Dave L comes from Carmel Valley and he visited Z Car Garage for suspension upgrades on his 1972 Datsun 240z. Prior to meeting us he added many parts to the car himself like a 5-speed transmission but needed our expertise for Z-specific parts. Our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and Z Car Garage CV Axles along with a dyno-tuned 2.8L L-series really transformed this pretty S30.

  

Suspension

 

The chassis was treated to a full suspension rebuild with new parts and bushings from Techno Toy Tuning. T3 finishes the suspension in our signature color and we really appreciate Gabriel and his staff. They make some of the best suspension parts out there for Z cars.

Stock vs T3 T/C rods up front:

 

Stock rear lower control arms were replaced with T3 adjustable units:

 

Dave provided us with a set of Tokico/springs from back in the day. We installed new tie-rods, Nissan ball joints, rack bushings, bump stops and moustache bar bushings:

   

 

ZCG Big-Brakes and CV Axles

 

Our readers are likely familiar with “Mrs. Butters”, our 1971 Series 1 240z shop demo car with full suspension and our ZCG Big-Brakes. Following a test drive in Butters, clients are sold on our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and Z Car Garage CV Axles! Read below for a brief description of these parts:

     

As fellow S30 owner/racer Glenn C mentioned in his review, on top of braking performance, pedal feel is extremely important and our Big-Brakes deliver. This is a direct result of working with engineers at Stoptech to create a totally bolt-in solution requiring no M/C change or additional proportioning valve/adjustments. All fitting behind a 15″ Watanabe or Panasport wheel (and some 14″ wheels) and retaining factory emergency brake lever! A few details below:

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

Blog posts documenting all of our customers running the ZCG Big-Brakes can be found HERE.

A few closer detail shots of the calipers, rotors and hardware:

 

We removed Dave’s stock brakes and installed our ZCG Big-Brake kit. Up front:

    

 

Our Big-Brakes utilize the OEM brake master cylinder and booster along with the factory hydraulic system. A few more shots of the front setup:

 

At the rear, the stock drums were replaced with our ZCG Big-Brakes:

  

Factory handbrake functionality IS retained! A few close-ups of the front and rear setup:

 

Following the suspension and brake installation was a full alignment:

 

The new ZCG Big-Brakes fit nicely behind the 15″ Ansen Sprint wheels:

 

Our Z Car Garage CV Axles help transmit power to the ground and ensure smoother operation compared to your standard half shafts. We have over 100 CV axle kits on customer cars and we are stoked with all of the positive feedback.

 

Dave received axle set #291. Stock half shafts and ZCG units shown below with more pictures in the gallery:

   

On July 10-12, the Classic Sport Racing Group (CSRG) hosted the David Love Vintage Races. Our favorite feature race was the Group 8 class with 20 sedans battling at Sonoma Raceway. It was a great weekend filled with competition, camaraderie and plenty of Alfas, BMWs and Datsuns sharing the track. Enjoy our report with in-car footage and photos from contributors Kurt Boden, Trent Barr, Nick Dockery and ZCG Crew Nick F and Josh C.

Z Car Garage Supports Three Datsun 510s!

 

2020 has been a strange year and we were fortunate to be racing again at Sears Point in the David Love event. Z Car Garage both participated and provided support for several Datsun 510 race cars.

Here is a video with sights and sounds from the paddock, samples of in-car footage of Rob Fuller, Tom Dockery, Glenn Chiou and Mike Anderson:

 

#7 Rob Fuller

ZCG owner Rob Fuller, Bay Area Datsun Dealers tribute car

    

Rob Fuller has not been in the Bay Area Datsun Dealers 510 since last year’s John Morton Cup. This car was purchased from Larry Oka as an IT car, slowly transforming into a B-Sedan. We sorted out the front suspension and this time the rear was attacked. From Rob:

“We installed the weight jacker set to adjust springs for ride height and a DP Racing sway bar that has the same design as the BRE car. Since the shop was slammed and customers come first, we enlisted our friend and fellow racer Troy Ermish to dial in the rear setup. Josh did final prep on the car and we were ready to go. The car did awesome with the back end of he car making all the difference in the world: instead of hopping around uncontrollably I was able to feed it throttle and negotiate the car in/out of corners. We went from middle to front of pack with Troy and the fast friends from RacecraftNW. Good times.”

 

You can see footage of Rob in the second race here:

Here is a great video with multiple angles showing Rob battling with Steve Walker (BMW 2002):

 

#7 Kelvin

 

Let’s talk about our clients. Three weeks before the CSRG event we got a call from Kelvin and he was testing his 510 that he just got from a local shop. It was sputtering and running poorly and by chance Larry Oka was also testing and referred Kelvin to us. We got him on the dyno and the engine failed. With a quick call to Rebello the engine was sorted, installed back in the the 510 and we handled all the prep work to be ready for the race weekend.

