HS30-H

Attached some photos of a couple of rare original examples I have handled. Your repro example looks accurate, and even has the seam in the middle that was missed off in previous repros. Seems there was indeed a foam gasket on the inner fender flange, so you have done what the factory originally did:

Hope that helps. Happy to take any other measurements/photos if required. Can't help with any identifications here I'm afraid, although I have seen brackets in that area on C10-series GTR-specific aftermarket manifolds in the past, bracing them to the bellhousing. Actually I have seen many, many aftermarket exhaust manifolds for these engines. Some of them were one-offs or made in really small batches. The ex manifold on my KPGC10 was made by a race car builder called 'Ito Racing' specifically for the car in the late 1970s, and was beautifully made in the old school sand-filled hand-bending method. It would have been almost impossible to identify without the knowledge passed-on by the previous owner, who commissioned it.

Here's my early 1970 PS30-type S20 OEM exhaust manifold and the dimensions from the centre of the rearmost hole in the mounting flange horizontal to a 90 degree line from the mounting face of the 'binocular' flange and the centre of its innermost bolt hole (does that make sense?). Anyway, pictures saving words:

I've got an OEM exhaust manifold from an early 1970 432 hanging on the wall in one of my garages. I can measure it for you tomorrow.

Hopefully not too much of a digression, but here's a photo of another iteration of the Teikoku Dempa/Clarion intercom/interphone box. This is an original period photo from a small hand-made booklet of data and advice put together by Nissan's Works competitions department at Oppama, and sent to the de-facto competitions department here in the UK in May 1974 (by then based at Nissan UK's Worthing HQ) with the intention of informing the UK competitions staff about details of the new P710 'Violet' Works rally cars which were - at that point - being shipped to them. The intercom/interphone unit is very similar to the one seen on '7924', which was built in mid 1972. It has the same volume control (interestingly, for a 'new' and supposedly unused car, the control knob appears to be missing as it is on '7924', which makes me wonder if they were prone to falling off, or just not fitted...?) and it also has the external 'floating' jack boxes, but with some extra belt-and-braces suspension for them. So, an indication that the Works team carried on with the same basic design well into 1974. I guess that Teikoku Dempa must have made a fair few of them?

It's a pastiche of one of the original World Championship of Makes stickers. Porsche were serial - consecutive - winners in that period:

From a combination of ignorance, opportunism and pastiche (of an original Porsche badge). See some of this seller's other alternative reality fantasies here: Martini/Targa Florio/Datsun emblem

I've dug out some photos of 'TKS 33 SA 7924', an LHD car originally built as part of a batch for the 1972 RAC Rally (driven by Rauno Aaltonen and navigated by Paul Easter, running number 6, finishing 11th overall and 3rd in the Group 4 class) which went on to win the 1973 East African Safari Rally, driven by Shekhar Mehta and navigated by 'Lofty' Drews running number 1. It has a later evolution of the 'Teikoku Dempa' intercom with external headphone jack units (which would appear to give more freedom of movement and less stress on the jack plugs) but it still gives a Model No. of 'Y-4009' and with a Serial No. of '066'. Volume control appears to be conventional 'pot' type dial knob rather than the rotary (I don't know what to call it?!) dial on your Serial No. '014' unit. Interesting that there is a 52 unit difference between serial numbers for a roughly two year production gap. It was powered by a battery pack mounted behind the RH rollover bar mounting bracket, carrying two batteries (one connected, one spare) and press-on old battery radio style blue vinyl-covered connectors:

Great 'behind-the-scenes' photos there Kats. I have not seen those before. Excellent! Yes! Rauno Aaltonen was often seen wearing a red crash helmet around that time. In later years I have seen photos of him using a white one too. Aaltonen had a reputation for being fastidious and meticulous about his preparation, and whenever I see photos of him before rallies and at servicing that does seem to come across. He liked to put a '12 O'Clock' stripe on his steering wheels and he also preferred the blue WILLANS brand safety belts, which he would swap with the factory Works team's Takata belts. Here are a couple of colour shots from the '70 RAC and '71 Monte:

