April was a very exciting month! The 300ZXClub and NICOforums put together the annual Bay Area “In-N’-Out and Drive” 4/30/11. Here is Corey S with a report from the very successful meet:

The weather was perfect for this South San Jose meet, on this sunny, blue sky day. The turn out for the event was impressive, with over 25 beautiful Z32s, 5+ Z33’s, even 2 240SX’s, 2 G35’s and even a sweet z31!
Z Enthusiasts came from as far as San Luis Obispo to make this event, driving hours to meet up with the community. The event began with a relaxed gathering outside of In-N’-Out. You could feel the excitement in the air as more and more groups of Z cars drove up to the lot.

After meeting up with the Z enthusiasts and taking a few organized pictures, it was time to move forward to the next stage of the event, a drive through the hills by Uvas Reservoir. A line of 30 cars commanded the roads, T-Tops removed and hands in the air. The energy was great!
With the Twin Turbo Z’s pulling up the rear, we flew together through the twisty hills in a rush of power and handling to our next destination. …[read more]

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]