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ultimateforce posted:By the time you are ready to go on that idea I'll have it all sorted out for you. I have a similar problem to the girl that "can't hug every cat", but instead I can't own every Datsun. But, god drat it, I'm going to try, and I'm going to put turbochargers in all the right places. By "sorted out", do you mean beautiful manifolds, ready for giant turbochargers? Or do you have a hookup in Australia that can get those shortblocks? Either way, I can't prioritize things to save my life and any money spent on a Datsun is the most noble possible use. Basically, I won't be hard to convince.
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Dec 13, 2013 19:16
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 http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/cto/4237582743.html So this just popped up in my area. Old guy with 10+ Datsun 1600/2000 roadsters plus a 1500 prototype? 
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Dec 14, 2013 00:19
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C'mon we can't let this one fall off. I know it's the holidays, but drat I miss updates in this thread already.
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Dec 25, 2013 10:36
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Aw jeez guys. I haven't forgotten you, I promise.  Irony of ironies, I'm in California for Christmas and I can physically touch the car, but my pictures of it are on my computer in Cayman. As recompense, I offer you this selfie taken with the car.  That being said, there are some other parts of this story that have less pictures, and more words. This is a discussion forum, after all, so let's discuss... Carburetors This is a sore subject for me. This is a sore subject because I tried to do something awesome, and it's been a world of poo poo ever since. There are a series of problems that have become showstoppers for different areas of the car even today, and carbs are the biggest among them. I'll lead by explaining my awesome idea. In the 1960s, Datsuns were cheap cars, maybe a bit like Kia/Hyundai today. They got by in the world by cutting out all the fat, and delivering only the important specs, and delivering them in the cheapest way. Yes, it had a radio, but it was AM only and used a single speaker with a paper cone. Yes, it had door locks, but uh... good luck with that.  The carburetors were no different. Like many of its contemporary European rivals, the Datsun Roadster used one, and later two constant-velocity (CV) SU carburetors. Designed in 1905 [citation needed], there is no simpler design for a carburetor than this, and they're enormously effective and efficient for what they are. The fuel mixture is determined by the taper of the needle. As the engine loads, the piston is drawn upward, exposing a thinner area of the needle, which allows more fuel by. In this way, the air entering the engine is always moved at the same velocity, making for a very maintainable, predictable carb.   The SU, however, is a total dog for performance. When you put your foot down, you're relying on the action of the butterfly to induce load in the engine, which will allow more air and fuel in. Your foot does not directly control the aperture, which is a little weird when you first drive something with SUs. Now, you'll get some  action from some greybeard sects, and they'll claim that you can make all of the horsepower with SUs. These people are bad and wrong.So when people in 1960 wanted to go fast, and they knew that a carb from 1905 wasn't going to cut it, the next best design was something from the 1940s. There's some incestuous clusterfuckery that went on between Weber, an Italian company, and Solex, a French one, but the end result was a line of mostly similar two barrel sidedraft carburetors. Mikuni, a Japanese company, got in on the fun when it licensed the design from Solex, producing the much lauded Mikuni-Solex PHH44.   The Weber DCOE-style are the carbs you'll most often see on vintage race cars, because by the time anyone had come up with a better design for carburetors (again, about 40 years later), it was too late to put them on cars. All we got then were some  '80s sportbikes.So even today, most people who want to go fast in a Datsun with the original engine use Mikunis if they can afford them, and if they can't, the current Spanish sand-cast bullshit Webers that you can buy now. gently caress aaaaallllll of that noise.  This is what's up. What you're looking at is four Mikuni HSR 45s - an SU replacement. Mikuni makes these carbs for people who ride Harleys and wish they had bought a motorcycle that didn't use carbs from 1905. They're a flat slide design, and your throttle linkage is directly connected to the throttle slide. When fully open, the only obstruction is the needle. No air dancing around a butterfly, no constant-velocity nonsense. You use your ears and your noggin to figure out where to put your foot for that delicious sweet spot. If you've ridden a modern sportbike, you're familiar with these carbs and how they feel. Four of them in a 2000lb car with a 10lb flywheel should feel very nice indeed. If I ever get them. Aye, there's the rub If there are any Volvo guys reading this, perk up those ears now. I bought the carbs from John