“Great Drives” is a new Zcarblog series highlighting scenic routes and destinations we have enjoyed from the past and present. Whether it is a nice cruise or thrilling adventure, we hope to inspire Bay Area vintage car owners to Enjoy The Ride! Have a great drive of your own that you want to share? Feel free to contact us on Facebook, Instagram or by e-mail.

 

Pescadero Beach, 7/8/18

Starting from San Jose, there are several fun routes reaching Pescadero State Beach.  Sunday’s Fun Run was organized by fellow Datsun owners, beginning in Downtown Saratoga heading up to Skyline via HWY9.

 

We had 11 cars in the group and joining us as Guest of Honor was Josh Martin, star of the successful Utah-based JDM Legends TV show.

Three Datsun Roadsters: my 67.5, Aidan’s ’69 SRL and Stacey’s 1970 SRL:

 

Three S30s: Dirk’s silver ’73, Andrew’s ’77 280z and Brian’s ’72:

 

Brian’s S30 was freshly restored, sporting a Rebello 3L, our ZCG Big-Brakes for small wheels and
ZCG CV Axles. Full report on his Z including dyno results soon!

  

Representing the finest from Nissan in the 90’s was Josh in the ZCG 300zx Twin Turbo and Naveed in his splendid 1991 Nissan R32 Skyline GT-R:

 

Our friend Matt drove his F2oC-powered Datsun 510 and we also had this STi(Tim) and 911 (JR) come along:

   

The blast up HWy 9 to the 35 junction was fun. After a brief photo-op at Sempervirens lookout we headed to Alice’s Restaurant at the 84/35 junction.

  

Alice’s was quite busy and the car show there was impressive.

  

BMWCCA was holding an event/rallye so parking was a challenge. I spotted this clean, Kouki S14:

 

From Alice’s I led the group down 84 towards the coast. This was my favorite part of the drive. We were blessed with zero traffic and an opportunity to open up the throttle and enjoy the turns. Linking each apex one after another was addicting, like the esses at Buttonwillow. Brake dust was wafting in the air from running hard!

  

Instead of taking 1 South we turned left onto Stage Rd (a route I learned from Glenn Chiou). Stage was bumpy but the reward was a nice, eucalyptus-lined stretch in farmland. Another photo-op session and my first time seeing Naveeds’s R32 in person to study the details. It’s the perfect amount of JDM style with the re-barreled Nismo wheels and subtly aero from Top Secret:

 

Sensing the mass of cars from the BMWCCA rallye headed our way we promptly headed into town and reached our destination at Pescadero Beach:

  

Here’s a short video of the Fun Run, turn up those speakers!

Weather at the coast was perfect and we departed via 1 and back up 84 for lunch at Alice’s. Again, 84 was clear and we Enjoyed The Ride:

 

 

Thanks to the organizers everyone had a blast! It was also nice to give Josh a sample of our beautiful driving roads here in the Bay Area. Stay tuned for the next Great Drives feature and enjoy more pictures in the gallery below!
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On Sunday we Enjoyed The Ride with several Datsuns on a local Fun Run organized by fresh Z car owner, Naveed Y. I drove my 1967.5 Datsun Roadster:

 

Rob drove his Datsun 510:

 

Lou drove his 1970 Series 1 240z:

 

Ty and Christine also joined us in their 991 Porsche:

 

Naveed has a cool collection of sports cars including an Nissan R32 Skyline and recently acquired this Fairlady Z:

He has been driving this S30 religiously and organized the day’s fun run, starting in Cupertino and heading up HWY 9. It was a gorgeous day to be driving Datsuns!

  

We stopped at a vista point just after the 9/35 junction and headed to Alice’s:

 

From Alice’s we drove down 84 and to the coast via Pescadero Rd. Though foggy it was quite warm and we had fun staging the cars for photos.

Naveed captured some great shots!

   

Naveed’s RHD S30 sported a triple-Mikuni carb’d L20A with a full Fujitsubo exhaust. Stay tuned as we report on the dyno performance of the Fujitsubo exhaust system on our shop S30:

 

Naveed’s Z sounded wonderful echoing off the forest-lined roads. Listen to the exhaust and watch a short sample of the fun run in the video below.

We had a blast, thanks for inviting us Naveed!

