I`ve included a few shop shots for the gear heads amongst us.
 
 
 
 
 





























A new Z engine with the shop mascot " Buster" in the back round.

Love the last one!.

Those are more cool pics!

Paul

Love the ZCars, but have a serious soft spot for the 510s.  They were the ultimate sleeper on a mountain road.
I'm kinda surprised with that much serious Datsun hardware around, that i don't see an SRL311 lurking in a corner somewhere!

Nice setup JaDub, I wondered what the engine was you're leaning on in your avatar.

Way cool Jeff.

If you were to hazard a guess, how many ponies is that Z engine going to produce?

Buster looks good there. Very nice.

RJ

As an edit: how hard are those "Z" engines getting to find? I would imagine "back in the day" there were quite a few, but like everything else, they are getting "recylced" at an alarming rate.

My first love was the 510.  I raced one for some 35 years culminating in winning the SCCA National Championship in 2001.  As to the SRL311s.........it   was our first  Datsun racecar.  Gobs of H.P. but the engine was pretty fragile.  The stroke was about a mile long and the ignition timming ran off a jack shaft that proceeded in really scrambling the ignition timing.  Then along came the 510 and 240-z and the rest, as they say, is history.
      RJ,  the L-28 Z engine makes a nice reliable 320 H.P. in race trim with a good driveable street version putting out  `bout 230.  Now drop that in a 2,000 # car and ya got something.
       The latest project involves restoring my championship car and returning her to the track for  vintage racing exhibitions and car shows.  Hopefully it will emerge from the paint and body shop in the next few weeks..............   then on go the `bits & pieces`.  Stay tuned.

Here are a few photos of the on going 510 restoration...........
 
 
 
 

When I was a senior in HS, I helped a friend with a complete rebuild of his Volkswagon engine.  I did a fairly substantial 'rebuild' in the parking lot of an IHOP when I was a starving college student. I told the manager of the IHOP that the vehicle ('72 International Harvester "Scout II") was "dead", and I didn't have the money to pay to get it professionally fixed, so I had to get it running before I could even move it. He was very understanding and let me work on it for three days in his parking lot. I learned some real lessons with that "thing". I drove it into a shop one time to see about getting a new clutch installed. I kid you not, the guy started laughing when he saw me coming. IH put three different clutches in that model that year. They didn't serialize them, so you had no idea what clutch you had 'til you pulled it apart. Grr....

I have always wanted to build a car 'from scratch'.

Paul

There`s something about  Internationals............ Ya never know what ya got till you get it `open`. 8-)


As to the restoration process..... I look at it as a full scale `model` that you can actually drive away in. Tons of work but very rewarding. Each one I do I think it could be my last.

Quote from: JaDub;134193There`s something about  Internationals............ Ya never know what ya got till you get it `open`. 8-)

AMEN!

Paul

Just a couple more photos of the on going 510 restoration. This was our shake down day at Pike`s Peak International Raceway last week. Everything went smoothe......... no problems!
 
 
 

WOW!

Very Cool!

Paul

I had a 260Z....wished I had it back.

I am trying to place the Datsun model here in the UK I think they called it the 140D and am fairly sure it was one of them that I took my driving test in.

    The body shell reminds me of the Fiat 124 very boxy. Now the 124 had a sweet twin cam engine in it as I recall.

Impressive JaDub, VERY impressive.

The Datsun  510 was called a `bluebird` outside of the U.S.  .