Hi ANdy
Brown on spark plugs are a sign of too high of octane. When octane is correct and everything else is correct, plugs should have a light powdery gray color. Too much octane means that you are
still burning gas when the valves open up and you are not getting the correct effeciency from the fuel. There is a happy medium of when you have the correct octane for the compression you
have. It takes a while to get everything adjusted properly. You are probably a little too young and having too much fun to know all there is to know about how to obtain the correct
effeciency. Spend some time in the library and read about fuel effeciency. When I raced high-speed go karts, I bought an air density meter so I would know how to properly set my jets for the
race. It too some experimenting to figgure out how to use eerything properly but after a few times, I learned to look at the meter and know which jet to use. Full effeciency takes
preparation. A 9:1 motor should use 87 to 89 octane most effeciently. I am also a believer in water injection. Read up on that also. After using water injection, your pistons and valves and
all inside the combustion chamber will look like it was just steam cleaned when you take it apart. It also helps stop detonation. I got an adjustable needle valve and put inline to a vacuum
port on the carb. JC Whitney has a very good system that is controllable and is pretty much inexpensive and has good instructions on what it is all about. You can call them in Chicago and
they will send you a catalog. They have clutches, brake rotors and a lot of good parts that are cheaper than most places.
Mareo

Tranny oil is more of white smoke instead of light blue smoke. Modulators are cheap at junk yards. Hope you get it fixed soon. Disconnect the vacuum line and drive it around. It
may have a weird shift but it should still shift and see it it stops the smoke.
Mareo

Is your car an automatic ao a stick? You didn't say. In a ford that I had, the vacuum modulator on the automatic tranny was bad and it would sometimes suck trans fluid into the manifold.
I will bet though that the head was never retorqued. There is no such thing as a non-retorquing head gasket. All heads should be retorqued. That is a thing that keeps the mechanic a job,
non retorquing head gaskets. Gaskets have it written on them "non-retorquing" but is a bunch of bull. If you drive like a little old lady and never get it over 2,000 RPMs, it may not need
retorquing but if you drive like a normal person, retorque the head gasket. Maybe it will need a new gasket, maybe not. Not too many things can cause that blue oil smoke like that if the
oil drains in the head are clean. Maybe a torn valve seal but that usually only smokes at start up. That's my two cents worth.
Mareo

Andrew,
What is the CA18DET motor? I saw the photos of yours but I am not familiar with it. What model did it come in? Does it fit the A-series tranny? Is it an easy fit? Any info on it would be
helpful and appreciated. It sort of looks like the FWD Stanza motor but the distributor on it would stick out the front through the radidtor.
We used to race modifieds on a fourth mile dirt high banked oval. (Small block Chevy in a 41 Ford body and a couple of other bodies) The crank bearing web broke out of the block and took
out everything from the radiator to the rear end. The clutch came up through the floor board and parts came through the hood (bonnet). It took $8,000 to get back on the track. I can
relate to your flywheel coming loose.
Mareo

The RX7 is also a small auto. Like I said, I have never done it but I have seen one rear end conversion.
There has been a lot of discussion on here about the Stanza struts being modified to fit the 1200, so this is not the front wheel drive Stanza. I wonder if or which US model this is. The only
rear drive model sold here since the mid 1982 is the 200SX and 240SX and there was a 510 model in the late 70's and early 80's. Of course, the 300ZX and Maxima were rear drive but they
changed to fwd. The 510 had the NAP-Z DOCH engine.
My uncle has a scrap yard here and ever so often he gets a 210 model in that has a 5-speed. Trannys go for $100 US. I am not sure what shipping would cost but I could ship a tranny to you.
Some shafts were the same but some have the same shaft as the automatic. I think he has a couple of 5-speeds in the bin now. Would you like for me to check on that? Most 210's here were 5-
speeds. Does anyone know if the 210 struts will fit in the 1200? I have the inserts in my struts and they do not last very long and they are too soft.

Here in America, the Stanza is front wheel drive and getting manure from a carosel horse is easier than putting that tranny in a 1200. Try finding a 5-speed tranny from a 77-82 210
or get a Mazda rx7 rear end. Both fit with minor mods.

Hey Andy,
The RX7 rear is the right size and it only needs your spring/shock mounts welded to it. Yes, most are LSD and have disc. I have never done the job but I have seen one from an early 80's
installed.
The PAESO springs are smaller because of stronger metallurgy, don't be confused by size of materials as they are built for racing. You have to use inner and outers together to get proper
usage. I had crome/moly retainers and keepers. No way stock springs are as good. They don't have to have very much more tension to them, just enough to stop floating. On the first engine I
built, I cut down Chevy springs, that worked well but had too much tension. Too much tension is friction and friction is the enemy to high RPMs/HP. Crane Cams reground my first cam with a mild
street grind for $100 but that was in 1981. I still have that cam and engine but I got an air leak on my intake and during boost, it burned a piston and got the cylinder wall. I built the A14
for it with the A12 head next. That was the PAECO valve train.
Mareo