Parker of Vintage Performance Developments in Syracause, New York. He mainly sells to Volvo guys, but he has a very thorough tech page about the HSR. And hey! There are pictures of a dual kit installed on a Datsun Roadster. Perfect, says I. I'll get four, and show all those grouchy oldsters how carbs perform when they were designed in SolidWorks instead of by sausage grinders with slide rules. The problem is... I paid an appreciable sum of money for these carbs in March of 2013, which is seven months ago now. I've gotten one email from John, asking if he could delay two weeks because they were out of the size needles/jets I ordered. I've sent some increasingly frantic emails since then that haven't gotten a response. How odd, I thought. Is something wrong? Is he dead? Short answer: No. Long answer: God loving dammit. http://www.thevolvoforums.com/general-motoring/12556-john-parker-v-performance-no-performance.html http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=174787&page=3 http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=1532733&show_all=2 So I'm left with little recourse. After the Holiday season is over, I'm going to call John from a different phone number, and see if he answers. If he doesn't, I'm going to fly to New York and do some stuff in person that perhaps he won't like. There's lots of stuff I can do legally, since I have good records, but honestly, I don't want the money back, I want the goddamn carburetors. So here I sit, looking at a car that needs carbs. I can buy stopgap Webers, but I hate everything about that. Anyone in Syracause want to go be menacing in the cause of Datsuns?
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Dec 26, 2013 01:01
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Pretty sure that's his house address. I lived maybe a half mile away during grad school. I don't recall businesses on that street. Good luck, this project looks awesome otherwise!
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Dec 26, 2013 01:56
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So, a question about the choice of flatslides: I ran them on my SV650 racebike, and never noticed any issues with going from closed throttle to pinned that some people complain about - likely due to having a correctly tuned accelerator pump. Have you heard of any people having similar issues if you run them on a car? Also, they make a wonderful sound and the rattling of the slides in the bores is excellent, although it'll make people think your motorcycle is going to explode. With a full exhaust, the induction noise fills out the bottom of the noise range and the top end is filled by the sound of the exhaust and it sounds like the very hand of god going by. One day, I'll get an inline 4 with flatslides... Merry Christmas - I loving hope for the love of god that you get those carbs. gently caress people who take money and run.
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Dec 26, 2013 02:51
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You know, it's hard to tell, because most of the people who would benefit from these carbs are not the ones who would buy them or use them to their full potential. I found some carbchat on various Australian forums, and they all seemed quite enamored with them. I suspect that like most carbs, it's all in getting them set up right and synced with each other. I theoretically ordered a wide range of jets and needles, so hopefully I'll have the wiggleroom that I need. As for the noise, my basic concept was that stomping on the throttle in neutral should sound like a tiny thunderclap. I kind of regret now that I was poor when I did the engine, and I think it's going to be the weak link in my entire setup. With the exception of a few last piece parts, you guys have actually seen more or less the current incarnation of the engine. I'm not going to tear anything apart now that it's together, at least not before I run the car, but the future may involve forced induction and forged pistons / con rods. As for the guy who has my money and my carburetors... I have a lot of options, legally, but I'd like to do whatever will get me these carbs. If I don't get them from him, I don't really have any choice except either "use Webers" or "buy HSR conversion kits and try to modify the carbs myself". I'm not hugely optimistic about the outcome of either of those things, so I really want this to work out.
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Dec 26, 2013 03:01
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ironblock posted:You know, it's hard to tell, because most of the people who would benefit from these carbs are not the ones who would buy them or use them to their full potential. I found some carbchat on various Australian forums, and they all seemed quite enamored with them. Just get a 4 into one throttle cable and call it good! That's how it was done on my racebike, although I only had a 2 > 1 setup. It was kind of a pain in the rear end to tune, but once the cable stretched, it was pretty much fine. The nice thing about flatslides is you can see exactly what's going on as you apply the throttle, so you baseline them, get the slack right, and you're pretty much ready to go. I can see that this thread is going to make me add "flatslide" to my craigslist search routine...
