1600dave

Are we talking a few mm or a few inches ? And why the dislike for bog ? It is designed for filling bodies, get a nice lightweight, easy sanding one..... A long straight board with coarse sandpaper, kept moving in random directions, should straighten it up.

Hopefully not on the inside of the dome....... They are a very close tolerance (rumour is piston and dome are a matched pair of selected tolerance items from the factory, at least for British SU's), personally I wouldn't touch either the piston or inner surface of the dashpot with anything coarser than very, very fine steelwool or scotchbrite pad if absolutely neccessary

"Better" in what way ? Race / street / etc ? You could give these guys a try - https://www.brakesdirect.com.au/ . I've bought brake stuff off them for a while for both race car and street cars, great service and good on price. I'm currently running a set of slotted rotors supplied by them (240K rotors used on a 1600) which from memory (but could be wrong, was a a while ago....) are Protex. Also running a set of their QFM A1RM compound pads. Both work well.

Fixed ??

Take skyline tailshaft and stock tailshaft to driveshaft manufacturer / repairer, tell them what finished length you need, hand over what will probably be a surprisingly small amount of money, come back a week later and you're set to go.

Do the drums have the two little threaded holes in between the wheel studs that you can use to remove drums by winding a bolt into the holes and onto the axle flange ? I can't remember if the alloy drums have them, or maybe alloy is a little weak for that sort of treatment - cast iron drums have them.

I have one stat which I will admit isn't a very large sample size. Out of all p-platers I have seen driving a 350Z in the last 9 days, 100% of them have stuck it into a wall at Eastern Creek in a big way.....

Wait till your kids start driving and see how worrying it is ! I've always been a little sceptical of the stats - as an example, the "safest" drivers according to some of the graphs are 95 year olds........ Perhaps "sceptical" isn't the right word, just that some are badly conceived. As an example, the age one would be better if it took into consideration the average distance driven per year by each age group. Can't remember the exact figures, but I did a training course run by CAMS for potential instructors back when they were looking to introduce their own road safety course (never got off the ground) and a lot of these figures were discussed in depth - for instance that particular graph looked very different when distance travelled was taken into account. Other examples - 94% of deaths on rural Vic road occurred on roads with 100kph limit - what %-age of roads in rural Vic have 100kph limits though ? Id say quite a lot (maybe even 94% !) The "high alcohol times" - useful stat ? Or just framed to justify curfews / passenger limits ? Don't get me wrong, both good ideas, I just fail to see the logic behind the actual stat. Rickers one above - 30% of deaths due to alcohol occur between 9pm and 3am on Thurs, Fri, Sat nights. Obvious answer there is that if you're going to get blotto and drive, do it at 9am on a Tuesday - much safer ! Sadly, statistics are only as good as the logic behind the stats, you can use them to prove pretty much anything if they are framed carefully.

You did get the bit where I tried to point out that no matter what / how you got insurance, that insurance cover will be null and void if you are driving a vehicle that you aren't legally allowed to drive ? ie you don't have any insurance while you are behind the wheel ???? You would potentially need to contact the insurance company anyway to make sure you are covered, even if you do manage to get an exemption - exemption only means the RTA / whatever its called in Qld is OK with you driving, doesn't automatically guarantee the insurance company will be OK with it.......

You could get away with driving it. Or you could be pulled up / fined / lose licence / etc. Or you could have an accident and be up for tens of thousands of $$$$ to repair someone else's car because your insurance (you have got insurance, right ????) is invalid. Or you could injure someone in an accident and be up for hundreds of thousands of $$$$. Your call.

Yeah, Sydney Datsun Club is indeed going to have numerous cars on display. Assuming they are running it again this year, the double decker bus rides around the circuit are a fun way to see the track up close and personal (well, perhaps not so "up close" if you're on the top deck) !

