Shop Talk for
|
|||
 |
|
||
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:
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.
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:
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:
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!
Bill C has been a long time customer of Z Car Garage. You might remember his 2007 350z as one of the first HR-powered cars at ZCG to receive a Bassani exhaust and minor bolt-ons resulting in over 300whp. That was in 2008! Over the years Bill has enjoyed his Z on fun runs and track days. He even wrote an Ebay article reviewing the 370z and enlisted us for dyno measurements!
The stock OEM suspension on the Z33 had always bothered Bill: the relatively spongy ride along with ride height and wheel gap over his amazing Volk LE37 wheels had to improve. We wanted to make sure that he had the ability to autocross, enjoy back roads and daily drive the Z. Bill picked up a very nice set of Ohlins DFV coil-overs for us to install:
Here is the Ohlins setup installed front and rear:
A great complement to coil-overs is our favorite sway bars from Hotchkis:
The Z now sits with a great stance and Bill is very happy with the new suspension setup:
I love the Ohlins!!! I got EXACTLY what I was hoping for. Daily driver comfort (Wife couldn’t discern it from stock), but take it into some twisties and it’s a monster. Also, I did not expect my braking to improve so much from the coil-over install.
Enjoy The Ride Bill!
From Alice’s we drove down 84 and took a welcome detour via Stage Rd. This is a road I have not driven before and it was awesome.
My 67.5 and Mike B’s Datsun Roadsters:
Lloyd’s S30 and Glenn’s RHD FairladyZ:
Rob’s 510 and Kevin’s RL411:
Stage Rd. took us into Pescadero where we stopped for beer at Duarte’s. Everyone checked out Kevin’s 411, full story on zcarblog.com soon!
The road home was Pescadero Rd/84 back down Skyline. A good time was had by all!
