finally found a picture of this awesome little rocket. Regular competitor, and class winner at the Qld Super Sprint Series. Very fast A14, 4spd, locked Vanette diff, Stanza struts and brakes and a very fast driver...




we used to have lots of fun on the track together

Wonder why Datsun logo colours look so good on race cars???
And where do I get some of those flares ??

& who's is the powder blue coupe in the background?it looks nice & clean,too.

BTW Harry congratulations on hitting the Dattomaster category for clocking over 1000 posts!!!
Are your 13' Minilites still for sale?

I'm not sure who owns the blue coupe in the background - he's not a regular and this shot was taken a couple of years ago. It was a very tidy car though.

Craig, I still have the superlites. but honestly, I've discovered they mess up the car's handling a bit. Too much scrub makes the car a bit unstable under brakes and you can't generate quite as much cornering grip. I only really believed it once i changed to the 14" wheels I have now, and it was instantly more stable under brakes and noticeably better turn-in and mid corner grip on the same type of tyre. Unless you take some measures to correct the scrub, I'd go with more sensible offset wheels for the racecar.

Thanks Harry for your honesty and integrity...much appreciated.
Now with my H165 rear and stanza struts running 3.5 degrees camber, 1/2 mm toe in and 3 degrees castor, what wheel offset in a 14" rim would you recommend. I have 200B GX brakes and standard drums on rear. Would you go a 6 or 7 inch rim. I know with the A032R's I have to run a 60 profile. Its a science Im not quite up to speed yet, but still learning.
BTW my first run on the track I did consistant 1.18 at Wakefield which was the same as my GENIII VX 6spd wagon I once owned, running only 1 degree camber...which didnt give much turn in and alot of entry and mid corner understeer. So Id love to get some wheels and new A032R's to get some good times....

That's a nice looking race car!

The blue coupe in the back, isn't that the one that Charlotte now owns?

Harry,
Could you explain this abit more please, as in define 'scrub' and how one goes about curing it?
Cheers
Dave

All this suspension geometry stuff is a bit of a black art to me. I started trying to understand more of it just recently. Until then i followed some words of wisdom from a suspension guru, who told me "You could do alot worse than copy the fastest car in the class". Getting a look under the fastest car isn't always that easy, because chances are he knows what you're up to cause he used to do it himself

scrub radius. its the distance from the centre of the tyre contact patch to where SAI intersects the ground.

'+' scrub radius where the centre of tyre contact patch is outside SAI, '-' where its inside the SAI.

SAI = Steering Axis Inclination. On a strut front end, its simply an imaginary line drawn throught the centre of the strut. Or, it you have bent struts, it's a line drawn through the lower pivot (balljoint) and the top 'pivot' (where the shock insert bolts to the strut top)

Strut front ends apparently don't like lots of + scrub.

Obviously with a given wheel offset, the only way to alter scrub is to alter the SAI. Movint the top of the strut inwards will do that, but also move the centre of tyre contact patch outwards to a lesser extent, so you can't really alter it all that much.

anyway, all i really know is my +3 offset (103mm backspace) 7" Hotwires work much better than the -10 (90mm backspace) offset 7" superlites I had. Would other less offset wheels work better? I dunno...

Craig, I'd go with 7" rims, simply because if you use 6" rims you're really limiting yourself to a 185/60 tyre. Anything wider and you loose a bit of crispness and steering response.

You could get 13s over your brakes with a 205/60 tyre. Or run 14*7" with a 195/60 tyre. Difference in gearing is about 5%.

Datsun pattern 14*7" are hard to find. I had Falcon mags redrilled to fit - they have the same PCD, so it only requires 3 holes to be drilled. Falcon mags are cheap and plentiful too