HS30-H

Who's saying there was no car at the Pierre Hotel? What I'm pointing out - I thought you'd have got it by now - is that there's not much photographic evidence of the event. My point being that it seems to have been a slightly (ahem...) less illustrious affair than it gets credit for, and to my mind that seems to point to it being a reactive event. I playfully cast some bait towards you a couple of posts ago. I have a Nissan photo of the 'unveiling' of the car at the Pierre Hotel. @26th-Z and @Mike B have seen it too. You didn't take the bait. I'm dragging it out a little because I want to add weight to my point: There's a dearth of photos for what is claimed to have been a seminal event, and there's even conflicting opinion/evidence as to what colour the car was. Extraordinary.

I am adding to the discussion. I'd say that - at the very least - I might be offering an alternative take on all this, and a bit of grit to go with all of that "International Preview" type corn you seem so happy to swallow. One thing I'd point out is that you do seem a little bit too eager to assign some of these cars concrete chassis numbers. Much of it seems to be based on a little less evidence than would be ideal. I think it's a bit risky when some cars are known to have been repainted between shows. It reminds me of what Shelby was doing with Cobras a few years earlier. That situation was because he didn't have enough cars on-hand, and needed to make it look like there were more. NMC USA were in a similar situation in late 1969, as far as I can see. About those journalists: You seem to share Carl Beck's feeling that jetting in a bunch of journos from Detroit was "nothing". It seems to have produced little more copy than mailing them out the press pack and a bottle of half-decent single malt would have. Still, I'm sure they enjoyed the canapes. Maybe they took in a Broadway show whilst they were in town? I guess it wouldn't have been 'My Fair Lady' though...

Don't you think this kind of adds weight to my Force Majeure 'trunk show' point? We are told that the Pierre Hotel event was organised "weeks in advance", as though that's a long lead-time. No photos? Really? If I post one, what will be your forfeit? It'll be a one-off transaction, by default. Once it's in your Hoover bag it'll travel...

"...the photo you refer to...". I'm not referring to the April '70 NYC show car. I'm referring to the actual car at the Pierre Hotel "International Preview", reportedly the same car that was flown down to LA and shown at the Beverly Wilshire (and presumably not stopping for a colour change pit stop at Earl Scheib along the way). Considering the effort gone to - flying a car in from Japan and a bunch of hacks over from Detroit - you could be forgiven for imagining that everybody was asked not to photograph the car. Where's the coverage? "No Photo!" Most of the copy filed seems to have used Nissan stock photos from the press release... I'm calling them trunk shows because they would appear to have trouble living up to the hype they've been given. Drinks, canapes, a car under a sheet, press packs, speeches. Would have been great to be there of course, but if I was one of those Detroit hacks I think I would have preferred to be flown to Tokyo instead...

So you classify the NY and LA 'trunk shows' (that's what I'm calling them...) as 'Press' only events? Good. I think it's more realistic than "The International Preview", which is what they are regularly referred to as. Perhaps you'd like to spread the word? Why have you got 26th October for the Tokyo Motor Show? It opened its doors (to the general public, not just the press) on 24th October. The Press Preview at Nissan's Ginza showroom (the real 'International Preview', as far as I can tell) started on 18th October and ran for three days. Don't feel insulted. Feel grown up and engaged in a debate.

You might want to try one of your Grayscale experiments on one of the numerous photos* of the car at the Pierre Hotel NY event. Doesn't look 920 to me. *

(my bold) As I've pointed out before, I don't think this story holds up very well to scrutiny. It seems to me that Katayama's NY and LA trunk shows were organised under Force Majeure as an attempt to mitigate what was going on back in Japan. In Japan, Nissan was aiming squarely at the Tokyo Motor Show as the debut for its new models, and had a massive presence there. As usual, they invited members of the Press, selected dealers and well-connected customers to come to their party on the ground floor of their Ginza HQ a week before the opening of the Tokyo show. What options did Katayama have? What major shows in the USA could he debut the new HLS30U at? What was he looking at on the calendar? What car(s) was he going to show? They were in somewhat short supply... I don't buy the "disrespect" story about Detroit and the US auto industry. The 1969 Detroit Auto Show was held at the end of November, simply too late for Katayama's taste. There was nothing else that lined up. I think he was organising the NY and LA single-car events so as not to be eclipsed by events in Japan, and preferably to try to be seen to be 'first'. That would be true to Katayama's personality, and advertising/sales/PR was the basis of his education and career. With Nissan making such an effort in NY this week for their 50th anniversary celebration of the Z and GT-R marques, I'm already reading the legacy of Katayama's sideshow. Apparently the 240Z was "first seen at the NY show in 1969". It gets swallowed whole.