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Dec 26, 2013 03:09
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ironblock posted:If I don't get them from him, I don't really have any choice except either "use Webers" or "buy HSR conversion kits and try to modify the carbs myself". I'm not hugely optimistic about the outcome of either of those things, so I really want this to work out. I'm not familiar with the HSRs, but have rebuilt a few SUs on Triumphs many years ago. What all does the guy do to the HSRs to adapt them to the Datsun engine? I assume there's a simple adapter plate to go from the backside of the carbs to the intake runners of the Datsun. That's presumably custom, but it can't be that hard to recreate out of flat aluminum. The throttle rod connectors in that picture look like they're off the shelf parts. And maybe there's some custom re-jetting needed for the bigger Datsun motor, perhaps the tricky part if they don't make appropriate pieces in the bike world already?
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Dec 26, 2013 03:38
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I'd always heard flatsides were fine at idle, amazing when wide open, and kind of crap in between - great for the track, not so much for the road. And that's on much simpler bike apps. Are you concerned about, I guess, "streetability"?
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Dec 26, 2013 05:02
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murphle posted:I'm not familiar with the HSRs, but have rebuilt a few SUs on Triumphs many years ago. What all does the guy do to the HSRs to adapt them to the Datsun engine? I assume there's a simple adapter plate to go from the backside of the carbs to the intake runners of the Datsun. That's presumably custom, but it can't be that hard to recreate out of flat aluminum. The throttle rod connectors in that picture look like they're off the shelf parts. And maybe there's some custom re-jetting needed for the bigger Datsun motor, perhaps the tricky part if they don't make appropriate pieces in the bike world already? Bike carbs usually don't have a flange to adapt. It'd probably be a machined flange with a pipe welded on to then use carb boots. Or gut the carb and weld a flange directly on it. Also, having been in a 200hp SU powered Z car, those carbs CAN make decent power. Car did gain almost 20hp with a change to DCOEs (dyno proven), but drivability increased ten fold. You can tune the response of SUs partially by filling them with different things in the dome. I heard that most race car roadsters run them empty or with incredibly light oil since they're basically WOT all the time. Webers are awesome. I have a Z car set, and I've driven my friend's race car, a 72 240z, that is as sorted out as humanly possible for someone with OCD and a small budget. Most beautiful to drive car I have ever had the pleasure to drive (perfect seating position, pedal position, suspension layout, and Weber's tuned to perfection). PS Webers offer much more "tuneability" than Mikuni's, as Mikuni's were offered as an option, and are much better of staying "in tune" than their European counterparts.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:12
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mafoose posted:Bike carbs usually don't have a flange to adapt. It'd probably be a machined flange with a pipe welded on to then use carb boots. Or gut the carb and weld a flange directly on it. I didn't realize bike carbs were built that way. Looking through the Mikuni website, it looks like you can get flange-style adapters to transition from the HSR body to your own flat plate intake adapter.
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Dec 26, 2013 05:20
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ironblock posted:If there are any Volvo guys reading this, perk up those ears now. You rang? His reputation in the Volvo community couldn't be any worse-it'll be years before you get your parts if ever, if the experiences of his customers on Turbobricks are any indication. If I were in your shoes I'd get your money back while you still have some recourse and source your carbs from somewhere else. Sorry man.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:12
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I went through the same thing restoring my 66' Yamaha YDS3. They were known as cheap junky bikes at the time and most were abused and scrapped. At one point I was waiting on custom made seals from Scotland, a seat foam hand made in Vancouver, and a NOS gauge cluster from Johannesburg. The last of those was just luck that a Yamaha dealer decided to clean out their warehouse.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:45
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I'll never understand why people will stick with carbs over fuel injection "for the simplicity." I can calibrate an ECU nearly from scratch, but if you handed me a carburetor I'd probably install it backwards
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Dec 26, 2013 10:01
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Savington posted:I'll never understand why people will stick with carbs over fuel injection "for the simplicity." I can calibrate an ECU nearly from scratch, but if you handed me a carburetor I'd probably install it backwards Seriously. gently caress that black magic.
