8/22/07

I had a totally unreasonable thought yesterday. If I get Marty, the ’73 Datsun 1200 I used to own, back from Ray on the weekend of the first, I would have three weekends to get an engine in it and bring it to the BNSF Family Day car show. It could probably be done, but I just don’t see us making it happen. In fact, other than right here and now, I'm not even going to mention it. No, I'm not going to allow myself to talk me into this idea. It is not possible. Forget it! It can’t be done in time. No, stop. La la la, I'm not listening to you, la la la! So, having said all of that, here’s how I think we’re planning to resurrect that car. Right now the plan is to use the Chickenhawk's Z-20 engine with, fuel injection this time, and the dogleg five-speed I had bought but never installed. I'm also thinking about putting the 200SX axle with disc brakes, currently residing under the Chickenhawk, in there. I think that swap is going to necessitate putting 280ZX front struts in to make the front and rear track the same, also necessitating the use of front wheel drive offset wheels. This isn’t the big deal Juan might think because it will also give me big old vented discs in the front. This car, I think, won’t get slammed as low as I used to run the Chickenhawk in order to get some gap between the zorst and the floor. I'd like to make this one much more civilized than the Chickenhawk ever was. Of course there is another option. Perhaps George could become the reincarnation of the Chickenhawk and the turbo A-13 could go in Marty. Hmm, that is a thought. No, one of the reasons I allowed John to talk me into running the Z-20 in Marty is that it has an automatic transmission tunnel and therefore the bigger Z-20 stuff will fit better. If I were going to run an A-series in there I'd use Gil’s old engine with the dual SU carburetors. By the way, John wants that for his 1200 and that is how I'm getting the Chickenhawk's engine back. I wonder if John has a fuel injection setup for the Z-20 lying around. [ Two of them, actually. And a brand new set of injectors - SM ] I've got a manifold but I don’t have the injectors, plumbing, and electronics, I don’t think. I suppose I could run a DGV on there and be happy. If worst comes to worst I will, but I'd prefer fuel injection, I think. John has experience wiring up FI in old Datsuns so it won’t be uncharted territory for us. [ Takes about 45 minutes. - SM ] Of course I do have the SDS system that could be modified slightly and reprogrammed. I'd have to order more magnets for the crank pulley, widen the spacing on the injector harness for the difference between an A-series and a NAPS-Z manifold, and bump up the initial fuel map in the ECU at a minimum. No, one of the beauties about the Chickenhawk's engine is it has the “hen’s teeth rare” four-plug NAPS-Z distributor. I'd have to remove all of the guts and make it strictly a switching device for the high voltage side of the equation. I suppose I could do that with an eight-plug dizzy but only use four of the posts. Then again, the Chickenhawk's engine does have an eight-plug head containing four unused plugs that could be dummy wired. I suppose they could be actually wired if I split the signal from the ECU to two coils. I think John and I need to have a discussion about the different options here. I'm beginning to talk myself into a DGV just for simplicity’s sake. Hey, I could drop a couple grand on a dual DCOE setup! [ If you can find the rare ass HKS or Cannon manifold, this is easy and relatively cheap - SM ] Or I could finish that dual SU manifold I began so many years ago. Ooh, now we’re talking! How cool would that be? A pair of Z-car SU carburetors hanging off the side of a Z-20 would be pretty bitchin’ I think. We may have a winner. Again, I need to talk to John first, but I like this idea. I'm sure I'd have the only one in the world. I've got another wacky idea about the quad Keihin motorcycle carburetors but it will require some more investigation on port spacing and such. Suffices to say, it involves the bottom of a fuel injection manifold and an adapter of sorts. I'll get back to you on that one. Maybe. No, I probably won’t. Well, I think I'm just about done here. John and I are supposed to take some pictures of Stinky this evening so we can post it up for sale on the internot. I drove it to work today for that porpoise. I'll let you know how that went tomorrow.