Kassem L hails from San Francisco and he brought his 370z to Z Car Garage because he was having warranty issues with the dealership. After some some discussion and guidance we installed a new clutch and transmission. For piece of mind the troublesome internal slave cylinder was switched to an external unit using the CMAK upgrade from ZSpeed. We went through the car and fixed all the little things missed by the dealership when they did a warrantied replacement engine (replaced b/c of oil-burning issue). Minor items like re-learning the windows and parking adjustment were comped.
Kassem visited ZCG again for suspension upgrades. We installed HKS 4GT coil-overs, SPC F/R control arms, and a Hotchkis sway bar set:
SPC front/rear control arms. After suspension installation we aligned the car and changed the oil:
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Kassem was going for a very JDM feel/build and chose his modifications accordingly. We installed an HKS intake system and the Power House Amuse R1 Titan Extra STTI full titanium exhaust system:
Before and after:
More exhaust details:
HKS Racing Suction twin intakes replace OEM units:
After the coil- over suspension was installed Kassem came back in to have the car lowered just a bit more. We handled this for him as well and the Z looks fantastic sitting over pretty Volk Racing G25 wheels and Bridgestone RE-11 tires:
Each year the Historic Sportscar Racing association (HSR) organizes the largest and oldest event for Historic race cars on the East Coast. It’s called the Classic Motorsports Mitty and it took place at Road Atlanta, GA from April 27-29. We attended The Mitty to provide race support for Randy Jaffe’s #46 BRE Datsun 240z (driven by our hero John Morton) and Alex McDowell’s Datsun Bluebird Coupe and Hakosuka Skyline.
Nissan was the featured marque for the first time with John Morton serving as Grand Marshall so naturally every Datsun-fan was drawn to The Mitty. I took a Thursday night red-eye flight from San Jose with part of the ZCG crew and when we arrived at Road Atlanta our paddock was an absolute feast for the senses. Nestled primely across from the front-straight footbridge, we had an impressive display of West-Coast racers, from L to R: The BRE Datsun 240z, BRE 370z, Comedian Adam Carolla’s #44 Frank Monise Datsun 2000 Roadster and Bob Sharp 610, Alex’s Hakosuka Skyline and Bluebird Coupe, the Friselle GTU 240z, Dave Stone’s Frellsen B-sedan 510, Jim Froula’s (Racecraft) Datsun 260z, our friend Glenn Chiou’s VIPS/Loren St. Lawrence 240z and Bob Clucas’ IMSA GTU 240Z.
Take a Lap With John Morton
At 76 years of age John Morton is still formidable behind the wheel. Here he is piloting the #46 BRE 240z that we prepared around Road Atlanta; the very same track where he won the 1970 and 1971 National C-Production Championships!
Well, That’s Racing
The sweet smell of race fuel, frantic adjustments, checklists, and engines blaring to warm-up for the next session all reminded us how much we love racing! From the on-board video above, you can see the BRE 240z performed well with John Morton at the wheel but what it does not show viewers is the not-so-glamourous side of racing: part failures. The Z ran great in Thursday’s practice but when we arrived at the track Friday morning, Rob told us the engine failed during the first session. He needed all hands on deck. What followed absolutely humbled me; the ZCG crew went to work in a supreme effort to get the #46 BRE 240z alive again for Saturday/Sunday’s races.
John Morton Must Race
To get a first-hand perspective of the Z’s revival I asked ZCG Lead Technician, Josh Corwin, to give us the play-by-play of the heart transplant. Please read on to see a video chronicling the events!
1) How, when and why did the engine fail? It is still too early to know exactly what went wrong with the engine. A complete teardown will be performed to isolate the root cause. I can tell you that during Friday practice, John Morton was accelerating up Road Atlanta’s back straight coming up the hill before turn 10, in top gear at wide open throttle well over 100mph. That is when a major engine component let go resulting in multiple holes being punched through the engine block, affectively turning the engine into a boat anchor.
2) What was the plan to get John Morton back on the track? Get an engine, put it in the car, put John Morton in the car, and put the car on track. Simple enough, except finding an engine that could perform was the challenge.
As word spread through the paddock that John Morton needed an engine, the Datsun Community banded together, and offers of engines came swarming in. Multiple race engines and high performance street engines were all up for grabs. All were seriously built engines, but none of them felt right.