Nissan's Works team called this system an 'Interphone' (the period English vernacular being 'Intercom') and they had already been using similar systems on previous Works rally cars. They were especially important/useful on the East African Safari Rally with its long and arduous road sections between special stages, where it was still necessary for the navigator to call the route to the driver, often at fairly high speeds (high noise). They would have been necessary on 'recce'/reconnaisance practice and ice note runs where the crew needed good communication to make accurate pace notes on events such as the Monte and RAC rallies. For the 1970 RAC Rally, the crews were using single-ear interphones that could be used also be used over specially-adapted Paddy Hopkirk crash helmets. Kind of unwieldy, and it is easy to see why the next step was to integrate the earphone on the inside of the helmet. Some photos of testing in the UK prior to the 1970 RAC Rally, where the crews were getting used to the new systems: Rauno Aaltonen, Hans Schuller and Tony Fall: Detail: Aaltonen and Fall: Tony Fall with Works team mechanics, team manager Takashi 'Waka' Wakabayashi on the left:

'46' indicates Showa 46, which is 1971. Japanese calendar dates tend to follow USA format, which is Year-Month-Day, so '46-11-9' is November 9th 1971. This of course indicates manufacturing date and/or quality control check of the console, not of the car. It may even be for the FRP moulding of the console body and not the completed article. Consoles were made in another facility and then shipped in batches to Nissan Shatai's Hiratsuka plant for the build-up of the cars. The batches may well have been made up of consoles made over several days or even weeks, and it is doubtful that they were attached to cars in sequence according to the quality control date - although it is logical that they would normally have been attached to a car within a few weeks of production. I think it is fair to say that most quality control/production date stamps on the components of these cars tend to average out at within a month of the car being given its 'OK' completion check, although it is possible to observe the odd exception which tends to prove the rule...

Seems logical. Our numbers are very close too.

Here's mine:

I have a Works 240Z rally car alternator. It is a Hitachi L-X503. I was told by several people in Japan that this was a heavy duty type usually fitted to various trucks of the period. Works rally modification included adding a splash shield to protect it from ingesting road debris. This was spotwelded to the fan blades. Here's a period photo of a Works car engine bay where the same or similar Hitachi part number is visible:

Datsun Competition in the USA used to supply a 'kit' to convert an FS5C71-A 'Roadster 5-speed' for use in the Z. The transmission you ask about may be an example of this. Datsun Competition supplied various close ratio gear kits for them too. However, the FS5C71-A Servo Synchro 5-speed overdrive transmission was fitted as standard equipment for the S30-series Z range everywhere except the North American market. They were also used on Skyline, Cedric and Gloria models in the Japanese market. Parts (especially the steel Servo-patent synchros) are now hard to find and therefore they can be expensive to refurbish. I have the FS5C71-A on three of my cars and I personally like them, but they have a somewhat undeserved bad reputation which mostly comes from worn out examples.

Yes! You've got it. Definitely 'Conversion & Tuning Centre Ltd' of Brixton, South London. I didn't see the 'C T' logo cast into the manifold in your previous post. Very distinctive. The only other big London-based specialist supplier of carburettors, inlet manifolds and conversion kits from that early 70s I can remember was Chris Montague Carburettor Co. in North London (my side of town), and which I am old enough to have been a customer of. Gone now. They really knew their stuff. I bought my John Passini-authored Weber 'bibles' from them in the late 1970s. My *guess* is that Mangoletsi may have cast some manifolds for C & T London with their logo on them. It probably would have been too expensive for C & T London to have commissioned their own castings with such a relatively small market already covered by Mangoletsi. I would say - judging from the photos - that the C & T London version looks like a neater casting than my '470' Mangoletsi, but that may have been down to batch quality differences? Having said that, other '470' manifolds that have passed through my hands in the past (often from period 'Samuri Conversions' cars) are equally poor castings, so they seem to have been pretty consistently poor. Could C & T London have insisted on a better casting, with their name on them? Seems feasible. Just as an aside for your friend; if he uses this 40DCOE-24 setup on an L24-based engine he might want to try changing to short (10mm) accelerator pump rods and 0.45 accelerator pump jets, as used on the 40DCOE-18. I have recommended this a few times for others with positive results. The Nissan L6 seems to 'like' a short, sharp accelerator pump action on the DCOEs. John Passini covered the topic in his books. Recommended.

