Evie 1972 Datsun 240z

[Cozza]

I think it's going to be a whole new car now with the gearbox changed, triple Mikunis and now the exhaust.

Be careful Gav, next it will be mk63’s, then a LY head, then a works cam, then some factory coil overs, then......

?

[Cozza]

BTW, nice work Locky.

Just wondering why you go from twin secondary’s into a single pipe and back out to twin pipes to the rear?

Is there any rear muffling, or just the centre box?

[gav240z]

Be careful Gav, next it will be mk63’s, then a LY head, then a works cam, then some factory coil overs, then......

 

 

Actually MK63's is already on the list of things I'd like to do with the brakes, LY head would be a dream, but might have to settle for an RB30 wannabe... factory coil overs if I can find a full set...

 

I also bought some spare pedals recently, might have to replicate the "works" pedals at some stage. . Halda Trip Master also, the list goes on...

[Riceburner]

Very nice, it'll look awesome all stickered up. Are you going the black bonnet/fenders too?

[gav240z]

Very nice, it'll look awesome all stickered up. Are you going the black bonnet/fenders too?

 

I have the flat black bonnet in Sydney at the moment (reproduction hood) which I was contemplating putting on the 72, but from the looks of it, might need some tweaking.. But yes I'd like to do the flat black bonnet and possibly top of fenders too. The real problem I have is deciding which "works" rally car to emulate. It's hard to pick a favorite.

 

I actually managed to find the Kobe Seiko rally wheels, but I'm a couple of rims short of a full set.

https://goo.gl/photos/rjYX5j9Fbyiejuox9

 

I was going to contact Alan Stein in Queensland, but it appears Rajon1972 beat me to it and probably had his eye on them longer than I did... there is reproductions available but still expensive.

[Agno]

Damn Locky, that's looking great! Love the trick clamp at the collector end.

[gav240z]

BTW, nice work Locky.

Just wondering why you go from twin secondary’s into a single pipe and back out to twin pipes to the rear?

Is there any rear muffling, or just the centre box?

I might be able to answer that. Previously the exhaust was completely split between 1-3 and 4-6 left and right. No gas flow was shared between them.

 

We knew this was probably reducing power, so having them merge to a collector at the end of the headers was a good idea. However I wanted to retain the twin set up but also tone is down but I didn't want to completely kill it.

 

Since I got it, it's always been really loud the previous owner who had the set up made used to stuff steel wool down the pipes to shut it up. That was ok, but it eventually blew out and would be about twice as loud without it.

 

I kind of liked the 1-2 sound between the pipes at idle as it would sound nice and grumpy like an old race car, it was just at anything about 4000rpm as Locky once described it, it would turn to white noise. ?

 

So the center muffler is an attempt to reduce the sound a bit as twin cherry bomb style hot dogs didn't do a whole lot to dissipate the sound.

 

I am curious if the performance has improved and dyno before and after would have been ideal, but I still think it will be loud without any form of resonator.

 

I'm sure it's not the ideal set up but it was a compromise to keep the twin exit exhausts.

[OdinZ]

It did sound decent on idle and starting to drive up the road at the CSA drive, but I probably agree with you, it didnt improve at higher Revs. Will Evie be coming up on Sunday?

[gav240z]

Hey Odinz,

The plan is to certainly bring the car and drive it! I haven't driven it since it had the Triples fitted, the gearbox rebuilt (260z close ratio) and now the exhaust change. It's going to be a completely new car. The only S30Z I've driven with Triples was a friend in San Francisco's 280z with 40mm webers. I didn't really stretch it's legs because it wasn't my car and I was still getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.

 

Locky says the car goes pretty hard now! I know on the SUs it used to feel flat above 4000 rpm probably because of the high compression and I am guessing the old SU needles were still for an L24 not an L28. I still haven't checked.

 

So I'm really looking forward to it actually.

 

 

So, I don't know if anyone else will think this is cool. But it's pretty exciting if you ask me.

I managed to find a classified listing for my 72 240z back in 1980.

To be precise it was Saturday 7th of June 1980, found in The Age - Melbourne.


So anyone know what the S4295 means? I'm guessing L.1011 is lot no. for the dealer it was traded in at?

The Air-Con was a surprise. I never saw anything to indicate that was fitted to the car.

 

And there it is...all these years I was wondering what the tube coming out of the firewall was about, I thought it had something to do with the battery acid drain from the original plastic tray, but it never made sense it went into the firewall.. Now I know, it was part of the AC fitted many moons ago!

 

[OdinZ]

Hey Odinz,

The plan is to certainly bring the car and drive it! I haven't driven it since it had the Triples fitted, the gearbox rebuilt (260z close ratio) and now the exhaust change. It's going to be a completely new car. The only S30Z I've driven with Triples was a friend in San Francisco's 280z with 40mm webers. I didn't really stretch it's legs because it wasn't my car and I was still getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.

 

Locky says the car goes pretty hard now! I know on the SUs it used to feel flat above 4000 rpm probably because of the high compression and I am guessing the old SU needles were still for an L24 not an L28. I still haven't checked.

 

So I'm really looking forward to it actually.

