SSS Madness!
 

Ok, so I'm not sure about the rest of you but for a fair few years now I've been an avid Datsun fan, particularily 180B SSS'. Over the last 6 or 7 years I've had a fair few but my favourites include a late model coupe with a L20 pull through turbo setup. Was great fun and quite good at whipping most standard cars but had a good ability at breaking lots of diffs... ;)

Another of my favourites was my '73 rally SSS. Had an L18 taken to 2.0L with fully floating forgies, balanced crank, Weckert custom cam, blueprinted block, oversized sump (custom job), ported and polished intake with twin 45mm DD Webers ("I love the sound of Webers in the morning"), and tuned length extractors with twin intermediates running to a single muffler.

So the car was built specifically for rally events; Full 'cage, twin fuel pumps, sparco here an' there. The car never failed to finish a race and I was lucky enough to win a couple club championships, and a handful of top three finishes in the state rounds.

Just a few happy snaps.
[IMG]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/terrous/P5090021.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/terrous/P9140033small.jpg[/IMG]

Anyway, so what I'm getting at is that I love my Coupes, and after selling all them off to make way for the WRX I got the itch to have another one. So I found one in NSW while still living in SA and ended up buying it sight unseen, and by sheer luck walked away with a 56000 Mile, spankin' example of Japans early '70's workmanship.

[IMG]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/terrous/Datsunfront.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/terrous/Datsunside.jpg[/IMG]

After getting my hands on the car, I got bored of the standard auto, so found a Z18 fuel injected, turbo motor. For anyone unaware, it was the motor in the imported Nissan Bluebird. The motor was stripped down and cleaned up, and if you know much of Datto motors you'll be aware that across the different series (Z, L and so on) the different sizes run basically the same heads but different bottom ends, therefore the bottom end of a Z24 fits a Z18 head, which is exactly what I've done. So now the motor is a 2.4L fuel injected turbocharged beast with as many good bits that I can throw at it. Forged pistons, 'rods, crank, new cams, stepped block, ported, polished 'ere and there, basically just looking for the right turbo/ecu setup.

The shell has been completely stripped and blasted, waiting for some free time before getting a new coat of Ford XR5 Electric Orange, while so far the interior is waiting for me to get back to SA to play around.

The point of this car was to get bucketloads of go, but something easy enough for my mum to get in it and putt of to the shopping centre! So we've organised a power steering unit and aircon just for the hell of it.

Anyway, this is the end of my rant for a while, I won't have the opportunity to play anymore with it until I get back to SA, at which point I'll organise some new photos of the build. Cheers for listening and I'm sure most of you that have embarked on such a build will know the joy of putting something like this together!

Alex

Sounds fantastic.

I love the old P510 Datto 1600s, and the 180B was it's follow up.

(or the Bugeye to the P510s GC8)

;)

Keep posting progress pics if you can!

Nice old car, nothing like those twin Webers sucking away, had a pair of 45's in my RS2000 back in the early 80's.

I'd love to get another Mk 1 Escort & do a restoration job on it.

We ended up taking the airchokes out of the carbs during the dyno tune to get more air in, and there was always the question of what was louder; pure Weber growl or the exhaust...and the exhaust registered a 114 at one rally, which I was lucky to get away with ;)

How did it run without the chokes?

seeing as Webbers use the inner most part of the venturi they create for the fuel delivery point ?

Way back when (15 years ago!) I ran a modified 48mm IDA Webber on a 13B Bridge port........Modifed to 51 mm, extended float bowl, billet alloy 49 mm chokes (lathed by a mate and hand finnished by me)...the works.

The induction Roar was louder than the exhaust by a mile!....damn I miss my Baarp, Barps!

Few years back now, I had an 82 bluebird. Not sure the specs but it had a down draught weber on that. Wasnt the quickest car around but the induction growl never failed to put a smile on my face. Was an awesome machine for roll backs too... :)

great work.

im personally a big fan of the 240zs.

Wow takes me back that does
I had an Stanza running twin SU`s on a 2.0L
and used to run in autocross and motorkanahs
hell of a lot of fun that was
have fun with that build............. :)

and thsi is why we need a projects section!

awesome, love the old school jap charm.