Rob’s ultimate plan to excavate a couple E.B. Parkinson motors, like dinosaur fossils, was crazy to say the least. But, going with his gut, the resurrection of a true vintage race engine was put in motion. Half of the crew went with Randy to his storage to look for a replacement motor, while other half, including myself, received the green light from Rob to began the task of removing the expired power plant in anticipation of the Datsun Relics arrival.
3) Technically, what was involved with swapping parts and prepping the 40-yr old parkinson motor?
The old engine came out quickly, as many hands made light work. It was then tucked away into the back of the trailer, to be disassembled at a later date, as we worked on getting the car ready for its new engine. Prepping the vehicle was pretty simple, but there were necessary steps and precautions that need to happen to make this a successful transplant. We only had one shot at this, so nothing was left to chance.
Below, (L): Gary Brizendine and BRE Engine Chief John Caldwell lend a hand and knowledge: Caldwell is confirming the jetting on the 50mm Mikuni carbs. (R) The original exhaust system from the 1970s is removed from #46. Morton had already blown apart the exhaust tips on the first session!
With any catastrophic engine failure, one of the concerns is metal bits getting stuck in the oil cooler and lines. So, first thing is to remove the oil cooler and hoses and flush them out. Any leftover engine material in the oiling system can destroy a fresh engine in minutes. Luckily, Road Atlanta’s used oil disposal shed also had 2 solvent tanks, which we used to back flush the cooler and clean the lines of any possible debris. While all the reusable pieces were getting cleaned internally, we moved on to cleaning the mess of shrapnel and engine oil that coated the engine bay. Just as we finished, the oil cooler system came back fresh and clean, and shortly after engines arrived. We could finally switch gears to the reassembly of the BRE 240Z.
The crew brought back two “long block” engines, meaning the cylinder head and engine block had already been assembled. At first look they were identical in every way and definitely appeared to have been sitting for 40 years. Looking closer, we found one of the engines did not have the timing chain installed which led us to use the one that was “more complete.” We put a wrench on the crank bolt and it rotated 720 degrees, smooth as butter. The next task was to take all the undesirable accessories from the old engine. The 40 year old water pump, alternator, flywheel, crank pulley, thermostat housing, oil filter adaptor, and valve cover were all tossed. We then tackled a quick clean up, removing years of dirt and grim that had built up while sitting.
With just 1 week to go before the 2018 Classic Motorsports Mitty April 27-29, ZCG has been preparing several Datsun race cars. We are very excited to participate in this event as it celebrates Nissan’s racing heritage. Make sure to view the race schedule to catch all of the Datsun/Nissan action and activities in the paddock! Here is the roll call for your West Coast vintage Datsun racers making the trip to Road Atlanta in Georgia.
Introducing SORABIRD
Alex McDowell is racing his Bluebird SSS Coupe for the first time since it arrived at Z Car Garage after winning from our friends at Bring A Trailer. Unfortunately, the Bluebird was never raced for several years under previous owner Adam Carolla’s ownership. This will change in 1 week!
While retaining the two-tone color scheme of the Bluebird we changed it from orange to our favorite color Sora (“Sky” in Japanese) Blue. This is a factory paint color from the beloved ZCG Datsun 2000 Roadster:
Jim Froula of Racecraft built and raced this Bluebird throughout the PNW with SOVREN so it is excellently prepared. We dyno tuned the Rebello L18 sporting twin 50mm Mikuni carbs and it is ready to rock! More information and pictures on the Bluebird can be found HERE.
The Hakosuka Skyline
Alex is also racing is 1971 Nissan Skyline. The L-series powered Hako received extensive dyno tuning and some chassis upgrades. Catch Alex piloting the Hako in group 5 Big Bore Production with Boss 302s and 911 RSRs!
The VIPS Datsun 240z
Our friend Glenn Chiou will be racing his Loren St. Lawrence 240z. Coming off a stellar performance at the 2017 RMMR Glenn will be back and faster than ever after some dyno tuning at ZCG.
All three cars can be seen on the dyno demonstrating their L-series power in this video, enjoy!
The Frellsen B-Sedan Datsun 510
Avid Datsun racer Dave Stone will be running his Frellsen 510 in the highly competitive B-sedan field. All of the car featured above will be joining Jim Froula’s 73 Datsun 260Z on board the RacecraftNW race-transporter for the journey to The Mitty!