A cool part of DSSA history. Thank you for showing it to us. Intriguing! I'm surprised that they chose to use 40DCOE-24 series carbs. Weber's own recommendation as a conversion 'road' kit for the L24 engine was three 40DCOE-18 series and the 24 series was actually only offered as stock (factory) equipment on the 1600cc ALFA Giulia Super. The 24 series had 27mm chokes and 0.35 pump jets, whereas the 18 series had 30mm chokes and 0.45 pump jets. The 18 series also had an accelerator pump stroke more suited to the L24 than the 24 series did. My best guess (take that for what its worth) is that they sourced the 24 series carbs from ALFAs and/or already had them available. The manifold is a new one on me. I can't ever remember - even as a Londoner - seeing the name 'LONDON' cast into a manifold. Your illustration from the Janspeed catalogue shows the '470' casting that - I have always been told - was cast and supplied by Mangoletsi. Janspeed, and others, often supplied the Mangoletsi manifold with their conversion kits. I wonder if the 'LONDON' manifold was also something cast by Mangoletsi for a specific customer? However, I can't think of any L6 specialists in the London area or using the London name. Curious. Here's a Mangoletsi '470' casting manifold that I have in my loft, for comparison. Casting quality is - I have to say - fairly rough:

Surely the old adage of SISO/'Sh*t In = Sh*t Out' applies here? All it will do is take the loudest/most often written and repeat it? For example: The 1969 New York Auto Show - held at the New York Coliseum, Columbus Circle, Manhattan - took place in April 1969. Of course, no '240Z' was there, so SISO. Where did Chat GPT get the bad information from? My bet is that it has something to do with the reality-warping 'history' of the Z's debut as delivered on zhome.com, and echoes thereon.

This is possibly the sequence of the show that troubles me most. I just don't understand how anyone can seriously imagine that the layout of the Nissan L-gata engine - with inlet and exhaust on the LH side - was somehow "...designed for the US market." Jay Ataka was pointing at the throttle linkage and waggling the vacuum booster hose when he was saying this. Yes, the throttle pedal and brake pedal/booster are on the RH side of the car in an RHD layout. So are the steering shaft and clutch pedal. Where else are they going to be? The key point is the handing of the inlet and outlet of the engine. Here on classiczcars we've had discussions in the past about the design 'inspiration' of Nissan's L-gata engine. One member was evangelically convinced that it was "copied" from the Mercedes Benz M180 engine (spoiler: it wasn't) which had inlet and exhaust on the RH side. Prince's G7 six sometimes gets a "Merc copy" mention (Prince and Nissan were competitors at the time) but the G7 had inlet and exhaust on the LH side, same as the Nissan. So, Nissan's L-gata engine range "...designed for the US market." Does anybody here want to try to convince me that's true? Go on, I dare you. 🙂

31:30 Leno again: "When this car came out, there was no Japanese heritage. You know, ALFA Romeo had heritage, Ferrari, Bentley... had all raced in the 1930s and whatnot. So they (Datsun/Nissan) were brand new. So this really was the beginning of Japanese heritage. And now, 50 years later, it's got a real line. You can trace it all the way back". As mentioned in my previous post, you can trace it back a lot further than 50 years. I think this is Leno viewing things through the lens of the USA again. Maybe it looks like that to him - and 99% of his YouTube viewers will swallow it whole - but it is wrong. He mentions ALFA Romeo (established in 1910), Ferrari (established as a racing team in 1929 and not a manufacturer until long after that) and Bentley (established in 1919). Notwithstanding the 'DAT' car of 1914, Nissan was founded in 1933 and was racing soon after. As a brand it is not that much younger than the companies he cites. It was making (and racing) cars before Ferrari, Porsche and many other manufacturers.

