PZG302

Pity you are down in Mexico. I have one that has been sitting under my garage for a few years you could have.

Well depends on what you consider expensive? My back of the drink coaster cost estimate, you'd be up at around $30K to have that engine in the hole and running even with no fabrication skills. That's assuming the engine doesn't go for more than around $17K to $18k. Custom exhaust about $3k going on what it costs to make a six cylinder one off manifold for a hemi six, ECU's are cheap, so around $2,5 to $3K. Wiring would be a pain, but with the engine harness included not insurmountable with some time and patience. A bit of fabrication for engine mounts and bell housing, get a six speed gearbox for around $6k. So yeah, about what you'd spend on an L series to get the same power as the fezza motor....

As you said above, yes the good tyres for suspension set up, but also important for other factors as well. Depending on levels of grip between them, you can mask other deficiencies using the cheapies that all of a sudden show up when you bolt the good tyres on and go fast for the first time. A car that was predictable as it got the edge of grip and slid nicely, may on stickier tyres hold and hold and then just snap you around. Generally on cars as agricultural as a Zed, it probably won't be an issue, but it may be. Especially if your cheap tyres are a few seconds off the pace of the good tyres. The extra pace comes from the extra grip for higher and more sustained cornering speeds. An exaggerated case of this, and only used here for demonstration, was the final year of the old series production and first year of Group C racing where proper race tyres (slicks) were used plus the introduction of the Falcon Coupes. The engines started to destroy themselves due to oil surge caused by the extra grip of the stickier and much wider tyres run between the old XY sedan and the new XA coupe. Personally I also had similar issues for a while when I went from Street sedans to the old version of IPRA in a 180BSSS. The old tyres were dunlop Ducaros, a reasonable street tyre of the day and overnight I went to Bridgestone RE005 semi slicks, cue oil problems and an excuse to get a 2.2 litre L18 put in the hole.....

Be careful with that, it can bite you on the arse badly.

Slicks are more consistent than R spec and better grip and consequently when set up a car is easier to drive faster than on treaded tyres. When they do let go it is at a much higher threshold than treaded tyres, except for maybe the Hoosier cheater tyres. Each to their own, but for me, if the category/class allows for slicks, then that's the way I would go.

Why not??? Once you go bald you never go back.... If the rules allow it I would run slicks every time, mindful of course that you need to set the car up for them. The extra grip compared to any "R" spec treaded tyre is awesome. Only downside is that for radials, when they let go, they let go quickly and can be pretty hard to catch. And find the right sources, they are cheap.....

No problem running with a CIG locker, I did for many years with no problems. I just made sure my set up took that into account. Hopefully this post gives you a bit of a comparison and where you may head to in setting your car up. It seems like there is an inherent balance problem with the car that needs to be resolved first before you go looking at ARB adjustment. As Lurch stated, adjusting roll bars is the last step after everything has been sorted. I would be going back to basics and looking at the simple things, spring rates, dampers, wheel alignment and even bushes being used. It's been a long time since I had the green monster but here was the suspension set up it had from memory: Koni adjustable dampers Car 240Z built to CAMS 2B rules, track only running 18"x8" wheels with full slicks. Standard struts with spring perches dropped 2 inches to lower static height of car whilst retaining full spring and shock length. Rates - front 450lb/inch, rear 420lb/inch The front arms and location were standard, but the rear was played around with a little to try to get some anti-squat and anti-dive happening. Bushes were a mix of nolathane and rubber front and rear to tighten up the suspension on general, but let it move where it needed. Front bar was from memory one size up from standard, but hazy on that, and with no rear bar. Slicks were 240/640/18, it also ran 225/50/15 Toyo RA1's as wets or hillclimb tyres on the same set up. In the wet on the circuit it still worked very well, but you could overpower the rear tyres pretty easy. For hill climbs, I could light up the rears for first and second if I showed no symapthy, but a dry hill climb run was pretty predictable Power was 200rwhp and plenty of torque, 210 or so ftlb. The motor was a lazy truck motor, so didn;t rev hard, but pulled better than a 14 year old. In a car with a proper LSD it would be very oversteery, as it was set up to try to remove the understeer inherent with a locker. You could induce oversteer with hamfisted use of the throttle at corner exit, or if you jumped on the throttle too quick would induce understeer as the diff tried to push you straight ahead. Once we had the damper adjustments sorted and a preferred wheel alignment, basically as much castor as we could and as much front neg. camber we mainly played with front and rear toe, and I can't remember what we ended up with, but it was checked a couple of times a year and that was it, never touched it once we had it sorted. This picture shows the car at full suspension travel (droop on the front right, compression on the front left and just starting to apply throttle taking a very late apex for the run down the hill) at Eastern Loop at Lakeside. It was very stiff compared to most zeds when it was built.