 

Kelvin had a successful race experience, finally:

“Kelvin has dealt with some issues on the car and this was the first time he had a good time with it. We were really happy for him. That’s why do this: we want more people at the race track driving, not fixing. It doesn’t allow to you to build confidence as a driver. You need to have a car that is reliable and works well so you can focus on you as a driver. Kelvin was super pumped. On test day I drove both Kelvin and Tom’s cars and they are fantastic examples of what a B-sedan can be. All they need to do is knock those numbers down”

 

Stay tuned for a full report on Kelvin’s 510. His friend Ed M was so impressed with our work that he wants ZCG to prep his sedan as well. Look for full report soon!

 

#72 Tom Dockery

Tom Dockery drove his  Ex-Norm Balzer 510. This car made its debut in May 2019  and we are excited to share its full story and profile Tom’s journey into racing soon.

   Tom’s 510 has an FIA engine so it revs really high making it peaky and hard to drive. Per Tom’s suggestion, a shorter gearset would put him in the powerband and sure enough…always listen to your driver! Tom really got faster and it was great seeing him out there. Car has been flawless.

 

510 Friends!

Many notable Datsun 510 racers were in the group, all sharing the competitive spirit.

#33 Glenn Chiou

Glenn drove the Ex-Finn/Harris U2.5L Trans-Am ’68 510. This car made its debut in May at the SVRA event at Laguna Seca. Glenn did an admirable job (as always) getting this historically significant 510 back on the racetrack!

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Glenn was fast. He charged all the way to the front of the pack, only seconds within Jim Froula and Rob. In-car from Glenn:

 

It is also worth noting that Glenn is one of the few “privateer” racers in the field. He sets up his own race car in his garage and his crew are friends Erich and Lloyd. We want to congratulate Glenn on the birth of his son! Kudos for racing and being a father!

#38 Troy Ermish

Troy is a phenomenal driver. He helped set up our 510 rear suspension too:) Watching Troy wheel his blue 510 his a thing of madness, finesse, skill and beauty. He took 1st place!

 

#52 Jim Froula

Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft in the Ex- Harry Stewart Datsun 510. Jim was kind to let us pit with his gang. He’s also a fierce competitor.

  

David Love race results can be seen below:

 

A Memorable Racing Event

 

It was so wonderful to share this experience with our friends and CSRG family. We look forward to another B-sedan event and special shoutout to Troy Ermish, ZCG crew including Nick F, the Corwins Josh and Keith. Running all of the cars above would not be possible without them. Rob is excited for future events:

“Of all the vintage racing I’ve done and been around, the B-Sedan group is where it’s at. It’s competitive, fun and you always have someone to race with. We will attempt to do this again August 8-9 at Laguna Seca. Glenn and I are gathering ~25 cars!. Look for B-sedan to become one of the featured groups with CSRG, SVRA and even HMSA/RMMR!”

 

More pictures in the gallery below!
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Z Car Garage wishes you a Happy 5/10 Day and Happy Mother’s Day! We enjoyed driving our 1971 Datsun 510s on a beautiful day in San Jose. Turbo6, our 80’s revival, is back on the road and running great with its turbocharged 6-cylinder L-series. Look for a full report soon:

 

Rob, Meghan and Tank were in the SR20DET-powered 510:

 

A few photo-ops in Downtown San Jose:

 

We got the Bay Area Datsun Dealers race 510 out too!

 

Enjoy The Boost in this video of the 510s in action. We hope you can Do It In A Datsun today too!

Randy Jaffe is an avid car guy and Datsun enthusiast. Beyond his fanatic attention to detail and love for Nissan racing he’s excessive–in the best way possible and we love him for it.  Several years ago we teamed up with Randy to turn his BRE Datsun 240z show car into a competitive vintage road-race car.

 

He was impressed with our work on the BRE Z and told us about another Z project that he was working on but stalled out in Atlanta.  We decided it was time to finish this ultimate track/street car with a healthy dose of his personality. The highlight of this Series 1 240z is a full Rocketbunny body kit with plenty of Z Car Garage touches. Let’s take a closer look at the build:

 

Origins

The creation of the Rocketbunny Z changed courses many times as the build evolved, as Randy recalls:

“I wanted to build a series 1 Radical fun Street car with a completely different look. We started off thinking we would do conventional flares and conventional displacement for a 240 Z. Then my painter Bryson was doing the bodywork and had just installed a Rocketbunny kit on a 350Z and asked me to take a look at that particular body kit. I knew of the first one completed by Sung Kang and I think it was the second or third kit to come to the country when we ordered it from Japan directly.”

