Dadson Racing: 2010 Revival

[Whittie]

Not sure, I need to work out what the rules are around compliance of 'new' cars.

 

I can only bring one car back and 50's trucks are cheap, zeds are cheap (240 full resto for 20k), mustangs are cheap.....

 

I'll bring this if it can stay LHD with no mods, otherwise it'll be an historic that can definitely stay LHD with no mods

[gav240z]

I think you need to convert it, you can always get a quote from Craig or Kristian at Iron Block / Iron Chef imports.

http://www.ironblockimports.com/

 

They will be happy to give you a break down on the costs so you can decide. With a personal import you need to own it for at least 1 year and have it as your primary vehicle of use in order to be eligible so it's best to know in advance so you can decide on what you want to import.

 

I hear you on the choices though, some cool cars are very cheap over there!

[Whittie]

http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Dodge-Challenger-2010/SSE-AD-2461855/?Cr=19&sdmvc=1

[PeterAllen]

You need to be VERY VERY careful assessing the cost of a conversion. A few years back a friend bought a late model Mustang in the US for $32k AUS, and it cost him... wait for it...$30k to have converted. Wiring, airbags, dash, etc. are the real issues these days, not physically relocating the steering column.

 

I've often wondered if it would make sense to buy a RHD European classic (>30 years) in the US and then bring that to Oz. I often see RHD Ferraris going for a song at Mecums .

[Whittie]

I agree Peter, I'm not keen on facing conversion costs.

 

I see plenty of LHD cars getting around in WA, it just needs some investigation. I've got time to purchase, as above, I only need it for 12 months to get it in to the country.

 

 

Preferably it would be something with a substantial price difference, but I think those days are numbered in this age.

[gav240z]

I looked at getting a Lotus Exige but compliance costs were huge! So what would originally cost me about 12,000 GBP ended up costing around 40k AUD by the time it was complied. Hence the costs of these cars in Australia already is usually about right.

 

As I say best thing to do is ask the guys at Iron Chef / Iron Block - they will be able to relatively easily give you an accurate figure for the costs of importing such a car.

 

The profit margin is in classic cars, not modern ones.

[nizm0zed]

And it does good burnouts.....

 

Video proof of said burnouts or i call bs. 

[Grandad]

Video proof of said burnouts or i call bs. 

 

Hi nizmOzed

 

Here's the Chrysler CEO in the latest version of what Whittie has.

 

 

Cheers

Dad

[benny]

the hellcat is a different beast altogether.

[Grandad]

the hellcat is a different beast altogether.

 

hmmm busted by benny   but it is a cool skid

 

Here's on of a 2012 R/T the same as Whittie has.

 

 

Cheers

Dad

[benny]

i should of followed up my comment saying that the R/T is a killer car anyway

[Grandad]

Hi All

 

It's been a while now since Vince carried the Zed home from it's last Porsche passing outing and with all that's happened since my focus has been distracted away from the Zed but today is Fathers Day and today I get to choose what I want to do so with my kids either busy or out of the country I decided that following breakie and a walk on our favorite beach with Whittie's Mum I'd spend the day working on the Zed.

 

 

First up I drained the coolant and while this is what I hoped I wouldn't find I guess it's in line with my expectation.

 

 

Carbies and extractors came off and the staining caused by the breather hose touching the extractors was clear and the first thing to be corrected.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok with that done I looked at the exhaust gasket and it doesn't look great but I'm not sure whether I should worry or not but I'm thinking some gasket cement is in order.

 

 

At no1 TDC it's time to lift the head and unfortunately my hopes of finding a blown gasket are not realized but you can clearly see which cylinders have had to deal with coolant issues.  Why is it so?.

 

 

On inspection of the head I found evidence of coolant on the inlet side of no 1

 

no 6

 

and no 5

 

 

I suspect cracking and there is coolant residue visible in these pics.

 

Time will tell, I'll drop the head off to Tuss tomorrow for testing, hopefully it is reparable.

 

In case you're wondering, I've had a great Fathers Day as I hope all you Dads have and it was topped off by Ricciardo beating Vettel once again.

 

Cheers

Dad

[gav240z]

Has the head been ported? Possible that a water jacket was hit?

[Grandad]

Has the head been ported? Possible that a water jacket was hit?

 

Hi Gav

 

The head has been worked and I suspect it was ported further with the latest rebuild although it wasn't requested, I had to put in quite a bit of time port matching the inlet manifold.

 

I'm guessing the head is toast because of coolant in the inlet ports and what appears to be hair cracks and crazing, we'll know soon enough when it's crack tested.

 

Cheers

Dad

[Grandad]

Hi All

 

I just dropped the head off to Tuss who cast his experienced eye thoroughly over it and said the marks I'm looking at are more likely to be scratch marks than cracks also there is a core plug at the back of the head that has a heat sensor built into it so when the head is seriously overheated this sensor is triggered and altered permanently so the engine builder knows what's happened and any warranty is void but it hasn't been triggered so things haven't been ridiculously hot.

 

Tuss thinks that the problem was initially caused when we threw the fan belt and lost most of the coolant first time out because at that stage the head hadn't been re tensioned, his suggestion is that some warping occurred at that time and progressively got worse, when I mentioned the coolant residue on the induction side of the valves he suggested that could be caused by backfiring through induction which makes some sense because when I got back to the pits after Whittie came in I started the car to diagnose the problem and it did cough back a few times before firing.

 

The head will go off for testing tomorrow so we'll know the exact situation very soon but I'm feeling much more comfortable now than I was earlier today.