Enjoy more pictures from Naveed and us in the gallery below:

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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!

 

 

Datsun Roadsters hold a special place in our heart and we had the opportunity to tune a very beautiful example. Brian K is the owner of this rare 1967 Datsun 2000 #427. Although he hails from the East Bay, we first saw his roadster when we visted Spriso Motorsports in Oregon. Brian had just completed a full, frame-off restoration on the roadster and embarked on a long roadtrip/shakedown: Datsuns Are Driven!

 

  

After breaking in the Hasselgren-built U20 engine, Brian wanted to have the roadster dyno-tuned and test different air filter setups.  Here is the U20 below, sporting dual Mikuni-Solex 44 carbs, C cam and .040 over pistons.

  

We supplied Brian with the correct main jets for the Mikiuni’s and tuning commenced! It was interesting to see (and hear) significant gains just from the open (early) vs closed (late) OEM filter housings. Brian’s roadster baselined at 121hp/122tq and left with 142hp/134tq to the wheels:

 

 

 

The dyno plot reveals nice gains throughout the entire rev range in addition to higher peak numbers. Well over 100tq is available from 3000rpm to 6600rpm! Keep in mind this is on 91 octane running 9:5:1 compression. A good tune is priceless. Brian was stoked on the tuning session.

 

When he’s not enjoying his many Datsuns, Brian owns/operates a machine shop called KaD Models and you can catch him on Instagram under “kadmodels”. Enjoy The Ride Brian!

 

 

 

Our local Datsun Roadster owners enjoyed a great Sunday drive yesterday. I’ve been organizing these “Fun Runs” for several years and it always makes me smile to see fellow Datsun owners Enjoying The Ride on our backroads here in the Bay Area. We began in downtown Saratoga with a meeting point just before Big Basin Way. By coincidence we spotted ZCG customer James S in his 240z coming down the mountain!

  

The first stretch of HWY 9 down to Boulder Creek was exhilarating. We picked up another roadster on the way to our next meeting point in Felton:

  

 

The cars and participants

The six cars represented an assortment of colors, years and trim level. Everything from SU and Solex-equipped U20s to R16s and SR20 drivetrains. Shown above are 1970, 1969 and 1968 with their distinct rear end treatments.

John B’s 1969 SRL

John B recently moved from SoCal to the Bay Area and has yet to explore the fantastic backroads here so I was excited to have him join us. His ’69 2000 is a prime example of how a Datsun 2000 would have looked back in the day. Sporting period-correct parts and even vintage tires John’s SRL was featured in Automobile Magazine driven by John Morton!

 

 

I drove my 1967.5 1600 with SR20:

 

Joe and Lisa’s 1968 SPL

Joe is an avid rally driver participating in this year’s Faultline and Snowball events with the roadster.  He purchased it recently and it has a 5-speed from a U20. Lisa got some seat time in today’s run too!

 

 

Stacey’s 1970 SRL

Stacey joined us in Boulder Creek with his recently refreshed ’70 SRL. This car got engine/chassis overhaul and a host of upgrades. It was great to see stacey enjoying his new mods.

 

Aidan’s 1969 SRL

Aidan is the youngest roadster owner I know being a high school student.  He is restoring his ’69 SRL by himself and recently completed the 600 mile journey to the Mt. Shasta Datsun Roadster meet. We are proud of him.

 

Eddie Wu’s E9 BMW

Ed is no stranger to Datsun Roadsters. He owns the famous “SAKE RKT”, an SR20 swapped ’66 SPL. He didn’t drive his roadster, but instead graced us with another silver beauty, this E9!

 

Mike B’s 1967.5 SPL

Mike B has been my go-to roadster driving buddy for a long time. His ‘67.5 SPL is built with period looks and modern conveniences. He was our fearless leader/hot shoe.

 

After we met Aidan in Felton we headed back up 9 to Skylinetowards Alice’s restaurant. Then we took 84 down to Pescadero. It was fairly warm even at the coast.

 

After a quick lunch break at Arcangeli’s Bakery we took Alpine Rd to Skyline and ended at the vista point.

 

Here’s a short video of us Enjoying The Ride:

Our route:

You can see past fun run event reports here:
HERE

Thanks to all that came out it was a blast! More pictures in the gallery, enjoy!

 

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