I'm staying in the gutter, I rarely get out of the gutter, but really, we all know that the AU was the pinnacle of automotive engineering and excellence, it has no peers, it is just the best.

Exactly, that Stagea is just a poor imitation of the pinnacle of automotive engineering that is an AUII wagon Forte on LPG

Is that Lee's car or Greg Quince's car???

That's the beauty of Nissan/Datsun...... The homologation documents don't mention cast numbers for the manifolds, nor do they have many details on the throttle body. The N47 inlet manifold does come off a L28, but I have absolutely no idea which one..... It is not your usual L28DET manifold, and as I have said previously I have only ever seen one other. The manifold to avoid is the NAPS manifold with the twin butterfly throttle body. The twin butterflies combined area is actually smaller than the more usual single ones and the airflow is disrupted, especially at higher speed running of the engine.

Yes but there are few tweaks that can be done and there are a few different throttle bodies that can be used and also inlet manifolds. My green car ran a standard jetronic computer for a couple of seasons before changing over to the Haltech F9 when it was the gun computer. The guys that played with mine discovered a way to double pulse the injectors so it thought it was running teh V12 XJS Jag that that computer was also used on. There a few other ways to get more fuel out of the jetronic computer, such as dropping resistors, that I have no idea about, but those smarter than me do. The throttle body I used was from a L20 turbo I believe, all I know is it was a period Datsun throttle body and only a couple of mm shy of the XF throttle body size that was the popular swap back in the day. The inlet manifold I used was an N47, IIRC, very different in shape the ADM L28 manifolds in the runners and also the overall casting was very different. I have only seen my manifold and one other in my travels, but it still seemed to be a better thing than what could be done within the rules to the standard manifold.

Pfft, you're not really CDO unless you get the letters in the correct alphabetical order......

My new cars are left for up to six months at a time without being started (FG Ute and E61 Wagon), and my old Merc hasn't moved in near 18 months. All I do for my cars is connect a battery monitor as they are new, and the BMW has eleventy computers that need power or I have to read war and peace to get everything set up again. When I get home, pre start checks are done to make sure they have oil, I check tyre pressures top up if necessary and then take them for a decent drive. The old merc will need some love when I next get it out as the interior has gotten mouldy from the humidity and being all closed up. I will also do an oil change, throw some new fuel in it as it is empty at the moment, pump up tyres clean the interior with vinegar to get rid of the mould and then jump start the battery, if it hasn't completely died. When I did a six month stint in NZ and had an old ZG Fairlane I disconnected the battery and pulled the points out of the distributor, more for security than anything else.

I think you mean Hitachi's Gavin. Datsun/Nissan used Hitachi Carburettors manufactured in Japan, not the British made SU Carburettors, unless the owner has done the common for the day swap of some 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 inch SU carburettors from a Jag, Triumph or other British car. Yes, I'm bored at work, you can only spend so much time writing a data management framework for a national road authority before needing a break

No id wouldn't Gav, with the current policy of privatisation, you would see costs spiral out of control with no return and even more woeful service than what Border Farce could provide. Just look at what is happening with the outsourcing of visas by the government, two potential providers, both with ties to pollies and to line their pockets. And look at the services and cost increases by those few countries that have privatised these services, for the worse.

We need more of this..... Fast and Furious "Barra the World"

We need to Barra the world..........

