WA240Z

Sunday 18th October 2020. Datsuns in the Park

A belated Happy Birthday. This how the WA crew celebrated the 50' Birthday last Sunday

Its that time of year for the Datsun 240Z/260Z register of WA and Datsuns in the Park show and shine day. Sunday 20th October 2019. 9:30am to 10:30am park up. 2pm exit. Being held along the southern river foreshore of McCallum Park, entry at the end of Taylor street Victoria Park. This year celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the Datsun 240Z. All zed models past and present are invited along with Datsuns of all years. We have Nissan Australia supporting us by displaying a 370Z Nismo and 50' Anniversary Nissan GTR. Coffee van and food truck will be onsite. Please see the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/events/458520211666000/?active_tab=about for updates.

Mine are set up in the bottom holes. Not sure of the travel length, too hard to messure on the engine. When I was testing on the bench though before installing them the accelerator pumps could shoot fuel 6 feet. At what rev range are you bogging down when you floor the throttle? Even mine I cant just give it full aggresive throttle at 2000rpm, I need to wait until closer to 3000rpm. If you dont already have, I strongly suggest an air fuel ratio meter. Otherwise you are only quessing. i now have the pilot jets back to 55 and air corrector jets down to 190. Was running too rich at 100 -110km/h. Need to remember though every engine is slightly different due to compression, cam specs, valve timing, ignition timing, spark plug temp range etc, etc, etc.

Bump

I'm after a set of 6 x 55 pilot jets or 52.5 pilot jets. Before I order from the US thought I would see if anyone had spare jets that they are happy to sell. If so please PM me. Cheers Billy.

Oh very nice. I have so enjoyed this thread of quality workmanship.

With my cut n shut, extended 240Z airbox I also ran the rocker cover vent hose into the backing plate, just like original. The crankcase is run to a catch can with breather on top. After about 3000km there is no oil in either the airbox or catch can. Obviously there will be some oil fumes ending up in the airbox being sucked through the carbs, which is not ideal, but for me I was after a factory look over all out performance.

What a great looking car, well done, enjoy it.

I have a Nissan Motorsports manifold, even it required a fair amount of port matching on both ends. I am sure all aftermarket manifolds require some port matching.

Very nice looking car, I realy like the 14 inch watanabe and tyre combo, very period. I think you will be happy with the closed chamber e88 and tripple 44 combo on the L24, great fun to drive. Billy.

Hi Gav, When the fuel lines to the mechanical fuel pump are dry it is best to prime the pump. Get a small container of fuel with a short hose for the pump to suck from. Pull the spark plugs out as this will alow the engine to spin much quicker. Once you have fuel into the bowls put the plugs back in and try starting. Once it starts, stop it and connect fuel pump to fuel tank. Also check spark as Cozza suggested. There is really very little that stop these engines from starting with all the original parts. Before all else drain the fuel and put new fuel in. Make sure you use new fuel lines with good quality hose clamps tightened correctly. Dont want to hear about a fire. Check all hose clamps are tight before you start the engine. Oh and one final thing, just incase you havnt checked, make sure you have a rotor button in the distributor. Maybe someone pulled it out as an old fasioned antie theft device and forgot to put it back in. Good luck mate. Billy.

Hi Gav, When I did the cut n shut on mine for the mikunis I got the rubber from Clark Rubber. Found the two profiles that were all but identical. Worth going and having a look mate. By the way, just had the air box off today while doing a service, rubbers are standing up very well. Billy.

If you are after quality 205/60 15 performance tyres I can highly recommend Dunlop Direzza star spec Z1. I have been running these for the past 4-5 years. The 60 series side wall height makes a much better ride quality than 50 series, especially if you have any sort of stiffer suspension. Unfortunatly Dunlop have stopped production of these, August 2017, but Dunlop motorsport distributors have current stock.

G'Day Craig, My late '73 has an Atsugi fuel pump. I have no reason to think it isn't original. As for the coil bracket, your photo in the engine bay, it most certainly looks original enough and looks to be the same as mine. However, I would say coil brackets are one of those items that are likely changed over the years due to the use of different coils, not sure if mine is original. As I said though, from the photo, it looks great.

Hi Callum, Welcome. I am also from Perth. We have quite an active 240/260Z club in WA, I am sure we can offer some guidance in your search in local WA cars. I have PM'd you my contact details. Billy.

