HS30-H

double-post

It's not much, but it's better than nothing: I believe the wheels were Japanese aftermarket brand 'Jaguar' widened steels rather than TOPY.

Blue, I suggest you try doing a bit more in-depth research before you post. Cut, paste and hope isn't going to cut it. Your choice of thread title says it all, really. It might make the likes of Grannyknot orgasm into his popcorn but it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.

You've gone off half-cocked. You started out with a certain premise, but had little to no understanding of the context surrounding the race in question or the bigger scenario behind it. Fail. I think you need to do a LOT more in-depth research before trying the same trick again.

So, you think this was the L24's first race...?

Thanks for the effort Mike, but machine translation of Japanese to English is still in the stone age when it comes down to stuff like this and the results are proof of that. As I pointed out before, that's a personal - one man - blog. The subject requires much deeper research from wider sources in order to be properly understood.

Newsflash for Grannyknot: The race in question was won by a 432-R pretending to be a 240Z so that it didn't get disqualified. You seem to have overlooked the fact that L24-engined cars weren't around to take part in the first ever race contested by an S30-series Z, or the first race won by an S30-series Z (READ THE NUMBERS). If you think you knew better you could pop back to 1969 and tell Nissan just how silly they were being putting Murayama's precious engine into their new American Sports Car as it would only lead to tears and confusion. And really, if the first post in this thread convinced you of anything it only goes to show that you didn't know enough to come to a view in the first place. The facts don't belong to me, and whatever I say about the 432/432-R won't change what they were, what they were homologated to achieve, what they did actually achieve in period and what they mean in context today. It's a key part of the S30-series Z story, despite the efforts of people like yourself who seem to want to diminish it for some unknown reason? What's that all about, really? Isn't it just the fact that you don't like the usual messenger? How about you pop up on one of Kats' threads and tell him his 432 is "not special"...? See how that pans out for you. My prediction is that you might find a few people to 'Like This' but not a lot else will happen. Don't worry though, you're not alone as you have a fantasy conspirator in my parallel universe Porsche thread. He's busy telling everyone that the Porsche 911R (Nissan's reference point for the 432-R) was also "not special", with similar reaction...

You'd better believe it. I don't want to read flippant comments dissing these cars or the people who were racing them. The title of this thread and the first post doesn't reflect the true scenario. Many of the guys taking part in this race were little more than enthusiastic amateurs in home-prepped cars. One of the 'six' mentioned in the thread title was a white 432 (not a 432-R) prepared, entered and driven by amateurs Isamu MIURA and Hajime SAKURAI. This is how their race ended on lap 35: Sakurai was 20 years old. The crash ended his race, but also put him in hospital with injuries severe enough to end his working career at that point. Sakurai had been a promising amateur racer marked out as a coming talent, but never raced again...

More to the point, it would have been nice to see it mentioned in the context of your original thread, especially as you coloured it as some kind of L24 vs S20 battle. There was an S20-powered sedan, punching well above its weight, but you didn't even tip your hat to it. You didn't mention the fact that the winning car had been outqualified by four other cars including that GT-R, all of them S20-powered, and hadn't taken the fastest race lap either. Why not? Hasemi's loyalty was firmly in the Murayama camp. At that time he was a Skyline man. He was right in that the 432-R body wasn't stiff enough on its own (it was supposed to have a full multi-point cage...) but ALL the cars we are talking about were 'baggy'. The HS30/HLS30 certainly wasn't hugely better than the PS30/PS30-SB in that respect. Hasemi was talking in retrospect about the engines of course. The LR24 engine wasn't eligible for the race categories that the S20 (both in GT-R and 432/432-R guises) was designed to take part in. The Japanese market wasn't due to get the L24-engined HS30 models until late 1971, so there was no imperative to push the HS30 through domestic race development. Meanwhile, Nissan was gearing up to take part in a selected international rallying program with what amounted to 432-R bodied cars running LR24 engines (they were already testing them, and had one running on the roads around Monte Carlo in January 1970...) except they were running HS30 and HLS30 chassis prefixes (that being what was eligible to race, and what Nissan was selling...), so it's not like Nissan had their own internal conflict about what was 'best' (they had more than one horse for each course...). Some of the shade being thrown at the S20 engine (here and in other threads) in favour of the L24 doesn't seem to take into account that there was very little stock about the race and rally LR24s. I see weight being mentioned, but a full-house LR24 in race guise isn't going to be much different in total weight than a full house S20 in race guise, and the weight distribution of the LR24 is quite different too (much taller, and with a lot of weight biased to one side of the chassis with induction and exhaust both being on the left side). This particular event was hardly apples-to-apples though. In fact, the Oppama team got what they were pushing for and it was something more of a political demonstration based on practicality than anything else. The intra-company wrangling was coming to a head and the way forward was clear. Painting it as some kind of simplistic 'S20=complex rubbish, L24=simple and superior' equation (yes I'm looking at you Grannyknot) is to ignore all those politics and the even more complex battle of wills that was going on behind the scenes. Even JAF were involved, changing the race classes and eligibility rules to suit what was coming. You bet there's more to this than looking at one race will at first reveal. Yes there were crashes, mechanical failures, punctures, the whole gamut. 1000km races are always going to have their fair share of drama and Force Majeure. However your description is overly harsh considering the big difference between qualifying and what happened in the race. Painting this as complete domination by one car is way wide of the mark considering that the win for the LR24-engined car was the politically expedient - and somewhat telegraphed - result on the cards. Like I say, politics... About the swept volume/capacity thing: A 5% increase in homologated capacity was legal for GT-II, so the LR24 engine was running bigger than its stock configuration. Race organisers (and JAF...) were not necessarily party to the exact capacity unless the engine was protested or suspected way oversize, so the capacity was usually recorded as stock.

