One of my hobbies is 1/24 scale model car building. In the past few years I’ve focused on building scale replicas of friend’s personal cars. Rob’s 1970 240z holds a special place in my Z heart and I thought it would be a nice challenge to make a model faithful to the real car.

I made sure the engine bay had the entire RB25DET drivetrain visible with Greddy intake manifold, injectors, turbo and FMIC plumbing, BOVs, and that Interstate battery. On the outside I used Go Green paint for the body, Porsche Big Red calipers with cross-drilled rotors, Panasport-type wheels, and a photo-reduced license plate that reads ” GO GA Z”.  The interior even has DEFI gauges, a MOMO steering wheel and Recaro seats…just like the real thing!  Enjoy the pictures and stop by the shop to see the model in its display case, but please do not touch it 🙂

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Lots of exciting events coming up in May, June and July so mark those calendars and save the dates!

May 15: Duel at DeAnza

The NorCal 510 Owners Club is hosting The Duel at DeAnza autocross event in Cupertino, CA. This event has been running for decades and draws hundreds of entries and spectators! For more info visit NorCalUFO

June 4: Turn Z in Historic Races at Infineon

Last year’s event was a success with an impressive turnout of cool cars, you can see pictures HERE. Registration can be found on the ZONC page or HERE

June 26: Palo Alto Concours

We had a blast at last year’s concours event. This year there will be another vintage Japanese car display amidst all of the exotic and super-expensive machines on that beautiful Stanford lawn. Not to be missed! Check pics from 2010’s event
Show info is located HERE

July 9: The Annual Z Show in Brisbane, Ca

ZONC is hosting the Annual Z show in Brisbane, Ca. Old and new Z cars, roadsters, 510s, GTRs, and G35/G37 coupes will compete in stock and modified classes along the rolling lawns and beautiful scenic vista of the San Francisco bay.Click below for registration and show info:
ZONC2011CarShow

What a weekend! On Saturday we enjoyed a day in Solvang, Ca for the 24th Annual Datsun Roadster show and on Sunday drove back up to Laguna Seca to catch some vintage racing.

We always drive our Datsun roadster to the show but with a baby on the way we decided to play it safe and leave the Datsun at home.  Instead we drove the ZCG 370(still keeping it Nissan) down to Solvang where it was welcomed into the show! If you have never been to this small town just outside of Santa Barbara it is really worth visiting. There is something for everyone here: shopping, food, wine-tasting, outdoor activities, and the last weekend of every April a huge gathering of Datsuns 🙂

This year’s show brought Datsun owners from all over the country and even the Netherlands! There were 68 cars including roadsters, 510s, Zs and others from showroom-stock examples to wildly modified beasts. Here are a few show highlights from a roadster-owner’s point of view; it’s not hard to see that we love our cars and there is a dedicated following to keep them on the road!

Mike Young is known as a top Datsun restoration specialist and he won Best in Show with his fully restored and concourse-correct 1967.5 2000. This is the most coveted model of all Datsun roadsters with less than 1000 cars produced and even fewer still in existence. Mike has great attention to detail and it shows throughout the car even in the engine bay:

A gentleman from SoCal fabricated an entire roadster frame/chassis with custom front and rear suspension with the intent of selling to the masses. Check out the rack and pinion steering, tubular A-arms with coil-overs and linked rear end:

Engine swaps from modern vehicles are common into roadsters. Although Nissan drivetrains are popular leave it to Datsun roadster owners to buck the trend. Here is a beautiful ’67 1600 that has a full GM Eco-Tec drivetrain found in the Pontiac Solstice. I really liked the white faced aftermarket gauges:

Speaking of engine swaps and gauges…running the factory speedometer and tachometer (mechanical) with your late-model engine swap(electronic) of choice has been difficult/near impossible to do. Enter roadster owner and aviation gauge specialist John Frampton. Not only does he fully restore a 45 year old speedometer gauge to new, he takes it up a notch and modifies the gauge internals to work with late model engines. Brilliant. Here are 2 examples of his “electrified” gauges. A set of 67.5 gauges on the left, and ’66 on the right. Both are getting signals from the SR20 drivetrains underhood. Eagle eyes will notice the digital odometer in place of the mechanical one 🙂

Here is a small sampling of pretty cars with different paint jobs and wheels. Panasports and Libras are common but the new Rota “Rb” model has made it’s debut on a few cars:

People. It’s what makes the Roadster Show so much fun. Datsun folks in general are cool people. We help each other out. Tuning carburetors is a black art to most of us. Getting them to run smoothly and efficiently is not easy…unless you are this guy. Can’t tune your SUs properly? …[read more]

***ATTENTION DATSUN FANS***
There are TWO exciting Datsun events this weekend!
Saturday, 4/30    
The Solvang Datsun Roadster Show is being held in beautiful downtown Solvang, CA.

Sunday, 5/1
A record number of Datsuns will be racing at Laguna Seca with HSR on Sunday, 5/1

If you are a Datsun fan and love vintage racing come out to Laguna Seca this weekend! On  5/1 the Historic Sportscar Racing group is bringing an exciting event with plenty of historic race cars and several notable Datsun racers! If you can’t make the Solvang Datsun Roadster Show (held on Saturday) this is another way to get your Datsun fix! We will do our best to attend on Sunday afternoon where the Datsuns are running in group 3. We also want to be there to cheer on our favorite Datsun Roadster racer, Ron Carter!

So just how strong will the Datsun showing be? At least TWENTY 510s, Zs, and Roadsters! Come on out to ‘Seca and watch these Datsun vintage racers mix it up with exotics and other wicked metal 🙂

Yes Zcarblog readers, even those larger Nissans get ZCG love! Here is Rob with the story on this FX45:
Thad N and his wife Dana are big Nissan fans. Thad found a really clean FX with all the right stuff for making his commute a pleasureable experience. Living in the Santa Cruz mountains with all of those curvy roads this FX certainly gets put through its paces.
Thad has added GTspec bracing to stiffen up the chassis and intake to let that amazing V8 sing its song going in and out of the twistys.

His FX still had too much body roll in and out of the turns, and was also lacking in the brake department.
Solution 1: Eibach Pro-kit. A slight drop with some added spring rate allowing the FX to feel more solid during cornering.

Solution 2:  STOPTECH Big-Brake kt( BBK) kit with matching rotors and 309 pads in the rear. The stock rear calipers were also color matched to the fronts in red.

The new stance and big-brakes peeking out of the stock wheels turn this FX into a sleeper:

This FX is born again. Thad’s impression after the upgrades:  “the FX was amazing!!!”  After Dana drove she called to tell me that her G35 sedan needed to be upgraded ASAP.
So stay tuned this Nissan family has more upgrades on the way 🙂