Andy, Sorry to take so long but today is my birthday and it has been one long party this past week. I finally got to look at my spare parts and I have three distributors. Two are the push-pull
vacuum advance type and one is just the vacuum pull. I will keep it. I think the vacuum advance can be changed as both distributors look the same except for the advance mechanism. If you still
want it, I can put it in a box and mail it to you. E-mail your address to me at:
mareospeedwagon1@yahoo.com
if you still want it.
I thought PAECO has some of the best equiptment available. What was wrong with their valve springs? I put over a hundred thousand miles on their valve train with zero problems and that little
motor was a screamer. I could kick ass on an IROC Camaro from standing still to top speed. NO 305 Chevrolet could run with it. A lot tried. With the stock 3.9 rear gear and four speed, it
would do 140 mph and it was the sedan body. I shutter to think what it would do in the coupe body as it cuts the wind a hell of a lot more. My sedan stock did 94 and my coupe did 107 stock.
The only difference was cutting the wind. Motors and trans were the same 68 HP four speed. I used the whole valve train from PAECO; cam, valves, pushrods, lifters, inner and outer springs,
retainers, keepers, and rockers. Excellent equiptment, no problems at all with it for six years. The only problem I ever had with their equiptment was the Aluminum Flywheel stripped bolts and
I had to heli-coil it. Call Crane Cams in Florida for springs. I don't know their number but I am sure they have an 800 number. They will find what you need and they have excellent equiptment
also. You can mill a head .250 inch with no problems and bring you up to close 11:1 compression. You need octane boost with higher compression. A pint of diesel fuel to ten gallons of gasoline
should work just as well as octane boost and cost isn't prohibitive. Be careful putting in larger valves. That takes away from your Bronze valve seats and makes them run hotter and the seats
will come out and kill your whole motor. I still prefer the smaller valves and the round ports of the A12 head over the larger vales and square ports of the A14 head, even on the A14 block.
There is a better tunnel ram effect with the round ports and unless you are in strict competition, you will never notice the smaller valves. A little porting and polishing will do wonders to
the A12 head. Keep he B110 rolling. They are very rare now and are still the best car ever engineered for the money. Some cars handle better, some are quicker and some get better gas milage
but none are better on all three accounts especially with a modified motor and suspension. I'll tell you later what to do to with a stock strut to make it better if it does not have an insert
in it. Strut inserts suck very badly. Let me know about the dist.
Doug

Andy,
This weekend was my birthday party so I have been partying hearty and havn't been home too much to look at the distrbutor yet. (I did win our annual inner tube race yesterday) I will check
out the floor pan on the 1200 in the junk yard this week if I get a day off. I like the simplicity of the 1976-77 type distributor over the later ones. They hook up the same as the later
ones, a wire for each side of the coil and they don't have the unsightly box on the side of the dist. I'll check early in the morning on the dist. I know I have three or four but I am not
sure if the advance plate bearings are still in place on all of them. I do want to keep one as a spare but I should have a good one for you. If you can get a new one for a reasonably
price, you should get it. Later pal, Mareo Speedwagon

Excessive fuel causes detonation? Lean usually causes detonation or at least that is the way I thought it was. Detonation is caused when the fuel explodes instead of burning. If it has too
much fuel it can't explode too easy. Why is yours running rich? A15's have a very bad history of burning pistons. My uncle has a recycling yard and almost all of the A15's that go through
there have a blown piston. The metallurgy in the A15 pistons aren't as good. Also the pistons have to travel so much faster that shorter stroked motors and the pistons need to be forged
pistons. Nissan Motorsports told me that they have never made forged pistons for the 1500 motor and they never raced the 1500 motor either. It was made for higher torque instead of power and
RPM's. They reccomended not using the A15 for a performance motor.
Have you shaved the head on your motor. When I first got my first Datsun 1200, I bought a Hayes repair manuel. It said to set the valves on .010 and .010 in. I kaet getting burned valves. Two
years and numerous valves later, I found a factory manual and it said to put the exhaust on .012. Well during all of this, I had the head surface trued up each time it was off. Finally, I
started getting a tappng noise and it took me a while to figgure out why. One of the rockers was hitting the valve cover. All of the shaving had taken over a quarter inch off of the surface.
This in turn had lowered the rocker arm thus making the push rods too long. It did bring the compression up to over 12:1 (225 pounds pressure). I made spacers to set the rocker towers on and
had to use two valve cover gaskets but this brought everything together real nicely. That stock motor was a little screamer. I bought that car new in 1972. Later on I put another motor in it
from a wreck. It had a wrist pin knocking in it. I put a lot of screaming miles on it and it was still running stong when I took it out. Still later on when I put the built and turboed motor
in it, I bent a push rod and it had a tapping noise to it. Hopes this helps. I put over 300,000 miles on that car and it was strong as hell when my ex wife screwed me out of it. It went to the
crusher as she didn't want it, she just wanted to screw me because I divorced her cheating ass.