These cars didn't have any fans, let alone electric radiator fans. The wires you are looking at are from the 432-R's wiring harness. Your list of specs (it's more like a guess sheet, and should have a ? after each item) mentioned "stock wiring harness" (stock for what?) and "stock battery, alternator, distributor, radiator, coil, starter". The distributor isn't 'stock', and nor is the coil. The car was running electronic ignition. The radiator is an (aluminium) 432 item.

You are - quite simply - completely out of your depth. What - really - what value is there in your first post on this topic? That 'diamond rings and oil paintings' meme is all about the road cars. It still holds true (and don't forget it's usually an answer to somebody telling us that the 432 is "sh*t"). You get something put in front of you about one particular Japanese race (apparently it's news to you too...) and it's like you just realised that a G-Shock tells the time better than a Girard Perregaux. Hold the front page, huh? Perhaps there's a parallel-universe style scenario on a Porsche forum somewhere with somebody saying that the 2 litre Porsche 911R was "dumped" because the 2.7RS was "better". Hopefully the Porsche forum has one or two people who understand just how stupid that is... As for my comments regarding the real story behind that particular race (the context following tragedy...) you seem to have - once again - missed the point. Who said "the winner should not be taken into account"? Not me. Do you know what I'm referring to? My guess is that you have no clue. By the way, if anyone wants to see the original 'net based source of much of this thread, it's from this personal blog: http://vital.sakura.ne.jp/NISSAN SKYLINE KGC10 HP/index.html ...and this page in particular: http://vital.sakura.ne.jp/NISSAN SKYLINE KGC10 HP/S30kei.html ....which means it's already been filtered and weighted with some personal opinion. It is worth taking that into account.

I own the ex-Masami KUWASHIMA Fairlady 240ZG, which he imported to the UK from Japan as his personal transport when he was competing in European F3 and F2 in the early 1970s.