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Dec 26, 2013 17:01
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Savington posted:I'll never understand why people will stick with carbs over fuel injection "for the simplicity." I can calibrate an ECU nearly from scratch, but if you handed me a carburetor I'd probably install it backwards Well, as long as you can hook everything up and it's not a spreadbore, forwards / backwards doesn't really matter on a carb.  I think most of the fear of fuel injection is the fear of the locked down and horrible systems that came out of the malaise era. Little to no actual diagnostic ability, no way to view sensor data, and no user-accessible adjustment to bring things into spec as age shifts tolerances around. A carb at least is usually user-adjustable. Neither hold a candle to an OBDII fuel injection system. A loving $20 bluetooth adapter and the cheapest Android device you can get your hands on will get you instant and real-time access to every sensor your computer sees, not to mention the actual trouble codes. I'd argue you still need a good dose of black magic to properly tune a fuel injection system, but these days that black magic can be packaged into a chip / sent over the internet and flashed by anyone with an AccessPort / HPTuners / so on and so forth.
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Dec 26, 2013 17:27
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Jesus, gently caress traveling around Christmas. Dulles is always a shithole, but that was one of the worst connections of my life. I've spent the day making delicious clam chowder and trying to get caught up on work. Holidays are no excuse for poor output, after all.  murphle posted:What all does the guy do to the HSRs to adapt them to the Datsun engine? There's a couple things. Since he has some sort of direct relationship with Mikuni, he's getting the carbs, parts, and jets without having to buy the Harley Total kit, which includes all the things you need but a lot of poo poo that you don't, like the intake manifold. To actually physically mate the carbs up, there's a rubber SU mount adapter that Mikuni ships in the Total Kit (but not the Easy Kit, the fuckers).  The rubber dingus (happily) works on the same spacing as the DCOE mounts, so the other thing that Parker is doing is ganging the HSRs together in pairs, hard-mounted together with DCOE spacing so that they can be used as a DCOE replacement. Thirdly, the HSR is designed for gravity feed, being situated under the fuel tank, so there's some modification he does to allow for normal carby fuel pressure (5-7psi). zundfolge posted:it'll be years before you get your parts if ever I have lots of air miles, and they do direct flights from Cayman to New York. Might be that if I pay a little house call, the wheels get greased... or, might be that my proximity to local government agencies in combination with some financial records cause Mr. Parker to have a very upsetting afternoon. Time will tell, lads. I really don't want to have to figure all that poo poo out myself, especially given that it takes me 11 hours and two airplanes to touch the car. Maybe if I buy a place down here with a garage... but that's a discussion for later. Savington posted:I'll never understand why people will stick with carbs over fuel injection "for the simplicity." IOwnCalculus posted:Neither hold a candle to an OBDII fuel injection system. A loving $20 bluetooth adapter and the cheapest Android device you can get your hands on will get you instant and real-time access to every sensor your computer sees, not to mention the actual trouble codes. I like 'em both, with the exception of '80s era garbage, which can gently caress right off. I think of it as being the difference between a paintbrush and a laser printer. If you hand me a paintbrush and ask for a meadow, you'll get my interpretation, and it'll be close, but it'll be artistic and have lots of character. If you want another one, I'll have to start over. If you hand me a JPEG of a meadow, I'm going to open Photoshop and tweak and toodle and then I can print you out as many copies as you want. I like carbs, I like fuel injection, but I like them for different things and for different reasons. Carbs are fun, though, and it really seemed to me that the HSRs would suit the spirit of this build. They're in keeping with the original intent, but they're also as good as it gets. They also have lots of room to play, in case I decide to supercharge later on.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:21
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Looks like the shitheel with your carbs is around 6 hours drive from me. drat, I forgot upstate NY is so big.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:40
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ironblock posted:I like carbs, I like fuel injection, but I like them for different things and for different reasons. Why not ITB's then? Best of both worlds.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:41