Not a Nissan, but my family truckster is a '07 BMW E61 530 wagon. 200 killerwasps good torque and does the Brisbane - Sydney pacific highway run effortlessly. Very comfortable for a long trip with the family and the rear full of gear for a 12 month old and a week away for the three of us. Lots of room front and back for passengers, rear seat passengers don't need to be an amputee to sit behind me. The car is surprisingly nimble and quick on a mountain road, far more so than a wagon should be and also has a few nice toys. It uses a very similar 6 speed auto from ZF as the FG falcons, basically same box I believe, which is awesome in any of the modes, auto, sport or manual. Only downside is my car doesn't have the paddles on the steering wheel, but can be fixed easily with a swap. I paid $17k for mine with 160k om the clock. Servicing it is no dearer than most other cars of the same vintage through an independent workshop. Fuel usage is good, around town i get about 600km to the tank and an easy 800km on the highway, and I don't spare the horses when punting around town. Look for a 07/07 build or later with the LCI update, nicer than the earlier pre LCI cars. I looked at a few family wagon options including Stageas and a few other euros like 300 mercs, plus a 300c SRT and for me I kept coming back to the Bimmer for what I wanted/needed. Depending on budget, you may be able to find the later F series wagons which are a step up again.

Aero is limited by the rule book. 2F is very limited over what came standard, and no race specials aero from memory. 2B is less restrictive, but wing sizes are small, 400mm chord width, 250mm above the rear boot or hatch lid and only as wide as the body, or a 150mm tall spoiler Also, you need to decide on the class first, and then read the rule book, read it again, get someone else to read it and then build the car to meet the rule book. 2F, there is some scope for modifications, but not a lot, gearing for example, the diff can only use homologated ratios, so the favoured 4.3 may not be legal for 2F, but is fine for 2B. You have a fair few restrictions on susension location points and what mods you can make to the suspension in 2F, 2B is basically a free for all as long as you run the same type, ie struts for struts, multilink for multilink and so on, plus mounting points can be moved around a bit. 2B you can go a lot further with modifications, which makes it a lot cheaper to do. Having looked at drift cars and IPRA cars as a base for a Prod Sports car to replace the old Zed, you will end up throwing away a lot of the work done to comply and fix the car. For 2F, you are better off starting with a road car, for 2B a bare shell to build a car right. I was taught something when I first started racing many many years ago and it still reigns true today...... "If you want to go tenths faster, spend your money on the engine. If you want to go seconds faster spend your money on suspension."

Well I have been around for a while...... And started racing before you worked out how not to shit your pants

Gavin Clay has a 350 that is built to 2F and he runs pretty well in the Qld series and Greg Quince is/was developing a 370 in 2F spec for enduros, unfortunately he had an incident at the last round at QR and the car looks to be reasonably bent, I don't know any other details than what was up on bookface. Both cars are very early on in development, but given time will be quicker than the MX5's. If I hadn't of started my build so long ago, I would have jumped onto a 350 for 2F, or the 350 that came up about 2 years after I started my build for 2B. The MX5's are really only in 2F, there are about three or so in 2B, with a mix of Lotus, Porsche and Ginetta, the occasional Corvette, an R35. Toyobaru 86's are also starting to come on board in 2F trim, and when the 86 series dies from V8 supertaxis killing it off, there will probably be a few more that turn up in either 2F or further modified to 2B spec. As I said above, an S30 in 2B spec would still be competitive, but your pockets deep as the newer models are cheaper to strat with for a good base and the support is there in the aftermarket for cheap go fast bits. My old green car, before it got bent, with another 50 or so hp would have been up there still. To get that 50hp was a very big wad of fun tickets that I didn't have.

