HS30-H

Hi Guus, Great pics! Must be great fun driving on those kind of surfaces. I'm puzzled by the no.5 car's front end spec. Its obviously an LHD car, but its got the UK-spec. front valance corner panels ( no Indicator cut-outs ) and the corresponding oblong indicator lights on the front bumper. Very strange. Do you think it might have originally been a UK-market RHD car converted to LHD? Do you know the owner at all? Interesting to see that all three owners went for the "Works" rally paint scheme. Tony Fall was also competing this year ( I heard ) but I didn't spot his car in the photos. Maybe he had already crashed or broken by then ( as usual....... ). Did you hear anything about him? The UK motorsport press didn't mention anything much about the Historic Monte this year. There are four 240Z 'Post Historic' class entries in the Welsh Rally this coming weekend. Its too far for me to go and spectate but I'll let you know the results when I hear them. All the best, Alan T.

No shame Alfadog, There's really not very much that's special about 99% of the so-called "Samuri" conversions that you will come across. Most of them consisted of a bit of porting on the head ( in many cases just matching the inlet and exhaust ports to their manifolds ) maybe a set of carbs, and an exhaust system ( often Janspeed, but sometimes GDS ). Not all of them came with the "special" paint job either. Frankly, I'm not a believer in the hype about the Samuri Conversions legend. They were the most prominent of the few tuning companies in the UK that were messing about with the Z back in the mid Seventies to late Eighties period, but that's not saying much. For some reason they got a reputation in the UK-based Z scene for being demon tuners, but this was largely based on the image that their race cars made for them. BIG SAM was indeed a fast car ( and still is ) - but was based on a Works rally bodyshell, and is considerably stiffer than the stock shell. Its on its second Works shell now, and still comes out occasionally - but there is very little of the original ( Samuri prepped ) spec. remaining. Most of the work that you see on the car now was performed by Tim Riley, and is quite different to when it was raced in the mid Seventies. Most of the road-spec. Samuri cars disappeared many years ago, and what is left now seems to be pretty iffy stuff. Its very hard to prove that a car purporting to be a Samuri actually IS one ( supposing that you would WANT to prove that it is ) as they were never properly logged of identified by Samuri. The UK-based Z owners clubs both have a separate 'class' for Samuri versions, as do some of the UK price-guides in the classic car magazines. I have never been able to get my head around this. The cars are still 99% Nissan, and a bit of porting and a two tone paint job don't make them special in my book............ There are LOTS of funny ( and not so funny ) stories about the activities of Samuri, and their somewhat hit and miss approach to business. One of my favourites came from a chap who took his 260Z to Samuri for a ported cylinder head and exhaust conversion. He made the mistake of turning up a day early to collect his car, only to find the Samuri proprietor with his backside in the air, cigarette in mouth, leaning into the engine bay with die-grinder in hand, merrily grinding away at the inlet and exhaust ports. The head was still on the engine, and he had stuffed toilet roll down the ports to stop the swarf falling past the valves! The owner said that the car went quite well afterwards, but he could not get the image of all that aluminium dust flying around out of his mind.............. Joseph, are you SURE you want a Samuri? You could do a much better job yourself you know. Alan T. ( opinions expressed are my own personal bias and prejudice, and do not necessarily correspond with those of classiczcars.com:bunny:)

Japan actually did not get the S130 Z with the L28 and turbo combination. They got a normal-aspiration L28 model, but the turbo equipped models were all L20 based. The 280ZX Turbo was not a USA-only model - as some other territories had it too. If you are looking for a car on Japanese auction sites, you would need to key in "S130" or more specific details of the model type in your search. For the 2-litre turbo models, try keying in "S130JTB" or "KS130JTB" for the 2-seaters, and "GS130T", "GS130ST" or "GS130JTB" for the 2+2 models. Bear in mind that they will all be L20ET engined - so maybe not what you want. Don't know if you could wangle it or not, but importing a Japanese-market 2 litre car and then upgrading to an L28 Turbo engine would not be a problem here in the UK. We have very user-friendly laws regarding that kind of thing over here - but I guess Australia is different? We got the S130 with L28 and Turbo here in the UK, and there are hardly any of them left on the road in decent condition now......... Alan T.

That's probably the "Fairlady Z" look you are after, as the Fairlady ZG didn't have a mesh grille ( or indeed any grille ). The reason for the extremely high Dollar prices of parts like the mirrors is that the dealers and others who are selling them now are just buying them at RETAIL prices from Japan. Some Japanese specialists have limited supplies of deadstock / NOS parts, and its also still possible to find NOS parts being sold privately by owners who bought them in the past and did not use them. The going prices for these items are gradually increasing in Japan, and when you pay Dollars it makes them look extremely expensive ( especially if you pay in $AUS ). I pay in £STG, which has a supposedly better exchange rate, but I still find buying parts in Japan painful. The Japanese over-the-counter prices have always been higher than in other territories, as Nissan - along with many other companies - set their retail prices to suit the market that they are selling in. If they did not do this, they would never sell anything at all in markets such as Africa and South America. Even though the parts are made in Japan, Japan still has the highest retail prices. Mesh grilles, 'fender-mount' mirrors and Fairlady emblems are all still available in Japan - but they are expensive. Some of the 'official' dealers in the USA are able to get occasional supply of items like the grilles, and when they do they get the advantage of the market-adjusted prices on them. If you bought the same item in Japan it would be more expensive................ Ironically, some parts sold in the USA have for many years been finding their way back to Japan. Some Japanese owners noticed that the USA prices on certain items were cheaper than the Japanese prices - even when including shipping and duty - and made small orders with companies such as TWEEKS and MSA etc. Best place for anyone without Japanese connections to look for these kinds of items is still on the net. The auction sites are a bit hit and miss but more and more people are seeing the interest in these pieces and are filling the gap. Prices are always going to be painful............... Alan T.

I thought Mel Gibson was Australian. Was he actually a Yank all that time? Stone the crows, he had me fooled. Somebody put me straight on that one will you? I'm not sure about "Drawing the raw prawn" ( I thought that was a reference to showing the one-eyed trouser snake the light of day ) but "Stone the crows" is certainly older than its Australian use. I believe that its London slang ( not rhyming ) or Naval slang, and I feel sure I've seen it used in work by Mayhew or Dickens. Talking about literature, that was quite a piece by go z racer, go wasn't it? Your talents are wasted, sir. This thread is like flipping the channels on the TV remote! Alan T.

Please don't cut out the seat-mount members - they are an integral part of the shell and cutting them out will make your bodyshell weaker. I don't know about the USA, but for just about any race / rally / autoX series here in the UK you would not be allowed past scrutineering with seats just bolted to the floor. You'd be amazed how much this would tear up your floor - especially with a bit of spirited high-G driving, and the safety issues in the event of an accident don't bear thinking about. The best thing to do is to lower the stock seat members by cutting and shutting them. You might want to take the time to gusset them at the points where they join the trans tunnel and the inside of the sill ( rocker panel to you ). I had Corbeau GT8 buckets in my previous car ( a 73 model ) and had to lower the seat members to get a proper driving position. The Corbeaus, like a lot of aftermarket seats, have quite a thick seat base - which causes you to be sitting quite high if you still use the stock sliders. Even if you bolt the seat direct to the seat members it still leaves them quite high. Cut and shut the seat crossmembers properly and be done with it. Do it properly and be safe. Good luck, Alan T.

Bruce, On my current setup ( 40PHH-S ) the Main Jets are 160s and the Air Corrector / Main Air Bleed are 210s. All other settings and sizes are stock for the 'S' model 40PHH. I do hope that you are not going to read anything too much into what other people are using. This data really ought to be used only as a base-line from which to start from when setting up your particular engine. The stock jettings from Mikuni were a pretty god baseline, but they really ARE just a baseline, and a proper set-up on a rolling road dyno with AT LEAST a few sizes of Main and Air jets on hand is mandatory. The operator of the rolling road will almost certainly be able to make a vast improvement over what any of us can do without him, and the old-fashioned method of do it yourself through plug reading still necessitates having the alternate jets on hand.............. Gav, In my opinion, if you can't cover the cost of a proper rolling road dyno session and the cost of the jet changes, then going for triple carbs will be a waste of time. I figure that the dyno session is part of the investment, and pays dividends in the long run. I've lost count of how many people I've talked to who take a look at the triple carbs on my car and suck through their teeth at them. Many of them go on to say that they had endless trouble with theirs, but admit to having just bolted them on with a crap linkage and expected them to work properly! A good rolling road session with the Hitachi SU's would also be a great benefit for many engines. I would suggest that you stick with them and just get them set up properly to suit your engine. With a relatively tame spec on the other mods, the SU's are fine. Don't forget that the dyno tuner will optimise the ignition events as well as the fuel system............... Alan T.

My installation was set up on a rolling-road dyno ( the only way to really get it right as far as I'm concerned ). We changed the Air Correctors and Main jets, but apart from that the stock settings were just about spot on for my particular engine spec. Later on I changed to a different exhaust system and noticed a drop in power and torque across the range. Took the car back to the rolling road and once again we changed the Air Correctors and Main jets - making a great improvement. I'm running 3 x 40PHH-S with 32mm chokes on a Harada inlet manifold, Option 76 Degree cam, larger valves, raised compression and some porting of the ( E88 ) head. Exhaust system starts at an Option manifold running into a full stainless twin-pipe up and over layout. Anyone who bolts on a set of triple sidedraughts and expects them to work properly "out of the box" is fooling themselves. This is one of the main reasons why this kind of layout gets a bad reputation. Truth be told its usually the installer / user who is at fault - not the carbs. Apart from the correct jetting and synchronising, a properly engineered linkage is also essential. Apart from that, I think I probably AM a poseur too..... Alan T.

James, The Fairlady Z was never sold with an L28 in Japan. My guess is that its a fairly late S31, and that it would have come from the Factory with an L20E ( injected ). The L28 was probably either installed in Japan as a tuning mod, or was fitted in NZ when it arrived there as a private import? Try and get that VIN / Chassis number and it will help to pin down what the car is actually based on. Good luck, Alan T.

Hi 240znz, I presume that's me you are asking? Trouble is, I don't know too much about the 280Z model either. We never had them in the UK, and my experience with the Japanese models does not help either as they never had a 280Z model as such over there either............. But hang on, what exactly IS this beast? You said its a 280Z but you also said it came with an L20 engine. Does this mean it was not originally a 280Z at all - but more probably a Japanese-market S31? Have you got info on the VIN / Chassis number? That might help to identify it. I didn't think that the 280Z model was officially imported to NZ, in which case I would have thought this was something else. It sounds to me like a late Fairlady Z-L ( 1S31 ) with an L28 engine fitted. Does that sound possible? Lots of heads were fitted to the L20 engine over the years - so its hard to say what it would have had on it without knowing what it came from. Alan T.

Thanks to Z Kid for alerting me to this thread. First thing to note is that you will NOT be able to determine a real ZG from its chassis / VIN number. All genuine Factory-built ZG's start with the prefix "HS30" - just like most RHD L24-engined cars. The "HS30-H" code was a Factory model identification code, and does not appear anywhere on the car................ Stryder, to avoid paying over the odds for a non-genuine car I would investigate it very thoroughly if I were you. I know that there are several 'fake' ZG's in the USA ( that is to say, cars that people BELIEVE to be real ones - but are not ). The most common scenario is where a US serviceman has bought a car while stationed in Japan, and brought it back home with them. In many cases they bought locally tuned and modified cars, and were not necessarily in full command of the facts about their particular purchase. Modifying a 'normal' Fairlady Z into something that looks very close to a ZG is pretty common in Japan, but this does NOT make it a ZG. There are a lot of things that you can look at to discern whether the car is a GENUINE ZG or not. The easiest for Japanese owners is to look at the identity papers for the car. These are pretty hard to fake, and the extra length and width of the ZG is clearly stated in the papers. As your car is in the States, it will mean that you will probably not have immediate access to these papers - however, when the car was imported a copy of the papers would have been kept by the US Customs. You can start by tracing back the import of the car. After that, you will want to be checking out a whole list of things to discern a real ZG from a faked or replicated one. I can give you some guide points if that will help you. I think the first thing for you to eliminate is the Chassis / VIN number question. All true ZG's came with the "HS30" prefix, but so did many other models. At least if you see the "S30" prefix you will immediately know that it is not a real ZG. I've seen cars advertised for sale in the USA as 'real' ZG models - but saw that the Chassis / VIN number started with the 'S30' prefix, which definitely shows that they were not real ones. As V12 Horse mentioned, real ZG's only came in three Factory colours. Checking whether the original paint was one of these three colours will help to start the process. You really need to get to a part of the car that will not have been repainted in the past. I'd try looking well up under the dash, under the vinyl trim and anywhere else you might think a repaint would not bother with. The problem here is that even if you DO find it was White or Red - it still does not prove its a real ZG, as ordinary HS30 models came in these colours too. The GP Maroon was not used on other models for the first year of ZG production, but was offered as an option in the Japanese market from then on. Again, its not conclusive proof, but if you find that the car was originally Silver, Blue, Green etc then it will NOT have been a ZG model............. As V12 Horse also pointed out, the mechanicals on the ZG were just the same as the other HS30 models; L24 with the Hitachi SU's, 5-speed box and 3.9 R180 Diff. If I were you I would eliminate these first questions before digging any deeper or parting with any money. Even if it IS a real ZG you will still need to let your head rule your heart and look at the true condition of the car. If you need any detail advice then please feel free to contact me. I have spent a lot of time researching these cars and I think I have some good data that might be useful to you. Good luck, Alan T.

Professional writer? :ermm: Me????!!! I thought professionals do it for money..... I should be so lucky. Thanks for the heads-up and the links. I had no idea that was up on the web. Damn near frightened the life out of me........ Alan T.

daddz, I have absolutely no idea what you are referring to ( ???? ). I have contributed to the newsletter of the Classic Z Register in the past, but I had no idea any of my stuff was up on the web. Where the hell is it? Alan T.

daddz, I think you are talking about two different productions that have been copied and put together on one tape. The first one sounds like one of the BARCHETTA ART OFFICE videos from around 1993-94. If its the one with seven Fairlady ZGs then it is no.38 in their 'Historic Car Series'. Barchetta Art Office was affiliated to a magazine production company, and these videos were produced as a sort of 'video magazine'. The participants were members of several clubs, and there is no single "ZG" club in Japan. These tapes were never really meant to be anything too serious, and they are pretty light on history, but overall a good taster. The Skyline part would not be from the same original tape, and I'm wondering if its the Victor Entertainment 'Skyline GT-R zenbo' tape that features ex Works Skyline ( and Z ) drivers Masahiro Hasemi and Kunimitsu Takahashi having an on-track battle at Fuji Speedway in a pair of Ishizaka-prepared KPGC10's ( one Silver and one Black ). Does that ring a bell? You can still find some of these videos in Japanese bookshops, and used ones appear on the web auctions. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be asking you for a copy now............:bandit: Alan T.

Sorry for my tardiness in getting back to this thread with the data I promised. I've come across something strange and need to check it out before putting up numbers that are not correct and possibly misleading people. Its a couple of part numbers that are really similar to eachother, and look like they have been misprinted. Nothing earth-shatteringly important in the scheme of things, but I don't want to post numbers that might be wrong. I've asked a friend to cross-reference his own data and we'll see if its a misprint or just a coincidence. Not that anyone's holding their breath, I'm sure............. Alan T.

What size inner and outer Venturis are you looking for? I might be able to help you. You'll also need to pin down the exact model and size of the carbs that these are for. There SHOULD be some identification on the carb bodies ( sometimes Solex put this on an alloy tag that was sandwiched under one of the top cover screws ). Take a look and see if you can identify them properly. Nobody's going to be able to help you online unless you can ID them properly. They aren't the ADDHE model are they? I think I have some parts in my garage for that model. If not, I know where I can get some. Let me know if you can ID them properly. At least I'm in Europe, so a little bit closer to the Solex source than you are. Alan T.

Whew, Thanks for that daddz. I was going to put out an APB for you ( GTA: Grand Theft Avatar ). I feel much better now.............. If you want to buy the car, start saving now:bunny: Alan T.

I think I would have remembered if I had sold it.......... That car is not for sale. Alan T.

bump..............

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