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ironblock posted:I have a similar problem to the girl that "can't hug every cat", but instead I can't own every Datsun. But, god drat it, I'm going to try, and I'm going to put turbochargers in all the right places. Yes to all of the above. I am restoring a 240Z right now at the shop. You'll see it soon.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:51
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kastein posted:Looks like the shitheel with your carbs is around 6 hours drive from me. drat, I forgot upstate NY is so big. The air is cool and silent. It's just before dawn, and rays of pink light are starting to creep over hilltops and into the sleepy valleys below. A golden-brown thrush alights on the branch of a lone aspen. She preens her soft feathers, fluffing them up as though to ward off the cold. She sits and waits, looking for breakfast. The branch quakes lightly, almost imperceptibly so. The thrush doesn't feel any breeze, and she is alone on her perch. What could it be? She cocks her head and listens. In the distance, she can just make out a soft roar, like snow avalanching off a tree's branches, or maybe a torrent of water splashing down onto rocks. Then, she sees it. Chasing away the muted rays of morning sun, the harsh yellow cascade of halogen high beams blasts over the rise. The furious trundling of the enormous diesel mill is nearly overcome by the sound of ten knobby tires chewing up the country road at 54 miles per hour. The morning's peace is shattered, but inside the truck's cab, there is a different kind of silence. A purity of intent, of focused will. An understanding between the truck's occupants that whatever comes to pass, whatever may have been ordained by fate, whatever transgressions against men and Gods are about to occur, that these things are right. That no questions need be asked, no answers need be given. As the country road gives way to to city street, and then to suburbs, the passenger smiles. The target is home. He and the driver share a moment of mute understanding, and the five ton truck commits a federal offense, obliterating the flimsy mailbox. A copy of Us Weekly flutters back to Earth in the neighbor's yard. With a grunt and a small lurch, the truck seems to regret its enthusiasm, cautiously backing its rear tires off the lawn while bringing its nose about. With the truck's formidable lighting array now aimed directly through the living room's picture window, sunrise has come early to one house in Syracuse. Red-faced and sweating, the man of the house bursts through the front door, flinging open the screen with wild abandon. His eyes widen as he takes in the scene in his front yard. The truck is still aimed at him like a ferocious beast, quietly rumbling sooty exhaust onto the petunias. Just as he puts his hands up to block the blast from those brilliant headlights, they're switched off, and the truck's doors open. IronBlock and Kastein jump down and form ranks in the muddy horror that once was the man's lawn, their jet-black suits contrasting sharply with the damage around them. IronBlock carefully adjusts his Rolex and clears his throat. "Mr. Parker," he intones, "you're late."
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Dec 30, 2013 04:44
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 While not the reply I was looking for today, it was quite amusing and you quite the flair with words.
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Dec 30, 2013 05:27
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 That isn't exactly what I was expecting, or even close, but it was quite amusing. It's more like an 8 hour, $300 drive in that beast  Has he sent you your drat carbs yet?
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Dec 30, 2013 06:02
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Snowdens Secret posted:I'd always heard flatslides were fine at idle, amazing when wide open, and kind of crap in between - great for the track, not so much for the road. And that's on much simpler bike apps. Are you concerned about, I guess, "streetability"? Last flat slide equipped sports bike I rode was a kitted yzf750sp and it was more like under 6k the carbs didn't want to know and made a sickly warble, above that a noise like a 707 taking off from inside the air box and incipient tankslappers off every bump in the road. Over here I think most people who run bike carbs end up having a custom manifold welded up, so couldn't you save money and improve on the SU by doing that and just using any set of 4 keihin or mikuni cvs off any low mile, large capacity bike from the early to mid 90s? Big FJ, an EXUP, gsxr1100, pre efi zzr etc? Or do you really need the presumably huge bore of something designed for a Hardley?
