Ran a vintage race this past weekend, it was Datsun Porsche Challenge weekend. I had a lot fun right until lap 5 of the Datsun Porsche race on Sunday.

On Saturday I had an issue with the master kill switch that worked in both the on and off position, read no power at all. Got it sort of working for practice, we bump started the car and I made 1/2 a lap.

Sooooo starting dead last in the qualifying race, no biggie I'd just pass like a fiend. I got past a good number of cars and within 3 laps was up behind a Turner, which was really well driven, at this point I started driving my arse off and went from 8200 to 8400 to 8600 RPM's (the springs are good to 9K+). When that didn't work I started over driving it for about half a lap, by that time the water temp was creeping past 225 so I backed off. This of course allowed a couple of cars to start reeling me back in. The one amusing bit was, the race before ours a Formula Vee lubed the course, so entering the fastest turn on the track at about 90 mph I was trying to keep an MGB at bay and just got onto the speedy dry, just before the apex the car snapped sideways, I went form 90 degrees of steering right to about 120 degrees left and back to 90 right in a split second, I didn't think it to huge a moment until I noticed the MGB drvier went from 3 car lengths back to about 9. At the end of the race I managed to get to 10th place from 19th, not to bad.

Sunday morning I new the Datsun Porsche race would not be pretty, a couple of the 914's had issues and the 2 low prep 240Z's had issues as well. On the start I out braked a 911S for turn one..............he then promptly blasted past on the next straight, so I decided to use the rest of the race to try things for the final. On lap 5 coming down the main straight the motor went slightly off song, then between 1 and 2 it started missing, I went up the escape road after turn two and shut it off. With only 30 minutes between events it was game over

When I got home I popped the valve cover and it was obvious what the problem was. The valve adjuster screw had backed out on the #1 intake and it reeked havoc. The spring retainer broke in half and the the valve is stuck about 5mm down. Could be I need to cinch the locknuts down more or check them more often or not run as many revs. Either way I knew I was flogging the motor hard.

On the plus side I have my A15 on the engine stand so over the winter I'll put that in along with the upgraded rear axle.

Tom

On the

Quite exciting. Seems like it is always the small things that fail.

No good but I bet it was fun and that's the,main thing out of this.

You had a new engine in wings so knew it was time to abuse it

shame about the bad luck, sounds like you were having a ball out there otherwise

would love to see some pics of your race car

No bad luck involved really, I just flogged the engine in the classic Yosamite Sam " ya mule ya mule" . It was indeed great fun and despite the tires having 5 weekends on them I still manged to go ever so slightly faster than last years event at LVMS........by about 4 hundreths of a second. These area pictures from last years event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's outside road course, it's not a very scenic place but a fun course.

As you can see from the before picture the car has come a long way in the last 25 years.

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Adjuster got loose. See Datsun 1200 is so sturdy even a caveman can't kill it

Mine was great for 5 years, until I drove it with this combination: uphill, 70 mph, and 102 degrees. Then the 2-row radiator wasnt quite enough.

dd your car wouldn't survive here in Nevada for very long then. For 4 to 3 months it is ALWAYS over 100, everybody drives around 70mph and the hills are plentiful.

My auto transmission 1200 ran fine in the dead of summer. I never kept off the skinny pedal. I did have a freshly re-cored radiator though.

Rallytwit I work off in the buildings in the background of your picture. Kind of funny; small world!

Dave, the previous time I had one back out was really down to me, the locknut backed off with the adjuster. This one was a little bizarre in that the locknut was still down on the rocker but the adjuster stud had backed out. The push rod fell towards the center of the rocker and wedged itself under the rocker arm. If I'd been more heads up and shut the motor instantly I probably would have gotten away with no damage...........the last time this happen I was also buzzing the motor. Add in the fact that while I do is change the oil and plugs regular, I do little else to the motor...........yes I'm a Datsun beater.

As for the cooling, when the car was standard the it ran fine in stop and go traffic but once on the freeway above 4000 RPM's it would start to get very hot. The 3 row rad solved the problem.

da71cp if I'd know you were that close I could have given you an extra gate pass...................it was a fun weekend for sure.

Tom