 

Cool! Yeah I can imagine the itch to drive it! I have only driven mine home from Hastings (mainly straight roads), without a speedo, and maybe around the block a couple of times. Well hopefully you get a good run of on the weekend

[lightmaster240z]

It will  may be some video

[Riceburner]

Those seats seem fairly comfy Gav, I thought they might be tiny but they're actually a decent size. Very cool!

[ScottyD]

Hey Gav how did Evie go with the new modifications ? You should have driven it back to NSW, it would have been good to see it this Sat on the Sydney cruise.

[gav240z]

Hey Gav how did Evie go with the new modifications ? You should have driven it back to NSW, it would have been good to see it this Sat on the Sydney cruise.

I reckon a set of Triple Mikunis 44s is the single best modification I've done to the car. It has totally transformed the car. It used to have loads of torque down low on the SUs but mid range and high rpm felt completely flat.

 

Now the car seems to pull like a train all the way to redline. It feels really quick, I drove my Rx7 home last night from Peter's place and realised it's not nearly as quick as that, but it certainly has an equivalent thrill about it.

 

It's hard to know if the exhaust change, gearbox rebuild with close ratio or Mikuni's is responsible or a combination of all 3 but the car certainly is 100x more fun to drive.

 

It does ping a little if you're not careful at say a hill incline and stamp on it, but we put some octane booster in with a tank fill up and that seemed to stop it. So it could still use a proper distributor curve and possibly dyno tune to get it 100% spot on.

 

I suspect the needles in the SUs were for an L24 and not the SM needles for an L28. So might explain the lack of top end power.

 

However the real big difference is that I can now rev it to 6500-7000rpm and it still feels like it wants to rev and has power.

 

A small thing I noticed was the Datsun Competition wheel made it better through some twisty country roads, over the bigger wooden wheel.

 

Peter and Bruce were in the 260z 2+2 behind us and said it sounded pretty good and angry ?. Seemed to look quick from their perspective too!

 

Has a good deep bass tone down low compared to a more raspy tone before.

 

I think Lachlan wanted a drive but I was having too much fun.

 

Looking forward to driving it again actually.

 

The brakes are a bit wooden on it, so may need new pads / resurface discs and fluid change. I'd like a set of MK63s up front with vented discs ideally. It's only money. ?

 

I have the white 71 240z in NSW at the moment and managed to get a fuel pump for it off Peter so will try and get that going soon.

[gav240z]

It will > may be some video :

By the way Bruce took some video, not sure what he captured and didn't. Hopefully he got some footage of it being given wide open throttle?

 

Another thing to mention is that my car already had an E88 head on an F54 (L28 block) with bigger N42 size valves and port work and a mild camshaft (we don't know profile yet).

 

So I actually think the SU's could not keep up with the engine modification and that's why it was a bit of a pig before. My old 240z HS30 102895 ran great on SUs but it did fall flat around 5,500 rpm as they all do stock.

[PB260Z]

Hey Gav how did Evie go with the new modifications ? You should have driven it back to NSW, it would have been good to see it this Sat on the Sydney cruise.

Hi

 

The current seats in Evie don't exactly encourage long distance touring, great in the twisty stuff though.

 

Cheers

 

PB

[gav240z]

So I visited Warragul today and dropped my "good" bonnet down to Lachlan, the plan was to fit the non-vented bonnet on the 240z.



I had sort of known there is some filler on the front-leading edge, but until stripping the paint back I never really knew what we would find.

Curiosity got the better of us, and decided to mechanically strip the paint off. Discovered some pretty average past repairs (some very average brazing) - it still had holes in it!



I shouldn't be surprised really, but thought it was in better shape than that! It will be repaired and painted a 'satin or semi-gloss black'.

Then went past the Old Darnum Milk Depot. Which has been converted into a private residence. Figured it would make an interesting photo. I took the 240z out for a quick drive just because why not?

 

 

[gav240z]

So I wanted to originally fit the rechrome bumper to Evie, but it's a bit too nice, given the paint has flaws in it and the front bumper was re-chromed 10 years or more back, but it wasn't done great.

 

Instead though I'm going to use the reconditioned bumper on HS30 00150 and I'm swapping it with #150's bumper which I've cleaned up with steel wool 000 and WD40. Sadly it has some faults that can't be polished out including rust. But it has come up ok. The flaked off rust is an issue. So I'm thinking I might cover it with a Mikuni sticker, Tow sticker or just some kind of period correct sticker. A bit dodgy but it's only until I can re-chrome it in future.

 

The left hand rubber will need to be replaced, thread here.

 

[gav240z]

Rust on bumper? Nothing a Mikuni sticker can't fix lol...

[gilltech]

Looks alright. Has patina. Just need the rubber strip.

[gav240z]

Not mint, but plan to fit these on the 72.

[gav240z]

It's a bit odd to see it with a bumper after all these years without, but it just looks more complete now.

@Léon has been restoring my "supposedly good" bonnet. Turns out it would have been cheaper to buy a reproduction, but it's done now. It will be getting painted and I'll be sending down some fluted inspection flaps to go with it.

[gav240z]

Someone's been getting a long overdue touch up...

Can't wait to see the bonnet all done and the fluted inspection flaps installed instead of the bonnet.

[hmd]

I reckon @gav240z leaned over to cover the rust on the roof line

 

 

Big Congrats to Maria and Gav.

 

[OdinZ]

Congrats @gav240z!!!!