivery).

Whilst I can't speak for what happened in the 70's. Today the compliance plate is fitted when the car is released from bond.

For Japanese build cars this usually about 1 month after build. Having said that importers can choose to hold cars "bonded" and thus defer the plating - this often occurs around the end of the year.

When I worked with Audi (early 2000's) they would hold all their stock in bond and only comply it when wholesaled the dealer, this sometimes resulted in a year or more gap between production and compliace.

 

Having said all of that, for S30's the only date we know for sure is the compliance date.

Edited by PB260Z
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I think you're going about this all wrong. I get that you're all excited to use the new forum software, but it isn't the right tool for the job. You should never have to compromise on the way you store the data, just to fit in with the underlying system.

 

I am willing to whip something much more suitable up, and I already have an idea for the underlying database structure (it's quite a simple project at heart). I propose pre-filling the database with 'empty cars', which information then gets added to as it is found. Owners aren't stored on the car, as that's a bad design decision. Instead, owners are linked to cars, which makes tracking new and past owners easy. There would be a little 'description' field, but not for storing 'history' to the extent proposed now. Instead, historic events of the car would be stored in a list, by date. Don't worry if this sounds confusing, it will be a piece of piss to use in function. And sorting out the various privacy concerns will be beyond easy with the system I have in mind (which will use some very popular open source software).

 

I just need some guidance on the actual vehicle and engine numbers. Someone mentioned the numbers aren't linear, but were produced in blocks. Does anyone know the full range of numbers, and driveline combos etc, to get this info pre-filled? There is no need to limit this to Australian cars, as if the number ranges are known, it's a piece of piss to put them in. Think big! This can be THE z-car register. Also - do it once, do it right!

 

Does Nissan have this sort of old info on file (build info, original sales info, etc)? Anyone got contacts ;)

 

Regarding existing registers, if people can get me a copy of the underlying data, whether it be a database, spreadsheet or html files, I can get it cleaned up and merged in.

 

So all that sounds great, but it sounds like you want to build this using a separate framework and database. As opposed to building an extension or module that plugs into the current CMS? But maybe having this separate is ok? I originally thought that taking advantage of the template system, shared user base, moderators etc.. Would make it more manageable. The problem going separate is that it will be custom software someone needs to maintain and usually it means 1 person is maintaining the records. I'm not sure if this is a great idea, given the way Zhome's register is.

 

In terms of chassis numbers used, this is part of the problem I'm trying to solve. We don't know the exact cut off periods where 1 chassis sequence stopped and another started. We can somewhat guess, but if we want to pre-populate a database we don't want to include numbers that never existed. As far as I'm aware the only reliable source for this information would be factory service manuals - which can be very expensive now, if we can even find ones that apply to HS30s.

 

We can talk to Craig about the data he has already collected and if he's willing to share the SQL. 

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Another thought.

 

Original and Current transmission.

 

The same goes for Interior Colour and Differential.

 

One of the problems with the WA register is that you don't know whether you should enter the original or the current spec of a car. 

 

So I don't know about everyone else, but for me I'm not so interested in current configurations and specification, since there is so many ways a car can be modified. I think a register is useful for understanding the details of these vehicles in terms of how they were built and in what sequences and dates etc.. Therefore I think the primary information we should strive to collect is information relating to a cars original specification.

 

Sure a more 'free or open' field or collection of fields/entries can be used to collect information about the way a car is modified or has changed over the years. But generally speaking I think what made the Early Girl Bingo thread useful was learning about the earlier cars and trim/specification and probably most importantly how the car looks now or did in the past.

 

A picture can often tell a lot about a car, without having to fill in fields.

 

If you're going to invest time in a register, this is the way to do it.

 

The current register, and all other existing ones, are owner registers which is backwards. I'm not saying they're not useful, just cumbersome and their design prohibits participation and completeness.

 

I assume because the current models allow for 1 entry only and don't encourage additional owners to be added? I do think the current software could be altered to make it work in this way, but as to weather or not it's easier to start from scratch or extend the current system I'm still not sure.

 

Would the compliance date be useful as the build date is an unknown? ???

 

Only for Australian delivered vehicles that were fitted with 1, many 240z's didn't even have 1. It would only tell us when the cars arrived in the country and were ready for sale, not when they were built. The date stamps on various components around a car are probably a much better indicator of build date.

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I assume because the current models allow for 1 entry only and don't encourage additional owners to be added? I do think the current software could be altered to make it work in this way, but as to weather or not it's easier to start from scratch or extend the current system I'm still not sure.

 

 

Yeah that's right. Why not try to collect previous owner history, even if it's basic, and what happens when you sell your car? Does the data get wiped and they start their own entry? With a car register instead of an owner register more useful and interesting information can be recorded.

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Just my 2 bob, but before I open my big mouth, this is a great initiative.

 

My only suggestion would be not to try to cram everything on one page, I would suggest that the vital stats about each vehicle are recorded on a master page, one line per vehicle with perhaps a single image of said vehicle.

 

This would then allow an interested party to select that vehicle which would hyperlink to what I would affectionately call a "Wrap page" where very specific detailed information is embedded.

 

The reason I suggest this is for security, any web surfer could access the master pages, however without being a member or a registry on this actual data base they would not be able to access information that many of us would consider highly private.

 

The second reason is that you could pack a lot more data about each vehicle and not swamp the master page.

 

If you look at this link to the rimtuck page,

 

http://www.rimtuck.com/search/thumbnails&make=Datsun&sort=1

 

you will get an appreciation for what I am suggesting, the page that opens would be the master page, if you scroll across to the extreme right of each entry there is a yellow numerical hyperlink which takes you to what I was referring to as the Wrap sheet for the entry.

 

I will go back to my corner now and shut up LMAO

 

Cheers

 

John 

Edited by Sirpent
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