Interesting how this so often seems to happen. Missing: 1969-10-18 Tokyo (Nissan Ginza 'Press Preview' of the entire - at launch - S30-series Z range) 1969-10-24 through 1969-11-6 Tokyo (16th Tokyo Motor Show - all models - over 1.5 million visitors)

I agree. A lot of lead-time needed for the production of the manuals and literature on these cars, and I see a few Skyline, Cedric, Gloria, Laurel and assorted 4-cylinder type parts used on the (likely pre-production/not to be sold) cars and details in the photos. Not surprising.

2019 is the anniversary year. We can have a discussion about the actual day and the exact location (Japan will win that one...), but 1969 is the year and November is the month. Nissan have already started celebrating it for the S30-series Z, along with the anniversary for the PGC10 Skyline GT-R (specifically as the anniversary of the GT-R, which debuted in February 1969). Any local ideas of 'Model Year' and such are trumped by 'debut'. Last week in Tokyo:

S20 is the engine type.

Stalled. I wanted to have them low pressure die cast like the originals were, but the cost of tooling here in the UK was just too prohibitive. I believe I reported the situation on the FLZ Facebook group. Looks like Hung Vu is coming up with the goods though, so you should be able to get a pair one way or the other.

The above being road car prototypes, whereas you first post concerns works race cars. I don't know what conclusions you wish to draw from it, considering that carburettors are basically precision measuring devices which deliver what a given engine needs. Unless you know engine spec/state of tune it's hard to extrapolate anything from it. There will be differences in driveability due to design (apparently the S20 seems to 'prefer' the accelerator pump design of the Weber DCOE vs the Solex patent diaphragm, whereas the opposite is true of the L-gata) but I think it would be silly to say that an engine has "more HP" with one than the other. It's clearly more complicated than that. Of course, the Murayama works team GT-Rs started out with Webers (the Prince engineers had been using Webers for a good while and were used to them) but soon switched to sliding throttle mechanical injection systems, which suited the kind of racing they were taking part in. They were reluctant to fit these systems -and the engine internals which went with the upgrade - to the works 432-Rs (part of that internal Prince vs Nissan struggle) so there was a period when the works GT-Rs were running fuel injection whilst the 432-Rs were still on Webers. The works 432-Rs were racing on fuel injection by May 1970.

You might describe it as 'evolution', but it's a bit more jumbled up than that. And I would tend to look at other contemporary L-gata equipped models for clues too. Looking only at Zs is very likely to miss some clues... Put simply, I see models with aircon needing multi-blade fans. Factory parts lists show simpler fans for non-aircon models vs multi blade for aircon and - possibly - hotter climate. The one tends to go with the other. I would imagine the multi-blade nylon fans as being easier to make/cheaper than the multi-blade steel fans once the tooling had been manufactured.

You're wading into the very deep waters of Murayama vs Oppama here. I hope you've got your water wings on...

You got them! Well done! I think it is most likely that they are indeed genuine Murayama factory works team parts, never intended to be sold to the general public. Original cost of production would have been very high, but not a problem for a works team. Compression ratio might be a problem for a street car. They are very high intrusion crown pistons and compression ratio would have been very high on the works cars. You will need to work it out with a dummy build.

For Kyoto, I can heartily recommend the MK Taxis tour service: https://www.mktaxi-japan.com/ I've been to Kyoto many times, but a few years ago a friend sent a group of four of us on a day-long tour with an MK driver (waiting patiently for us while we explored each venue, and while we had lunch/tea breaks) and it was certainly the best way to cover a whole lot of bases without rushing. It might sound cheesy, and normally I'd prefer to make my own way around, but our driver knew just how to handle it and made it a great day. Best day I've had in Kyoto, and my Japanese in-laws agreed. I would recommend a boat ride on the Hozugawa river too. If the timing is right you might even be able to see the Geiko entertaining their guests on the Gion tea house balconies, which you can't see from the street side...

