We love to hear about Father-Son project cars! Liam O’s father has owned this ’72 S30 for many years and he wanted to restore it with him. They had the engine built by Rebello and a body shop perform final assembly of the the car. Liam was experiencing a heavy exhaust smell inside the cabin and it simply wasn’t enjoyable driving this beautiful Z. He contacted Z Car Garage and upon inspection we found several items needing attention.

First, we corrected some cooling issues and installed a Koyo race radiator:

  

Before we troubleshooted the exhaust/fuel smell in the cabin we fixed the exhaust system. This L-series cylinder head had square exhaust ports and the header that was installed on the engine had round ports:

 

We installed the correct, matching square port exhaust header (6 into 1) from MSA:

  

We replaced the exhaust system:

  

Next we tackled the cabin to seal out unwanted exhaust. The door seals were replaced:

 
The venting for gas tank and associated vapor hoses were all replaced. If they’re old and sweating fuel vapor you will smell fuel inside the cabin. If the car is not sealed up, you will smell exhaust. Sometimes it can be overbearing:

   

William painted hatch area to get a nice seal on the weatherstripping/seals:

  

We ended up going through the entire car, adding some nice ZCG touches along the way. The engine was treated to a major tuning session on our dyno:

 

The Rebello 2.8L street engine with SUs made 168hp/171tq to the wheels:

 

Engine bay all buttoned up:

  

More little things like painting the brake booster. We also went through the entire braking system:

 

  

It’s no mystery with the Z’s hatch design and aerodynamics that having no seal (or a compromised one) in that area will result in exhaust smell in the cabin. After we worked on Liam’s car we had reduced the smell, but it wasn’t totally gone. We have our own apparatus to run a smoke test inside the car to visualize leaks. We sealed it up and took it one step further by adding a high flow cat in the back of the exhaust system. Now Liam is driving this Z all over the Bay Area and he is tickled pink about it. So are we.

  

Long Live The Z!

More pictures in the gallery below:
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Love is in the air this week with three Datsun 510s at the shop💘 Each one has a unique history with different powerplants and wheels! Expect full stories on the blog soon.

Ben W’s SR20DET-powered 510:

 

Larry Oka’s Far Performance tribute B-Sedan 510 racecar:

 

Kurt’s iconic VG30ET-powered 510, “The Strutless Wonder”

 

Rob and the crew realized that all six of these S30s were being worked on and a brilliant photo ensued. Great shot Josh! Expect full stories on these Z’s coming soon to the blog. From left to right we have Glenn’s 1972 RHD 240Z-L, and Art’s 1972 240z:

  

 

Ben’s 1974 260z:

 

Rob’s 1971 240z (aka Butterz)

 

Erich’s 1973 240z

 

And Steve’s 1972 240z (white)

Rob couldn’t help but add some Van Halen moves. He’s got it bad for Z cars!

Stay tuned!

 

It’s official! ZCG is going to the 2018 Classic Motorsports Mitty April 27-29 at Road Atlanta in Georgia. This year, Nissan is the featured marque!

 

  

Road Atlanta has been home to The Mitty event for over 30 years where Datsuns dominated the racing scene. Names like Bob Sharp, Walter Maas, Jim Fitzgerald, Kirk Allegro, Don Devandorf and of course our hero John Morton have all won at this historic race track. RA was also the location of this epic Datsun commercial with John:

 

 

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 will be 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 4/29. Somebody pinch us, we are running pit crew again for #46 with John Morton…our last race event with the legendary driver was the 2017 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca. Following the Historics, we performed post-race maintenance to prepare #46 for its trip back home to Randy in Georgia.

 

     

He showed the Z at several shows including ZCon 2017 and Atlanta Festival of Speed and now it’s time for it to be on the track again with Morton at the reigns!

 

Our tent will be in the paddock alongside Nissan and their fleet of historic race cars! Please stop by and say hello, we will have refreshments and love chatting about Datsuns.

  

 

Datsun Racers Making the Trip

Sweet historic Datsuns/Nissans will be racing at The Mitty. We will be transporting the Jim Fitzgerald “Designated Hitter” car (full story in a future post) and Bluebird Coupe with help from the good folks at RacecraftNW:

  

We are very happy for our friend and fellow racer Glenn Chiou. He is making the trek to Road Atlanta to race his VIP’s Z:

 

We also hear that a large contingent of West Coast Datsun Roadsters will be attending: Bob Studdard ’67 2000 (owned by Phil Mendelovitz), Ron Carter’s ’67 2000 and Michael Anderson’s recently acquired Rock Vest 2000:

Bring Out Your Nissan/Datsun!

This year the Classic Motorsports Mitty is showcasing Nissan as the featured marque. That means the track and infield will be bustling with historic examples. Bring yours out and enjoy the weekend at Road Atlanta. We were impressed with the showing of Datsuns back in 2010:

  

Speaking of history at Road Atlanta, when we spotted this blue KA24E-powered Datsun 510, Rob recalled an inspiring story about its creator, the late Tom Wyatt III (Turbo Tom).

 

Tom entered his turbocharged L-series Datsun 510 at The Mitty where he consistently outpaced much more powerful sports cars. By the end of the day he was racing with the Corvettes and Cobras. He beat a Porsche 930 on a lap by nine seconds, and a race prepped 427 Cobra by 3 seconds. The race staff didn’t know what to do, so they gave him a custom made trophy and told him not to come back next year!  That is how you DO IT IN A DATSUN!

See you at The MITTY!

 

 

 

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day in the Bay Area, perfect for a quick drive in our Datsun Roadsters.  Our destination was Uvas Reservoir and I joined Rob and his family in Sora while I drove my ‘67.5 SPL. Leaving our meeting point of 76 on Foxworthy/Almaden:

 

Z Car Garage shop dog Kane loves riding in the roadster!

 

Despite being only 25 miles from the heart of Silicon Valley, the landscape near Uvas Reservoir is entirely different with farmlands, rolling hills and idyllic bridge crossings:

  

At the reservoir we flagged down this Datsun enthusiast, also out Enjoying The Ride! It was none other than David Carroll in his beastly 1975 280z:

 

 
You might recognize David’s Z as a contestant in the Optima Batteries Ultimate Street Car Competition and numerous road course/autocross events. Dubbed “570Z” when he initially ran a LS1, the  Z now sports an LS3 with over 500whp. Those are 315/30/18 tires at four corners! He gave us a nice fly-by check out the video below:

 

 

We snapped a few more pics of the cars and headed back home, it was fun to “exercise” the roadsters:

 

More pictures in the gallery below and remember, Datsuns Are Driven!

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