 

“The paint color which originally was going to be Porsche’s lava orange evolved because of Michael Eberhardt to Porsche‘s late 60s color called Tangerine. Tangerine painted with a white sub-coat pops where Helen Keller could see the color! Since I am color blind, the brighter the color the better I can see it.  Bryson welded an amazing full roll cage as I decided to create the car as a street and track beast.”

The body was amazingly painted and caged by Bryson of Classic Livery of Atlanta. They are known for many high-end commissions including several RWB Porsche’s for Akira Nakai. Randy’s transporter trekked from Atlanta to drop off this gorgeous chassis at ZCG and our work began.

Assembly Required: Race Chassis Prep

 

The chassis was temporarily mounted on rollers while we prepped suspension pieces. Following the “race-car for the street” theme, we re-created the entire front and rear BRE 240z suspension setup. Everything that the #46 race car has is on this street car from DP racing front/rear struts, koni shocks, identical spring rates, sway bar, adjustable end links, plated finish…all of it. More pictures in the gallery below!

Front and rear:

 

Z Car Garage Big-Brakes

There are two versions of our ZCG Big Brakes  and the only three “racing” setups on are on the BRE car, Alex’s Hako and the Rocketbunny Z:

 

Stay tuned for our latest big-brake upgrade from the minds of ZCG and Stoptech!

 

Back to the chassis, the entire hydraulic system was installed starting with freshly plated lines.

 

DP remote reservoir and plated pedal box:

 

Z Car Garage CV Axles

Z Car Garage is proud to offer a CV axle conversion kit for Datsun S30 and 510 cars. We run these on our race cars and the Rocketbunny Z also got a set.

 

Helping put the power down effectively is an OS Giken limited-slip R180 diff properly set up in-house by Joshua Corwin.

 

Wheels Make The Car

 

The biggest hurdle on this car was wheel choice.  Wheels can make or break the car and they had to befit the “KAMIKAZ” nickname.  There was no way we would have a car with massive flares and not use every single square inch of real estate available to fill with wheel and tire.

 

We sourced some Panasport C8 centers and began a custom build with MemoryFab who was instrumental in helping us with fitment/barrel sizing. Up front are 17×10 with a 275/35/17 tire and 17×12 rear with 335/35/17 tire (NT-01R). At the time there were no other RB cars running a 335 in back! .

 

We spent many hours making the kit fit around these wheels/tires so there was no rubbing:

 

Everyone was pleased with wheel choice for KAMIKAZ, especially Randy:

“I had already ordered and received a set of Watanabe wheels from Japan however they would not work with the rocket bunny kit so when I sent the car to Rob Fuller at Z car garage he did his magic and created a set of custom wheels using a set of Panasport racing C8 NOS wheels. 10 inch wheels on the front 12 inch wheels on the back by 17s gives the car and unreal stance.”

 

Race Engine

 

We had Rebello build a nasty 3.2L for the Z running triple-Mikuni’s, 12:5:1 compression (110 leaded fuel) backed by a 280zx 5-speed. Randy gave us a blank canvas to assemble the entire car but ZCG touches really shine in the engine bay.

“I basically wanted my 46Z race car for the street and asked Rob Fuller to further tap into his magic box so we built a 3.2 race motor full race suspension and the whole 9 yards! Rob and his guys built an amazing car using special finishes on some of the metal work under the hood and the car is just insane to drive.”

Here are a few pictures of the assembly with many more in the gallery. Aluminum flywheel with twin-plate setup and comp oil pan just like BRE car:

   

Triple Mikuni induction:

 

Engine going in and detail work beginning. We re-created the cooling system from the BRE car and ran all of the chassis wiring.

 

The catch can, radiator and Datsun roadster overflow are all period parts that BRE used and duplicated for the Rocketbunny:

 

 

Interior

With drivetrain and chassis sorted we moved to the interior. Continuing the race car theme is a stripped (but pretty) body-color interior with that beautiful roll cage from Bryson.

The dash was covered in Alcantara. We installed and wired it up with period gauges. All switch gear similar to the BRE car:

 

A few more detail shots:

 

A Braille battery from our friend Gary Savage sits behind the passenger seat:

 

Sparco Pro 2000 seats:

 

Chassis wiring for Euro-spec lights:

 

ZCG door seal upgrade with sound deadening panels. The Z was nearing completion.

 

Enter the JGRBOMB

 

This was our quickest build to date so we could make a debut at the 2018 Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach, CA. The night before our roadtrip down to SoCal we applied a Jagermeister livery to the car. Randy’s inspiration came from his obsession with Porsche, and the Max Moritz Racing Porsche 934:

 

“I love race liveries and told the guys at the car garage I wanted to do the Jagermeister racing package on this car and they were not really hip to it but Bryson and I discussed it several times and we both thought it would take the car to the next level.  However I stuck with my gut and flew out to San Jose with the livery kit a few days before JCCS and after the first hood decal Rob and his guys were scratching their head thinking hmmm – This may not be a bad idea LOL.”