The best diff would depend on the motor type. A high revving peaky screamer you would be better off using a 4.3 or 4.4 diff for the climb up the hill, but you need to be able to spin the motor all day to around 8000rpm to make the most of it. For a more torquey or more standard motor a 4.1 or maybe even a 3.9 diff would work best, but you will be using 2nd gear at the cutting and most likely Murray and Hell corners as well, and maybe even Griffin bend. You will probably be able to run down the hill in 4th, only using 5th to save the engine when you hit the aero brick wall. The main part of Bathurst that gets you time is the run across the top and down the esses. Big balls needed to go fast there and get that right you will have a quick time. The next most important part of the track is getting up the hill, particularly through the cutting to set you up for the run across the top. In coming down the hill, the set up for and through the Chase is more important than the straight line speed. Basically if you can carry more speed through the corners and get up the hill, you will go faster than someone who has concentrated on getting a maximum speed down the hill to brag about. The old green car never got the chance to do a full lap, but I and it did a few hillclimbs and Chase Descents over the years. I used a 4.1 diff with maximum revs being about 6800. Typically for the tracks I ran on using 240/640/18 or 245/650/18 slicks the diff ratios were: Amaroo - 4.4 or 4.1 Oran Park (South) - 4.4 or 4.1 Oran Park (GP) - 4.1 Wakefield - 4.1 or 4.4 Eastern Creek - 4.1 or 3.9 Winton - 4.1 or 4.4 Hillclimbs (various Tracks) - 4.9 and 15 inch wheels with 205/50/15 Toyo RA1 Using such a big tyre in comparison to most, I could always go one higher diff ration than others with Zeds could run. Going up the hill on the maintain straight hill climb which starts at the hump and ends at Reid Park I used 3rd for Griffin Bend and had the choice of holding 3rd or grabbing 4th quickly before the cutting. The cutting was taken in 2nd as 3rd was just a touch to low in revs to suit my engine, but I was looking to change into 3rd as I passed the big brick gate posts on driver's right and then held it flat getting into 4th as you climbed up around the right hander before you changed direction to enter Reid Park. Coming down the hill, starting at the first hump for the chase descent it was flat in 4th through the kink at about 210km/h going off the gear calc program and start braking at the bottom of the dip into the chase, back to 3rd for the left/right up to 4th under the bridge, and then back to second for Murrays corner. On the full track I my car would have been in 4th across the top, 3rd gear for the esses and dipper, up to 4th for the run to Forest Elbow, then back to 3rd for the Elbow and run it as hard as I can down conrod. I would assume I would be in 5th gear topped out at about 230km/h going on the gear calc program and speeds at EC. Lakeside and Morgan Park the car achieved. My engine was a truck motor with peak torque around 3500rpm with a fat curve under the torque and it ran out of puff at about 6600, dropping off power at 6800 and the engine being able to spin to 7200. I never ran it much past 6800 as there was no point. It did however pull very well out of corners and carried a lot of corner speed thanks to 240/640/18 slicks and good brakes, plus relatively light at 1080kg with me in the car and 60 litres of fuel for a one hour enduro.

At lakeside, to be a front runner in 2F you need to be doing 59's. for 2B, a 56. Not impossible, but much deeper pockets than I have for a S30. Hence why I went for a S chassis, dirt cheap at the time and so many parts off the shelf available to go fast. And now with the rule changes for turbo cars, so much cheaper to make a lot more power. Has meant a total rethink on turbos, manifolds and intercoolers, but the basic unassembled long motor I have in the study will be a very good base. The suspension all up has cost me about $4k for some very nice custom coilovers, and fully rose-jointed adjustable arms, strengthened cradle and solid mounted bushes for the rear. The most expensive single item purchased for the S14 was the cage, which cost $5k to be fabricated and also included seam welding teh emgine bay and the floor in the cabin. 2B would be the class to target as you can run a big stroker with injection with a lot of freedoms in suspension, gearbox and body. Weight would be the easy performance boost, mine was 960kg ready to race with around 30-40 litres of fuel. The only non-steel panel was the bonnet, and I ran plastic windows. I reckon I could have gotten another 10kg or so out of the car if I really tried. Things like rewiring the car, carbon bonnet and hatch, carbon door skins a lighter seat.

There is Richard, its called Production Sports Cars. There are even two levels of competition, 2F with limited mods and 2B where you can go further. But you still have to use the L series engine and no forced induction. My old green car was still competitive over a championship in Queensland, and looking at the times of the current Queensland cars, I would be looking at picking up silverware if it hadn't met it's demise. Only problem is you need deep pockets and a lot of cash to play in a car that is near 50 years old and be up the front. My S14 still owes me less than $15k for all the bits I have laying around and fitted. I just need the time to put it together, which is another couple of years off with my current work situation.