(My bolded highlights) A couple of questions: Who was/is calling that 432R a "lightened 240Z"? The car was entered as an HS30 '240Z' because that was the only way it could qualify for the GTS-II class rules. Putting a different engine in a PS30-prefixed body would have bumped the car up into the R-III class (where they didn't want to be) so they called it an HS30 and stayed in GTS-II. You write: "The L24 had no competition". Had you mentioned any of the other competitors in the race, this might statement might start to look a little more tenuous. Yes they won the race, and that's what the Works team set out to do. However, there's some extra context here if you take into account the fact that pole position was taken by TOHIRA and TERANISHI in the #32 432-R (almost two seconds faster than TAKAHASHI and KUROSAWA in the L24-engined #31 hybrid, who took 5th fastest in qualifying) and they crashed out of the race early after being involved in somebody else's accident. The winning car was run close to the finish by the #54 PGC10 4-door Skyline GT-R of SUNAKO and HASEMI running in the TS-III class, who incidentally turned in a quicker fastest race lap than the winning car, which they had also outqualified. No competition...? I think it's also worth pointing out that framing this event as being one L24-engined car vs six S20-engined 432-Rs is to take it hugely out of context, but that those six 432-Rs were not even equal amongst themselves. The two 'hot' Works-entered 432-Rs were the #32 car of TOHIRA and TERANISHI (which took pole, but was taken out by a non-fault crash) and the #30 car of TOSHIMORI and HOSHINO (which had taken second on the grid but ran into trouble during the race, which cost it a couple of laps). The other 432s and 432-Rs in the race were all privateer efforts in cars nowhere near the development/parts level of the Works cars. The KUWASHIMA / TAKAHASHI 432 was even running steel wheels! "As an epilogue to the race, there was great disappointment for the S20 engine". Huh?! Says who? In July 1970 - the date of the race you cite - Nissan's Murayama works team were already well on the way to record-breaking run of domination in the Japanese touring car championship, and in the middle of taking 40+ consecutive victories. They ended up with 50+ victories with S20-powered PGC10 and KPGC10 Skyline GT-Rs. Your statement is - in this context - complete nonsense and has the whiff of a pre-conceived agenda about it. I find it interesting that you would frame the victory for the L24 (it was an 'L24R' actually...) powered 432-R as some kind of disappointment? Why is that? Nissan's Oppama works team certainly didn't find it a disappointment. Why would they? It was - after all - their car and their engine... Anybody who is seriously interested in the topic of Japanese racing during this period would be well advised to dig a little more deeply than one issue of Auto Sport Japan's '200 Great Races' series for the full story. Big topic.

There are so many driver names that require correction, I'd better list them up: Family name in capitals: *"Kitano Yuan" = Moto KITANO *"Masahiro Hasayami" = Masahiro HASEMI *"Kenji Tsubairi" = Kenji TOHIRA *"Teranishi Teranishi" = Takatoshi TERANISHI *"Takahashi Kokoh" = Takahashi KUNIMITSU *"Saburo Koumuma" = "Saburo KOINUMA *"Ishii Kazuo" = Kazuo ISHII *"Sakurai Ichi" = Hajime SAKURAI

And Blue, what's the true purpose of this thread? You've titled it "L24 Battles Six S20s. Guess who wins?", but why? You seem to be framing it as a simplistic L24 vs S20 fight, but it wasn't actually anything as simplistic as that. What's your real agenda here? The answer to the question posed by the thread title is, in fact, the latest Works car, with the 'ace' Works drivers behind the wheel... . You might like to remind yourself that the car in question was still in fact a 432R, running all the 432R-specific homologated parts and having the benefit of all the factory team development carried out up to that point. The L24 being installed in that chassis was far (far!) from stock, with special Works-developed crank, rods, pistons, head and many other details, and was running at a displacement of over 2500cc (yes, 25% greater than the S20) allowed by the GTS-II class rules. You can hardly frame it as L24 = great, S20 = $^!#, can you? Not only that, but I don't see any mention of one of the key points; The intra-company politics regarding the S20 engine and the fact that the very recently ex-Prince faction at Murayama regarded the S20 as 'their' engine and had effectively blocked the Nissan Works faction at Oppama from the better developments, updates and trick parts that the Murayama based team were using on their Skyline GT-R race cars. Murayama were not involved in racing the L6, so there was no potential for a reciprocal arrangement. Discussing the race career of the 432R without taking into account any of the Murayama/Oppama politics is to miss much of the point. And with regards specifically to the 1970 Fuji 1000kn race, you missed the elephant in the room for the whole event. Is that because you chose not to mention it, or because you didn't know about it? The big clue is what that particular event was supposed to be, and what cars were supposed to be taking part in it but for a recent tragedy. It had a huge impact on the race, and who/what won it.... It really ought to be taken into account.

Christ, what a mess. That's Motoharu KUROSAWA on the left, and Kunimitsu TAKAHASHI on the right. This thread is going to be a real car crash. There are just so many mistakes and misunderstandings. Some really golden WTF moments.

Predicition: Values of diamond rings and oil paintings will most likely not drop through the floor just because somebody delivered a message telling you what you already should have known. :rimshot:

Blue, There are a great number of mistakes in your posts on this topic. Have you simply transcribed all this from another site, and have you used machine translations for Japanese names? Or is this 'All Your Own Work'...?