Hi Cozza, Fortunately there were genuine pistons and seal kits available at the time from a couple of suppliers on Yahoo Japan auctions, these were $400. The genuine pads $130. I had to take a gamble on the pads as I was unsure what the compound is, and I still dont, but they offer good initial bite and stood up well tothe bed in process. The calipers and disks, as these were NOS I consider then relatively uncommon, and its safe to say they were substantially more expensive than used Toyota calipers. But as has been the case with a few "sports option" parts on the car it is more about the overall direction I have wanted to go. Gav, after bedding the disks and pads in the stopping from around 80km/h is very solid with great pedal feel. Quite a modern car feel actually, and offers plenty of confidence. After 8-10 hard stops, 80km/h to say 10km/h, there was no fade. I'm using Bosch BF-600 fluid. I haven't had an opportunity to try 100 plus braking as yet, but obviously will. Controlling brake pressure to just under locking was easy. So overall very happy.

Well time for another update. The last couple of years I have just been enjoying the car with the usual ongoing maintenance. However I made the mistake a month or so ago of looking through Japanese online auctions, only to find what I have been searching for, for some time now. New old stock Sumitomo MK63 calipers for vented disks, also included in the package was genuine NOS vented disks. I have been keeping my eyes open for Mk63s for some time now, however most that come up look a little worse for wear. With these being NOS along with the genuine disks they were just too enticing to pass up. Given they are old and had been sitting around I also purchased new pistons, seals and of course pads, these being Nissan items, you know what they say, "in for a penny in for a pound". I then had a local brake parts workshop strip, blast, reassemble with the new pistons and seals and finally paint. So armed with all these goodies I then started to look at what was also going to be required for fitment. Firstly the disks, these were for use with 260Z hubs so some fellow members helped me out with their spare hubs. Cleaned up, new bearings, wheel studs and painted they were ready to go. Next the caliper mounting holes. These happen to be 14mm, while the strut mounting bolts are 12mm, also the flange thickness of the MK63 calipers are 7mm thinner than the original z flange. So time to crank the lathe up at work to turn up some bushes and spacers. The original MK63 Nissan Motorsports kit came with new mounting bolts, obviously for this reason. I will have new bolts made from a specialist engineering shop down the track. The backing plates required trimming, easy job, then I had then blasted and powder coated for good measure.Finally I made new hard brake lines between the caliper and strut and had new braided flexible hoses made from strut to chassis. Aside from having to spend a couple hours on the lathe for the bushes and spacers the fit up was absolutely straight forward, as it should be given they were sold to fit our cars as an upgrade. With the the standard master cylinder, sleeved a couple of years ago, and rear drums in very good condition I have found a real improvement in the braking, great pedal feel, good initial bite, and a lot less subject to fade than the old twin pots and solid disks, while offering that OEM option look at the same time. Few pics below. Cheers, Billy.

Hi Alan, Thank you for the offer. Can you confirm the 240k hub has the wheel mating face in the same position as the 240/260Z hub? I do not want to change the track width. And is the disk mating surface in the same position as a 260Z hub, so a 260Z disk can be used? I have read somewhere that some 240k hubs create a wider track. Billy.

Hello All, I am after a pair of good condition 260z front hubs. Please let me know a price if you can spare a couple. Thanks in advance, Billy.

G'Day Matt100. Are you planning to have either of them back on the road in the near future? Always good to see another zed on the road in Perth.

Outside of race track applications, or high horsepower engines, I really cannot see the requirement for brake caliper upgrade on the front or conversion to disks on the rear. This is of course only my personnel opinion. Make sure the master cylinder, calipers and wheel cylinders are clean and in tip top condition. High quality hoses and replace brake fluid with quality on a regular basis, I replace every 6 months as my car sits around a lot. Keep an eye on your disks and use quality pads, do all this and unless you are really pushing it on the road, way beyond legal limits, you should have plenty of braking capacity. And as mentioned above use decent tires, I personally use Dunlop star spec Z1s. Also, dont forget that the suspension components and quality play a huge part in braking performance. Make sure your shocks and bushes are in tip top condition. Keep in mind as well, as soon as you step away from standard setup expect possible issues with other components. I find one of the driving joys of our cars is getting the best out of them with relatively stock, all be it in good condition, components. All that said, I am on the look out for MK63 calipers, not so much for the performance but as a period OEM upgrade. More to do with my cars overall finish.

Cheers mate, will get an order off to them this week.

Thanks Lockie, do you order direct from kameari?