The 4 cylinder L20B has more links between the "bright" ones to make up for the fact that the engine block itself is 19mm taller. Datsun did mess up with some of the factory workshop manuals - as an example, the 180B manual states 44 links in text but says 42 links (the correct figure) in the diagram directly above the text. Set yours to the same as your old chain and you can;t really go wrong. If you use the wrong number of links, it will become obvious pretty quick. As an aside, I haven't seen a chain with bright links for years, but then maybe that's because I use non-genuine cheapies....... Originally (at least in 4 cyl engines) they used a gasket between tensioner and block, I believe the gasket was deleted sometime in the L-series engine's life. Doesn't really seem to matter whether you use one or not (although I personally do), I guess if it does leak ever so slightly it will only run back down into the sump

Did you check the wipe pattern of the cam lobe on the rocker arm ? If it runs off either end, you'll chew the cam and / or rocker to pieces.

One could argue that it doesn;t work on your 240Z with pertronix ignitor. Lurch has provided a solution

Easy, bore it to 101mm.

I'm halfway to posting them, they're all boxed up and sitting under my desk at work. They have been for a month or two (or maybe even three.....), just got to remember to take it to the post office. Will get it done this week (unless I forget )

I found this hidden away behind a pile of stuff. Also found the original engine for it (which hasn't been in the car since around the mid 80's) stuffed under the bench that the lathe sits on, covered in a pile of swarf.

Found this while cleaning the shed, back when parts were readily available.

I can actually move in there now. Feels good ! It all started because I'm about to build a new engine. But the engine stand had a blown up MX5 engine on it. And there was nowhere else to put the MX5 engine. So one thing led to another, and 3 weeks later it's tidier than its been in many years. Still haven't started building the engine though......

One could argue that placing your Datsun collection only a few metres from a large body of salt water is perhaps tempting fate....... I've been tidying my man cave up a little over the last few weeks. I now have potentially the most expensive parts racking in the Datsun world - initial purchase cost was in excess of a $1 million. The two racks on either end started life as IBM data storage arrays, empty the racks, add some shelves, add some more shelves in between the racks, clean up your shed (and find you have WAY more cylinder heads / blocks / etc than you thought, plus a gearbox that you can't remember buying......) and I now have room to work in there again ! And even better than finding forgotten Datsun parts, I found a friend to keep me company on those long nights alone in the shed, looks like he's living on top of a cupboard in the darkest corners of the shed, using 180B SSS door trims as a bed.

But nowhere near as amusing as when one of them discovered the same model and colour MX5 to mine being used to advertised, umm, "specialty" travel in Tasmania......

My workmates thought it was amusing when they spotted an early model MX5 parked behind mine....

As someone who has been in the market for a zed for a long time (took me 20 years to buy my last "dream car", so I'm not exactly an impulse buyer........), here's my take. 1. "In no rush to sell", "No tyrekickers", "No joyrides", etc - you sound like you could potentially be a difficult buyer to deal with, or you don't really want to sell the car (or both) 2. Its a "jack of all trades / master of none" sort of car. I see three types of buyer for these cars, those who want original, those who want a modified car to drive on the street and those who want something for motorsport. Original buyers will be turned off by the mods. Those wanting something modified to drive to cars'n'coffee / car shows will want the triple carbs and bling, etc rather than a roll cage which (in some states anyway) can be difficult with rego. Those wanting a car for motorsport will be looking for some sort of history / lap times / distinct category for it to fit into and probably more importantly a CAMS logbook (what regs was the cage built to meet, and would it still meet those regs now, CAMS cage specs have changed over the last few years). 3. Some of the bits on it just don't fit with a $50K car - checker plate floor mat / dash mat (what's under that ??), junk in the centre console. Just my opinions, I don't mean to offend but you did ask

No, only 2 valve I've been to-ing and fro-ing, but decided I want one last crack at building a "proper" L-series before I have move to the dark side of multi cams and lots of valves.

We're talking 4 cylinders, its an L18 so basically an L28 with a couple less cylinders. Looking to run a proper race cam, which will need a domed piston to get compression up high enough (12:1 or more), plus running FJ20 rods will mean a pretty short piston. Bore will be as close as I can get to 88mm, more would be good for breathing with big valves but I don't like my chances since the L18 starts off 1mm smaller bore than an L28. Hadn't hear of JP, will give them and SPS a buzz. Would rather keep it in Australia if possible but may try JE to see how much cheaper.