I was referring specifically to your Japanese gasoline stand post. You are - indeed - late to the party, and you appear to have completely missed the point. What does your photo bring to the discussion? Does anybody think there wasn't a wide variety of gasoline stand layouts in Japan during that period and now? I was recalling a particular type of pump which did - and still does - exist: The point you appear to have missed is that the whole thing is a MacGuffin anyway. Carl Beck was trying to link the fuel tank filler location on the S30-series Z to LHD-specific requirements, but the punchline is that it is - yet another - example of Design Concession. The fuel tank filler is offset to the right side of the car, and the fuel filler is on the right side of the car, because it is leaving space for the exhaust system. The exhaust system is on the left side of the engine, and exits on the left side of the car. The L-gata engine was not designed specifically for the USA market...

Single handedly? Of course not. This is just the usual Katayama cult-of-personality type hyperbole that gets thrown around, and it is nonsense. Katayama was a great man, but there were plenty of other people within Nissan who clearly understood what was needed and were actively working towards achieving it. Anecdotes such as Usami san's (regarding batteries, Hokkaido and blankets) should not be swallowed whole. Anybody living in Hokkaido in the period concerned (and as they do today) would have received their Nissan product with a Winter Pack spec, which included a much beefier battery. Putting a blanket over a bonnet/hood or engine would not be much help, and removing a frozen blanket (after getting rid of half a metre of snow) would not be much fun. What the Datsunforums article claims the USA was demanding (and, rather chauvinistically, what "...Japan was not yet ready for") was what pretty much the whole of the developed world was hoping for at the time. Viewing Nissan's history solely through the prism of the USA market - and as Katayama's personal odyssey - is a mistake.

So you find one example through a photo on the 'net, and this proves what exactly? As is so often the case, you turn up late to a discussion and apparently misunderstand the point(s) being made... I think the 'translation' of the title of that graph says it all, really. The original 'Car Graphic' magazine title reads: "Shodai Fairlady Z (S30) design kaihatsu no ikisatsu"/"History of design development process of original Fairlady Z (S30)"] says it all, really. The 'translation' to 'Datsun 240Z' is plain old fashioned bowdlerisation. Hey Blue, if you're looking for ammunition, do me a favour and pop back up to post #102 in this thread and see if you can find anything that's *plain wrong*?

And by the way, your choice of illustration is another example of not looking at the bigger picture. Sure the (F)MVSS regulations were a key consideration when designing a vehicle that would be sold in North America, but so were the regulations outlined by Working Party 29. Your chosen illustration shows the work-in-progress Plan A clay sporting the flush headlamp covers that were technically illegal under those very (F)MVSS regulations...

I see you joined here quite recently. Have you introduced yourself anywhere? Did I miss it? What's your name, and where do you live? Who are you?

But you haven't adressed the (rhetorical) question. You get the point? Nissan's S20 engine was specified for the S30 chassis before the L24 even existed. It wasn't specified for the Export market (for more than one reason) but it was a key consideration for the 270KK/'Maru Z' project team and Teiichi HARA even went so far as to point out that the 'Maru Z' project was helped along in the course of its gestation by the simple fact that Nissan had it available to use, and would look daft not to. All the more so when it was being lined up for installation, homologation and sales in the 4-door C10-series Skyline. Why would Nissan want a hot-rodded salaryman's car pinching the performance package crown from its nascent halo model Sports/GT? It actually makes the whole "designed for the USA" thing look even more like tunnel vision rather than the opposite.

I agree. I think 'numbers sold' is by definition after-the-fact data that doesn't necessarily prove much about design and engineering. Were The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five and The Rolling Stones "designed for the USA"? That's where they sold the most product, so... I've pointed out the example of The Austin A90 Atlantic on this forum in the past, and it seems appropriate to cite it again now. Austin - like many other British companies - found itself in a situation of 'Export or Die' in the immediate post-war years. Indeed, if they could not export a reasonable amount of vehicles they would not even be allowed access to the restricted steel market to make product at all. They came up with a great wheeze: A car that the valuable USA market would be falling over itself to buy, a sports car designed and engineered expressly for the USA Export market. Heard that one before? Guess what? It laid an egg. Export sales were pitiful. If you looked just at numbers sold, you'd have to extrapolate that it was not "designed for the USA", but it was... The point is that there's a whole lot more to it than numbers...