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Dec 30, 2013 19:41
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Really it was just a crime of opportunity. It's Mikuni's most recent design and has some improvements over the older "smoothbore" carbs. The fact that it's an SU replacement also makes it really really easy, wheras most bike carbs are already stuck together. It might be that if I get my money back and go to Mikuni directly, I could get the problem solved. This is on a CSP311 Silvia, but that's got the same engine/frame as my Roadster, so this is as close to a preview as I can get: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl6LoeHmrgs
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Dec 30, 2013 20:08
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Saga posted:Or do you really need the presumably huge bore of something designed for a Hardley? I'm guessing carbs for 4-pot bikes smaller than ~1600-1800cc or so will have venturi barrels too small to effectively feed his Roadster's new 2000cc engine. 2000cc/4 gives roughly 500cc per cylinder of swept volume, versus say, a GSXR1100 where each cylinder only has 275cc of swept volume and carbs sized to match that - carbs from an 1100 will be designed to feed a bit more than half as much air and fuel as the Roadster will need per cylinder. Compare to a 1200cc Harley twin where each cylinder sweeps 600ccs each and the carbs will be pretty close to the ideal size for his (nearly twice as large displacement) Roadster. He'll need carbs with bores around 45mm or larger (i.e. similar in size to a Weber DCOE 45) to feed that thing without being a bottleneck, so carbs designed to feed most 4 cylinder bikes will be far too small (most Mikunis for 4 cyl bikes are around 29 or 33mm).
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Dec 30, 2013 20:37
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How does usable RPM range affect the relationship of carb size to displacement?
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Dec 30, 2013 20:41
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Z3n posted:How does usable RPM range affect the relationship of carb size to displacement? It absolutely impacts it - assuming 100% volumetric efficiency on the engine, a 4.0L engine at 7000RPM is going to require the same amount of airflow as a 2.0L engine at 14000 RPM. Most carbs for American cars are listed out in terms of rated cubic feet per minute of airflow.
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Dec 30, 2013 21:14
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IOwnCalculus posted:It absolutely impacts it - assuming 100% volumetric efficiency on the engine, a 4.0L engine at 7000RPM is going to require the same amount of airflow as a 2.0L engine at 14000 RPM. Most carbs for American cars are listed out in terms of rated cubic feet per minute of airflow. So given that, wouldn't something like a set of 41mm flatslides for a GSX-R1100 that revs to ~11k be about perfect for his build? Carbed GSX-R 1100/750s of old came with CV carbs that ranged from 36-40mms depending on where they were sold, back in the days when stuff like that actually happened.
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Dec 30, 2013 21:35
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That all aligns pretty well with what I've read. The only exception is that the Mikunis were designed after the invention of computers, and they benefit enormously in the CFM department. I find some sources ballparking the 45 DCOE thusly: 32mm choke: 400 CFM 34mm choke: 420 CFM 36mm choke: 440 CFM This is what Mikuni lists for the HSRs: Stock Harley: 185 CFM Mikuni HSR42: 213 CFM Mikuni HSR45: 237 CFM Mikuni HSR48: 270 CFM I researched a variety of different options before I went with these. I've seen some 4AGEs running GSXR carbs, but that's a 1.6L engine, and I'm just shy of 2100cc. My big hope was for a clean, easy setup that wasn't hard to adapt to a DCOE manifold (in case I had to get emergency Webers). Also, with respect to the debate about streetability on the HSRs, it depends a lot on the tuning. They're thoughtfully designed, and hugely adjustable. My experience with these on motorcycles has been that you have to kind of feel for the sweet spot, and you can mess up your airspeed if you do wacky things to the throttle - not at all like a CV carb.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:35
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As someone dealing with Mikuni/Keihin/Del'Orto carbs daily on 2 stroke engines, I can't understand why you decided to use carbs on your engine. You'll have less horsepower because it won't be tuned well, performance loss with different atmospheric conditions and an overall lovely time spent swapping and buying jets, needles and adjusting things. Have you considered Megasquirt ?