You are very likely to be told that the last '260' was made in 1978, so you might need to refine your terminology... And "Birthday"? Birth month & year, shirley?

17033-E4200 is the stock 432/432-R pump mount bracket. Nice find! I have one on my 432-R replica. Does it have the original type Jidosha Kiki KK pump too?

Hitachi D606-52 was stock European/UK market HS30/HLS30 'Datsun 240Z' distributor. Has 'fast' advance curve, hence sold as 'performance' distributor by Datsun Competition in USA.

1972 Fairlady Z-L would have the above 'Fairlady Z' script emblems at the bottom of both front fenders and one on the RH side of the rear hatch, mounted at an angle... ...and underneath the 'Fairlady Z' script on the rear hatch, mounted horizontally, the 'NISSAN' emblem. However, the mounting of a rear spoiler interfered with the mounting positions of the hatch emblems. Bonnet/Hood emblem was the 'Z' script version, on the left above. Rear quarter emblems for 1972 were the vented type 'Z' script version, exactly the same as north American market type of the same year - so you should have no trouble locating a good pair.

I heartily recommend 'Japanese Aero-Engines 1910-1945' by Mike Goodwin and Peter Starkings, published by MMP Books, as the best English language reference book on the subject.

I'll watch you from the clubhouse bar whilst you gradually work your way around the golf course backwards. No idea how you're going to hole those putts, but still... Anyone who has an interest in the history of Japanese aviation will (hopefully) know about the myriad licensing agreements that the growing Japanese manufacturers took out with American, British, French, Italian and German companies in the first half of the 20th Century. Big topic. Things start getting a little fragile when you try to carry cause and effect through to the post-war years, as a whole new ball game started. New business relationships and licensing structures needed to be built up, and what had been Japan's aircraft manufacturing industry had to find new things to make and sell. I would say a pre-war and wartime relationship between a German company and a Japanese company was a bit of a stretch to prove much about Nissan's L-gata engine design details, and there's still the fact that Nissan and Prince were competing companies when the Nissan L-gata and Prince G7 engines debuted, so a fragile thread between PMC and MB still doesn't bridge that gap. Isn't it just more likely that Nissan took elements of the (already old) MB OHC layout and adapted them to suit? There's not much in the way of engine design that hasn't been cribbed/copied/adapted over the years and, once seen, good design and engineering is always going to influence what follows it. It's interesting and worthy of discussion, but if it feeds the "it's a Mercedes engine!" type mindset then we may as well file it with the D!ck Avery "I designed the 240Z" stuff. At some point it starts being disrespectful to the very good engineers and designers who actually were responsible for the cars we love.

From the Hemmings article: From Carl Beck in the comments section: Some relevant dates: *October 18th 1969 - First 'Press Preview' event held at Nissan's Ginza, Tokyo HQ showroom to introduce the S30-series Z range to the invited press. *October 24th 1969 - Start of the Tokyo Motor Show, where the S30-series Z range was introduced to the general public for the first time. More than 1.5 million members of the public visited the show over the next two weeks. *November 5th 1969 - First 'Test Drive' day, for the Japanese press to actually get hold of the cars and drive them. The results were seen in many of the November and December 1969, and January 1970 Japanese weeklies and monthlies. So Nissan's 'Press Preview' in Japan happened two calendar days before this "International Introduction" to the Press at the Pierre Hotel in New York on 24th October, and the Tokyo Motor Show opened to the general public two calendar days (less the 14 hours time difference) after that. Where does the "two weeks later" come from? Both 'Press' and 'Public' debuts of the new S30-series Z range - which included the 'Datsun 240Z' - took place in Japan.

I have looked at a lot of S20 engines over the years now, and I don't think I have ever seen a head casting in-use that had not received some detailing/'blueprinting' attention inside the port castings. I believe your NOS head is untouched in the ports because it never reached the stage where it was prepped before fitting to a working engine. I'm pretty sure that the S20 engine in my 432-R replica (itself a very early 432-type S20 engine) was never taken apart until I stripped it to rebuild it. Both the inlet and exhaust port areas had been hand finished, with the dividing wall between the valves 'knife-edged'. Not the best photo, but you get the idea: Here's another K3 head: And for comparison, a super rare works race K3R head: