New shoes, finally

Fuchs' are gone, sold them to our garage's freshly bought 930 for which they are ment for. I had troubles finding new wheels as I got no reply from any Panasport or Work dealers even by phone. I really would have liked Work's as I do like their new colors but now I have to "settle" for Image Wheels. They have been really helpful in the process but I have no idea how the wheels look like on the car until I get them. Delivery time is approximately 5 weeks so hopefully I get them before roads are driveable again. I also swapped the injectors to 1000cc EV14 ones, should be big enough for my needs. Oh yes, and the car is finally inspected for road use and everything is now legal. Great.

The car is in it's natural state again, dirty, on stands and with no wheels.  Front hubs are being redrilled for 5x114.3 and if I have enough time and money I will install air cups for front coilovers.

Exhaust is not done yet but I quite like how it looks. Two small pipes are surely enough for 182hp.

Dyno time again

Of course I had to choose the coldest day of the winter so far for towing the car to dyno but all in all everything went OK. No blown hoses, no leaks of any kind but 790cc injectors were maxed out at 0.95 bar of boost. Fuel pressure regulator did not add pressure linearly with boost so I will have to change that and then add some more boost. Even with this power I will rip the r180 in no time so I guess there's no more excuses for not changing that as well.

Inlet air temps were showing -27c but there was something wrong with the calibration. Still it was cold enough to freeze the engine quite well.

And since I do not like dyno videos, here's one.

Rolling

Everything went like planned and I got to run the car on rolling road for a while. I will leave the overboost tuning to someone who actually knows how to tune cars but I suppose the car is now driveable on the road and I can test that everything works. Note to self: Tighten ALL the nuts and bolts before going to public roads. Driveshafts and wheel nuts were loose this time.

Service I got from Autotune.fi was superb. I can only recommed them and if I already didn't have Tatech ecu I would probably get one of theirs instead. And with this service level fully installed and tuned.

Exhaust in the making

Jani from Autotune is building the exhaust and he just sent me first pics of the "downpipe" or whatever it may be called. The rest will be ready today if all goes well and during the weekend we might be able to tune the car on the rolling road a little.

Fits really well.

Off she goes

This time to get the exhaust done. I finally found a place that has time, skills and will to do it so I immediately drove the car out of the cave and to the trailer. It is not exactly loud with just downpipes but I would not want to drive it like that around the suburbs. I wish I can still do some basic mapping on the streets before snow falls and then during winter get it properly mapped on the rollers.

I had a short drive in a bit newer Datsun and have to say it is one of the few modern cars I'd like to own. Any day. Feels so much more than "just" 545hp and incredible traction. Yet it still felt like normal family car while cruising along in normal traffic. Thank you Mika!

Summer's almost gone and I did nothing to Datsun. All my garage time went to my street bug and trying to get her in to 10's in the quarter. Now that's done and I can retire the whole car for a while and concentrate finishing this one. Plans for the rest of the year is to get the exhaust finally done, fix the brakes and get the car inspected for road use. This will be my check list. I'm also thinking about new wheels as Fuchs seem quite pale and a bit boring. At the moment I'm thinking Group4Wheels and their Campagnolo replicas. Or Image wheels LS Classic in 8 and 9.5 x 15"

 



 

 



Here's a small bad quality video of the car running. I had to use temporary intercooler as I couldn't get anyone to make a custom one for such a short notice. There's still no exhaust and I hope I can find someone to do that at least.

Link to video

Test drive

...on our garage floor. First few meters with the new engine and I have to say I'm quite excited. There's still no exhaust or intercooler, but now I suppose I could drive the car out from the garage to get them done.

Stance is just about right to my eye.

I also weighted the car and this is what scales say. Hood, exhaust, intercooler and some other bits and pieces are missing, but looks like the weight will be around 1000kg when ready. Not exactly a weight weenie but not knowing the original weight I still think it's in leagal limits. Weight distribution is 53/47 and with me on the driver's seat it's 50.3/49.7 so not bad at all.

Getting closer. Engine idles well and even starts easy with E85 when cold, much easier than my previous E85 cars. Brakes are allright, lights are working, etc. I'm still having some strange electric problems, none of the gauges, heater fan and radiator fan are working, but I suppose they are minor things. I'm thinking about getting a dash display for the ecu anyway, but it would still be nice if the original gauges are working.

I found original Nissan mirrors from Japan and they found their places on fenders. Much better looking than door mirrors.