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Dec 30, 2013 22:52
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Sh4 posted:it won't be tuned well, performance loss with different atmospheric conditions and an overall lovely time spent swapping and buying jets, needles and adjusting things. You just listed all the fun stuff and called it bad  I could install an ECU, and fuel injectors, but then I'm fuel injecting a motor from 1968, which is strange, because I lose the charm of the old engine and gain none of the benefit of a newer one. So I could buy an SR20DET, or an F20C, or a 13B, or a number of other highly amusing engines. But my daily driver is an FD, and if I wanted an S2000, I would have bought that instead. This car is manual in every way. It has a manual top, steering, windows, locks, brakes, etc etc etc. Aside from the ignition system, the only things on the car which draw power are the lights, the radio, and the heater motor. It amuses me to no end to take every part of this car to its logical extreme. It's performance absurdist art. And it's just... cool, you know? Lemme tell you about my watch.  My watch is manual, and you have to wind it if you don't wear it for too long. I could buy a $20 Casio that would tell time in monolithic seven-segment digits, and whose battery would work until the sun burns out and the Earth is a ashen husk, barren of all life. But instead, I have this fiddly little gob of metal full of zillions of gears and springs and cams and who knows what. I look at it all the time and think "I woke up today and strapped a tiny machine to my wrist, and it's whirring away, doing its best to tell time". I would not think, or care, about the Casio.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:34
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E: WHOOPS WRONG THREAD Yeah, stick with the carburetors.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:10
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ironblock posted:...IronBlock carefully adjusts his Rolex and clears his throat. A female British voice pipes in This post is brought to you by Rolex watches... Because serious Internet posters keep serious time, in style. Outro jingle. Rolex has been advertising a lot lately on the Podcasts I listen to  Also I'm loving 100% on board with your idea and if you're carbs sing anything like my DCOE 45s do I can assure you that it is a siren song indeed. They will do things to you man...
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Dec 31, 2013 06:11
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Mat_Drinks posted:A female British voice pipes in This post is brought to you by Rolex watches... Because serious Internet posters keep serious time, in style. Outro jingle. There's nothing wrong with seriousposting in style  Apparently my office is closed New Year's Day, so it's time for updates. This one is going to be bittersweet, so hold on to your butts. Not what I'd call "quality" So as I mentioned before, I bought a Cannon 2x DCOE intake manifold that fits the R16 head. It's not the best quality ever, but there really aren't many other options.   The casting quality is exceptionally poor, and I may dremel it down and sand it back, but right now, I just want something workable.  A further annoyance is that based on the geometry of the manifold studs, there's an obnoxious lump on the inside of the runner. There's really not much to be done about this, unless I want to start grinding the inside back to try and get a little more clearance.   Either way, I test fit the manifold on the engine just to get a feel for how it was going to turn out. And I really, really like it.    Oh, except that the fuckin' exhaust manifold flange is too thin. This is a known problem with this header, and I was assured that the one I was buying was the "new version", but I guess not.  The lesson I'm learning about restomods is that the "mod" part is hard. If I had bought reman Sumitomo calipers, I wouldn't have had wheel clearance issues, or any of the other strangeness - it's the same with the carbs and a hundred other things. But, if the car were just going to be stock, riding around on 165/70 R14s and trying to get up to freeway speeds with 96bhp... No, I'm doing the right thing, it's just a pain in the rear end sometimes. Reunion tour When I did my last real update, the body was nearly done, and the frame was on the trailer. Let's see how that turned out. You know, they say it's the kids that can't get off their phones, but Dad's worse than I am    Remember I said there was a touch of red in the paint? I think you can see it now. This was the car's first trip out into the sunshine in a long time. And no, this is not the final ride height. There's no engine in it, and I still had the goddamn spring shackles upside down.  The drive home was a whiteknuckle horror show for me, since I was terrified that something was going to touch my baby. Matters were made worse by horrible traffic, which ended up being the result of someone's  reliable Jeep 4.0L engine catching on fire. But the car survived, and made it home. If anyone wants that Isuzu Trooper in the background, it's free  Racecars! I'm going to derail a little and share some cool pictures. I went to the WTCC at Sears Point last year, and got to see some cool racing.  