 

Cheers

Dad

[Grandad]

Hi All

 

When the car was with Will having the body done the engine lay dormant languishing in a corner of the engine builders shop, once the body was finished I visited the guy to try and hurry him up a bit and noticed he had a lot of young people working for him and I thought that as he knows this is a race motor he or at least his more experienced people would do the work but that appears possibly not to have been the case.

 

When I first lifted the head I was primarily focused on it and only briefly inspected the gasket for damage which initially I didn't find but did notice that that the gasket diameter was smaller than the bore.

 

This is no 6 where you can clearly see that on the left and right the gasket clears the bore but top and bottom it does not, it's just now looking at this pic I can see the gasket failure from the water jacket at 11.00 o'clock.

 

I wasn't initially concerned about the gasket thinking that the piston will not extended beyond the top of the block but in the quest for ever greater power and higher compression both the deck of the block and the head have been shaved and my research revealed that it is not uncommon for pistons to reach beyond the limits of the block and as long as the piston doesn't come into contact with the head or valves all is good and that would have been the case here if the correct gasket was used.

 

Just as the piston has a bright spot where it has come into contact with the gasket, the top of the locating collet is bright suggesting it might not have been modified to allow for the reduction in clearance, while I will inspect the collett tomorrow to ensure what I'm seeing is not simply flash back from the camera, this is not a good look.

 

Here's no1 and the gasket looks like it's been compressed between the piston and the head, there is also some indication of gasket failure just after 12.00 o'clock.

 

OK so much for the top side of the gasket, here's what I found when I removed it, evidence of piston contact top and bottom.

 

Failure at no1.

 

I'm now feeling comfortable that the head is good apart from some possible minor warping which should be easily rectified, I'm thinking my next meeting with he engine builder will be rather interesting.

 

More to come on this one.

 

Cheers

Dad

[lampy]

Thats pretty poor form by the engine builder to not check the gasket size.

 

That could have produced some serious pre ignition

[KatoKid]

^^^^what he said....hopefully get out of gaol free card.

[Grandad]

Engine builder????

 

Thats pretty poor form by the engine builder to not check the gasket size.

 

Hi All

 

Checking the head gasket when it's fitted really is elementary stuff so he scores a very big FAIL on that one.

 

As far as I'm concerned this engine builder now has three strikes against him, first was mounting the distributor drive incorrectly, second was using refaced (ground) rockers, I accept that is common practice and works well on push rod engines but the over head gear is critical on the L28 motor and a professional engine builder should know that and third is the gasket and head fitting generally.

 

I removed the collets and took a pic without the flash and one side on each is clearly shiny indicating that it has possibly been touching something, I suspect the head, the collet would only need to be a few thou too big to cause a problem, I will shave them before the head goes back on and it will be interesting to see how warped the head is.

 

 

Tuss now has the head and gasket and has called the engine builder to his workshop to please explain how the hell this could happen.

 

In the meantime anyone on the sunny side of the country who is looking for a good engine builder, from my experience will be well advised to totally ignore this outfit in Malaga.

(this pic has been removed)

 

I should here back from Tuss tomorrow with an update, I feel for him because this raises the question that if the builder is prepared to allow this quality of workmanship on what he knows is a race engine, what else is he letting through that Tuss then fits to customer vehicles in good faith, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at there meeting tomorrow.

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers

Dad

[260DET]

That's a rubbish gasket too, it's not perfectly round to match the bore. I'm not up with what's available for L engines but that one deserves a serious head gasket for a start. Engine builder deserves a serve for sure.

[260DET]

While I think of it there is a Z enthusiast and race car builder in Perth who posts on a forum I frequent, he seems like he knows his stuff.

[PeterAllen]

I've found that many automotive businesses use the words "race" and "high performance" the same way take-away shops use "healthy" and "low fat".

[PB260Z]

I've found that many automotive businesses use the words "race" and "high performance" the same way take-away shops use "healthy" and "low fat".

 

So very true, annoying but true.

[Grandad]

Hi All

 

I recently posted a pic of the engine builder's business premiss and mentioned that he is located at Malaga, I've just noticed that I have photographed two businesses and one has Malaga as part of it's name, I will alter the pic to remove Malaga Mechanical as I know nothing about that business and to my knowledge it has no involvement with my current issues, the engine builder I have issue with is at unit 6.

(this pic has been removed)

 

Cheers

Dad

[Grandad]

While I think of it there is a Z enthusiast and race car builder in Perth who posts on a forum I frequent, he seems like he knows his stuff.

 

Indeed there is his name is Martin Falconer and Zed cars are his life, we first met him shortly after buying the Zed and have got to know him well, what he doesn't know about Zed doesn't really matter but he's modest enough to regularly say he doesn't know it all.

 

To give you an idea of the type of guy he is we once had the Zed at the drag strip for a Whoop Ass Wednesday which is a night event for street cars and Whittie broke a drive shaft on the line at about 8.00 o'clock, we called Martin who lives fairly close to the strip and he said bring the car over I've got plenty of those I'll get the hoist ready so a towie we knew loaded the car onto his truck and we set of to Martins place, in no time the drive shaft was replaced and we were on our way back to the track, the officials were amazed to see the Zed line up again and Whittie managed a couple of runs before the night ended.

 

Interestingly Martin is in much the same position Whittie and I were when we met him he has a son who has recently started driving and Martin has prepared a 120Y coupe for him to get into motor sport.

 

This is him.

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/forrestdale/wrecking/datsun-240z-260z-parts/1055820156

 

Cheers

Dad