25:20 Jay Leno: "Cars didn't start to be introduced in Japan, for everybody, until after the war, correct? Not 'til the Sixties." OK, so this is an exaggeration that probably doesn't deserve to be taken so literally (especially considering "for everybody" as a caveat), but I think it warrants a little correction. All the more so when it was said by somebody who was driving along in a Japanese market Japanese car. Japan's automobile industry was a little late in getting started, but there was plenty of activity in the early part of the 20th Century. Japanese entrepreneurs and nascent industrialists were on the case, and 'our' brand (Datsun/Nissan) can trace its roots back at least to Masujiro Hashimoto's first commercial activities in 1911, establishing Kaishinsha Jidosha Kojo. By 1914 Kaishinsha had produced the first 'DAT' car, named in tribute to his three main investors. The car Leno was driving could arguably trace its DNA back to that 1914 'DAT' car. There were plenty of other automobile pioneers in Japan around that time too, so it's a little unfair to ignore them. It would also be unfair to Nihon Ford, who built their first factory in Yokohama to assemble the Model T in 1925. Within a few short years they had expanded the factory and fitted a conveyor line system which allowed them to produce 20,000 units per year. In the same period General Motors established a factory in Osaka which allowed them to produce 10,000 cars a year. Private and commercial motor vehicles were a common sight on Japanese roads in the 1920s and 1930s. A little bit of trouble in the mid 1940s (*polite cough*) set things back a little, but by the 1950s the Japanese domestic manufacturers were on the case again and a family car was becoming a realistic proposition for many. The Nissan Fairlady Z that Leno was driving is a product of that post-war rebuilding and re-tooling, but has a bloodline which can be traced back to the early 20th Century. Incidentally, if anyone wants to investigate the pioneering days of the Japanese automobile industry, I strongly recommend the National Science Museum of Japan (now renamed the National Museum of Nature and Science) in Ueno, Tokyo. They have an amazing reserve collection relating to the subject and it is very informative: https://www.kahaku.go.jp/english/#

23:51 Jay Ataka: "I would say the whole Z thing is about the American market". Saying this while riding along in the passenger seat of a Japanese market variant is - in my opinion - more than a little odd. We can probably all agree - obviously - that the US market was the biggest single market for many manufacturers, but the S30-series Z was conceived, designed, engineered and produced simultaneously for several different markets and in several different variants. The car that they are sitting in - and supposedly the subject of the show - is an example of that fact. So 'the whole Z thing' is about all the Zs, not just one variant.

Matsuo san told me several times that the car which surprised he and his fellow design team members the most - because they were shocked at how similar some of the key lines were to what they were working on at the time - was the Maserati Ghibli. Of course, they'd had no preview of the Ghibli or Giugiaro's work on it at Ghia, and the photos from the Turin Motor Show were a shock. Maybe another good example of the auto styling zeitgeist and two independent teams coming up with similar answers to similar questions?

"Inspired by". Perhaps, but were Nissan's team unique in that respect? I don't see a single line or curve in the S30-series Z that directly references the E-Type. They would have been "inspired by" all manner of cars and objects, including Mother Nature. What educated artisan is not? OK, so far we've got Corvette, Thunderbird (LOL) and Mustang from Leno, E-Type, 911 and Ferrari Daytona from others. Peter Lyon (yes, I'm more than familiar with his work) says that "critics argued it borrowed styling hints from...", but that's not Peter Lyon saying it did, it's them... Hell of a mash-up there. But you see what's happening, right? Did all of those cars mentioned spring forth from their makers in a vacuum? When the 911 debuted, did people accuse Butzi Porsche of copying something? What did the E-Type copy? You end up dancing on the head of a pin. People only pursue this line with the Japanese designers and stylists because deep down they believe that 'Japan copies'. But nobody copied Japan, right? Automotive styling follows trends and responds to the prevailing zeitgeist just as much as anything else. Packaging wise it has to conform to numbers both set down on paper and dictated by hard components (like those 'Made For The USA' engines, pfft). I reckon there's a very good chance myself - and any other schoolboy who bought the same automotive magazines - could have doodled a rough outline of such a car in the late Sixties and not been far off. The difference was in the detail and the eye of the guy scraping at the clay (largely Yoshida san and Tamura san in the S30-series Z's case). Since we're at it, here's a name-check for the great styling houses of Ghia and Touring. Let's chuck these in the gumbo too:

LOL. Get over yourself! You take yourself far more seriously than I do. What point of view have you offered? All I see is your E-type and Aston comment, and if you honestly think those two front ends are stylistically related then you probably do need to get your eyes checked. Styling wise, they are miles apart.