 

Rob and I finished applying the decals late in the night before going to Long Beach and we received a lot of positive feedback at that show and then the car came back to ZCon in Atlanta and won a Gold Cup award. The car was also shown at SEMA in 2018 where again the car received an immense amount of positive feedback.”

Indeed, the livery on the Rocketbunny (KAMIKAZ) Z looked fantastic and Randy eventually affixed the JGRBOMB license plate to match. We are happy to report that while at JCCS  Randy’s Z won 1st place, Best 240z in a class filled with incredible Z cars!

 

It was also well-received at Z Con and the SEMA show (thanks to Gary and Braille!). That’s BRE front-man Peter Brock and the designer of the Rocketbunny body kit, Kei Miura both signing the Z:

 

 

That BRE Exhaust

We wanted to do a BRE exhaust so we used the Fujitsubo headers and a straight twin-exit with megaphones exactly like the BRE original set up, Randy notes the white color:

 

“Of course BRE had theirs painted yellow from day one and still are but I wanted to do the rocket bunny exhaust megaphones in white to play off the livery. Many vintage race cars have white headers and exhaust so it made sense to me. So the audio level is the same as the 46Z and will wake up the dead.”

  

How does it sound? Check out this short video with a dyno run, enjoy!

 

 

Details

It would take multiple blog posts to cover all the special details throughout this build. Some highlights include fully polishing all trim pieces like quarters, drip rails, etc. Re-keying locks. Even the mirror was done to Randy’s liking.

Things like the differential temperature gauge behind the old gas fill door have a purpose and pay homage to the Datsun vintage race cars. Contrastingly, there are small modern updates like vintage H4 headlights retrofitted with HID units.

We asked Randy what’s it like to drive:

“To me there’s no difference in driving this and the 46Z it’s almost the same build except more rubber on this one!”

To us that is a great compliment because we set out to finish Randy’s vision of the ultimate street/track BRE-flavored Z.

“I find myself several nights a week just walking around the car in my shop and admiring the build that Rob, Josh and the crew at Z Car Garage created.”

We thank Randy for letting us be creative on this Z and it’s been rewarding to see his taste reflected in other builds. This was a fun project and we enjoyed every moment of it. Browse the extensive photo gallery and LONG LIVE THE Z!

 

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We are happy to report a Best In Class win for this 1967 Datsun 2000 at the 2020 Boca Raton Concours D’Elegance in Florida. Typically reserved for European and American marques, Concours events rarely accept Japanese classics to enter and compete on the same field, let alone a Datsun.

 

Acquired by noted marque expert Mike Young several years ago, owner Steve Tetreault took it upon himself to bring the rare Datsun 2000 roadster to concours-level status. Steve recalls how his Datsun was even considered for the event:

“After hearing about the Boca Concours in April of 2019- I decided to submit an application for the Datsun. I soon realized the category that I would be in was named “European Class Sports car” ’65-’75. I completed the application and submitted photos as required in June 2019 and asked the question, “Where does a Japanese car fit here?” In October of that year I received an email requesting more information about the significance of the car, and a few other questions, including more detailed photos”

Steve soon received an email from the nominating committee that he was in fact in the Concours! The class name had been revised to: “Foreign Sports Late” 1965-1975. He was in good company as well:  *1966 Lamborghini superleggero *1965 Porsche 356 cabriolet *1967 Jaguar XKE *1974 Alfa Romeo Montreal *1971 Mercedes 280SL pagoda *1970 Ford Capri Perana *1967 Datsun 2000 Sports

 

Steve describes his Concours experience:

“The 3 very astute judges asked to be left alone while they surveyed the exterior- top up windows up. They asked to see the engine room , open the doors and to explain the significance of the car and why I am showing it. I explained the rarity of a half year car, and that this car is #455 out 750 produced with factory options of 5 speed trans, Mikuni/Solex carbs, B cam, 7 quart finned oil pan, 4 bolt windscreen, and then referenced John Baker’s race credentials for Nissan. I completed the conversation with my true mission: To elevate the Datsun Marque and its ability to compete equally in any Concours D Elegance class such as the one I’m in.” 

 

 

To be considered for a Concours and then go on to WIN best in class amongst impressive peers is an incredible achievement for Steve. All Datsun owners can share and benefit from this breakthrough as well: it’s a sign that our cars are being taken seriously and command respect.  So kudos to your efforts Steve. We remember seeing your roadster at the Solvang Shows and now it is a superb ambassador! Here is SRL-0455 after a 6-month restoration by Steve, sporting vintage Enkei Comp 8 wheels, #665 Paint and fresh chrome:

 

Old photos I snapped from Solvang:

 

Speaking of Datsun Roadsters, this a good time to remind you about the big Solvang show coming up April 25th. I’ll post a flyer shortly.