ZCG will be ready to support all of our customer race cars:
The Rock Vest Datsun Roadster
Michael Anderson’s recently acquired Rock Vest 2000 is already on the way to The Mitty! We are stoked to see this historically significant roadster brought back to life winning at the race track!
The BRE Datsun 240z driven by John Morton at The Mitty
We are extremely thankful and stoked that owner Randy Jaffe invited us to The Mitty. John Morton is Grand Marshall of the event AND he is piloting the #46 BRE 240z once again! The entire ZCG crew will be running pit crew beginning 4/23 for testing through the race weekend ending 4/2. Following the 2017 Historics, we performed post-race maintenance to prepare #46 before sending it off to Atlanta:
For all Datsuns particiapting in the race you can view the entire Race Entry List.
We have more pictures in the gallery to enjoy. See you at the track!
Sam C lives in San Francisco and heard of ZCG last summer while at a local bowling alley near our shop in San Jose. His 1973 Datsun 240z had been sitting for several years and after reading zcarblog he wanted to bring it back to life.
We performed an inspection and found that the car needed attention in several areas. Starting with the cooling system, all hoses were replaced and a Koyo race radiator installed.
The problematic ’73 model SU carbs were replaced with earlier Z-Therapy units. All smog equipment was deleted. An MSA header was installed and the older igntion system was upgraded to Pertronix:
In short, we performed a mechanical resotorationthat this car could perform as it should after years of being idle, including a new battery and recharged the vintage air conditioning system. Here are a few pictures of engine bay completed and detailed:
With the engine bay sorted we turned to the chassis. The entire suspension was removed, dis-assembled and media blasted before sending off to be zinc’d and powdercoated. New parts consisted of 5-way Tociko struts with Eibach springs, MacPherson strut bumpstops, T3 adjustable rear control arms, and adjustable T/C rods and new wheel bearings. ALL bushings were replaced including the rack bushings, ball joints and front control arm bushings.
A set of gorgeous 16×7 11mm offset Panasports with 225/50/16 Yokohama S-Drive tires was mounted rounds out the chassis upgrades:
The ZCG Big Brake Kit
The pièce de résistance of Sam’s restoration is the Z Car Garage Big-Brake Kit for small wheels. With our pre-production testing finalized, we are happy to install the first batch on several customer cars like Sam’s, Glenn’s and others.
Following our successful, larger ZCG BBK, this smaller BBK was designed with Tyler from Stoptech as a direct bolt in solution for the 1970 to 1978 S30 Z cars. We’ve been with Stoptech since the beginning and love their products, we even came up with the slogan “Stoptech or don’t stop at all”!
Specifics
Calipers: Stoptech ST42 4-piston front & rear race calipers (Alum 6061 mil-spec Type III anodized)
Rotors: 280mm x 20.6 with Alum 7075 hats
Pads: Stoptech 309 sport street pads
As installed on Sam’s S30, the brake kit is beautiful and functional. Track tested under hard racing conditions and rigorous street testing as well. Factory parking brake functionality is retained by operating a dedicated caliper:
This big brake kit will fit under 15″ wheels and some 14″ wheels. Once the BBK is available in our online store there will be a complete wheel fitment guide with printable caliper tool. Datsun 510 and Roadster brake kits coming soon!
Sam’s Z was detailed by our friend at JB Mobile and the paint looks great. Thank you Sam for letting us get your Z back on the road. Enjoy The Ride!
Jose B is from Antioch, CA and knows our customer Richard M (ZCG-modified 370z). After getting into an accident with his 370z, Jose went to several shops to identify a peculiar squeak coming from the front end. Unfortunately the squeak was not resolved so Jose visited ZCG to sort it out. We spent time going over the suspension and other areas to identify the source of the squeak and found that one of the motor mounts was completely broken:
In addition to replacing the driver’s side motor mount, Jose wanted us to install some parts he had purchased online. Here is a full Motordyne exhaust system including their Long Tube XYZ stepped headers with Helmholtz module:
A few shots of the exhaust installation:
We also installed Stillen Gen 3 intakes:
With the motor mount sorted and new parts installed Jose wanted to have the Z UPREV tuned. This was a wise decision, especially with the new bolt-ons. Historically we have made good power with simple bolt-ons to the VQ37 and we were surprised by Jose’s Z34. The Z baselined at 295hp/245tq to the wheels and with UPREV tuning put down 344hp/266tq to the wheels!
Peak gains of almost 50hp and 21tq at the wheels is impressive! Enjoy The Ride Jose!
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