I also spent a while climbing around the pits/garages and yelling at random people to let me touch their stuff. One guy finally acquiesced, and let me touch his stuff.    He... he had some cool stuff.  And as I continued my journey down the garages, I spied more cool stuff.  B-but... it's p-probably just an automatic...  NOPE Why can't I own every car? There are so goddamn many. The final score, and the only thing that has any relevance to this, is that I nabbed some "barely used" 14" Toyo Proxes RA1s from the junk tire pile. These can go on the 5-slots, and make for some extra autocross fun.  How do you eat an elephant? This was a major turning point for me. I bought a brand new pretty thing, and installed it on the car's body. That was the first time I'd done that since I brought it home.   It felt so good, in fact, that I did it again.  God drat manifolds This poor head was seriously beat to poo poo. All the studs were bent, most had stripped threads, and things were generally just lovely. I drove all the old studs out with a combination of vice-grips and hammers, and then installed nice new ones with hex keys in the top, and locktite on the head side.   Naturally, the black oxide that looks so good now is gonna get rusted off in seconds, but it's a small price to pay for those hex key holes. I discovered that some careful washer stacking could get the manifolds on reasonably well, and would serve as an interim solution. Eventually, I'm going to have to actually fix this, but I wanted to prepare the wee Datsun for her trip to the exhaust shop.  Loss of luster So uh, to sell a car in the 60s, you pretty much had to have some chrome on it. I'll let you guess how that went for the uppity Japanese newcomer selling a stripped down sports car for $3000.     Knowing that this was going to be long lead, I shipped it all off to a guy I've been working with, and... So long, Uncle Sam ...then I moved out of America. In January of 2013, I left California to come live and work in the Cayman Islands. Sometimes, there are things you just can't say "no" to.       Working on the car is now incredibly difficult. I have to end up in California with no social or familial obligations, wake up at the rear end-crack of dawn, slam down coffee, and put in a fully productive day. Based on the way income tax laws work, to get the Foreign Earned Income exclusion, I had to remain outside of the US for 330 days between Jan 15 2013, and Jan 14th 2014. This next year will be easier for me, because as of Jan 1st, I'll already have been an official resident of the Cayman Islands, which gets me the FEI exclusion without doing anything else, AND means I have many more US days to burn. So 2014 will be the year this car gets finished, one way or another. The other good news is that with the time I had to sit and think about the car, and the massive piles of non-taxable dosh I was rolling in, I could do some really trick poo poo with the car, which I'll get to next time. But for now, there's one thing I forgot... My Datsun is an airplane Well, not really, but there's a guy (whose name I can't disclose) who both owns a fleet of Datsun Roadsters and runs a professional avionics remanufacturing company. So for those of you who were wondering which variant of the inevitable gaudy loving AutoMeter tachometer I was going to grace my dashboard with... Nope!  The gauge rings have been rechromed, the faces have been silkscreened to original spec, the paint is the same mildly luminescent compound used on aircraft instruments, the glass is new, everything has been zeroed out, new needles, new quartz movement for the clock, everything calibrated accurately, new gears, new new new new. This was another of those moments where I knew that whatever came next, I couldn't gently caress up, I couldn't phone it in, and I had to meet the standard these glorious motherfuckers have set.
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Jan 2, 2014 01:01
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gently caress. Those gauges are *gorgeous*
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Jan 2, 2014 02:00
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charliemonster42 posted:gently caress. Those gauges are *gorgeous* Weirdly, I don't have any pictures of the gauges directly, so this is all I can manage for a before and after:  
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Jan 2, 2014 03:20
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ironblock posted:There's nothing wrong with seriousposting in style Why can't cars come with real gauges like that anymore? Gah! I just want to know every minute detail of the goings on under the hood, why can't modern engineers make us a car that has ALL OF THE GAUGES! Check engine lights are the idiot's crutch. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm super jealous of your analog instruments. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 2, 2014 06:09
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Huge_Midget posted:Why can't cars come with real gauges like that anymore? Gah! I just want to know every minute detail of the goings on under the hood, why can't modern engineers make us a car that has ALL OF THE GAUGES! Check engine lights are the idiot's crutch. Why would you quote his huge post and all the pics to just add that?  I love how the Datsun is coming along 
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Jan 2, 2014 18:10
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