This month's magazine has a series "Enjoy Light Weight". It includes noteworthy lightweight cars, including four pages for a white KB10 DX (A 2-page photo, plus two page text+small photos).


Nostalgic Hero

Nostalgic Hero indeed, its about time the KB10 took its rightfull place in the sun.

The B10 is one of the lowest weight rear wheel drive production cars of the modern era, its performance potential is without equal,it isnt hampered by macpherson struts or any other of the bean counters so called cost saving "improvements".

I may well be showing my ignorance here, but I thought the Macpherson strut setup on the 1200 was meant to be an improvement - even advancement in suspension progress.

That the 1000 with it's 'primitive' setup could not compete with the 1200 for handling...

So how wrong am I?

Where do you get those magazines? Do you have them sent over from Japan?

hmmm
Formula one, Champ cars, all other open wheelers, Sports sedans, GTP and GTO (Le mans cars)!! what do they all have in common?

Double wishbone suspension!!!

It is a very nice way to locate wheels. without going all technical, Macpherson strut is also very good but mostly done for cost reasons rather then performance. Less parts to make means less cost.

To get technical "instead of an upper control arm there is a strut" this can be thought of as "an infinately long upper control arm. This long upper arm yields a camber curve that loses rather then gains negative camber in bump. This is one of the major compromises of the strut type suspension, especially for performance applications"

Finally found a text book that has useful stuff in it!!!
It goes on from there but in short it is a cost thing not a performance thing.

The only dodgy thing about the 1000 is the leaf and the design height. (leaves suffer from non linearities due to internal friction between leaves)

having said that the corvettes use transverse leaves too although they are plastic i believe!!


go the b10!!!!!


ben

Clearly I have something to learn about suspension.

You mention a text book about suspension...

Can you suggest a author/title of a good one?

I'll chase it up and have a read.

i have been reading some heavy stuff that i found at the library at uni, two books by Milliken
i think "automotive chassis design"
it is a collection of notes from a guy called Maurice Olley who started work in the 1900s in britain then went to the usa, its heavy reading but useful for modelling

the more useful one is "race car vehicle dynamics" by milliken and it is pretty much what the title suggests and that is where the quotes come from

its long (very long) winded but has a few great chapters on linkages and design ideals

ben

I have a sniff around, Milliken...

Thanks for the info will follow it up...maybe the old RMIT library in the will carry these books (should still have a library card if I'm lucky)

Also try "how to make your car handle" by Fred Puhn. Interestingly there are several Datsuns as examples in the book. I think the first page has a stock vs. lowered 240Z photo comparison. It's a little over my head in places but I haven't really tried to follow it end to end - normally just skip around.
Michael

Amason.com link to this book

Downtown Seattle, there is a bookstore named Kinokuniya, it's all Japanese books, magazines, CDs. They carry both J's Tipo and Nostalgic Hero the Japanese mags that most often have 1200s in them. A bit expensive (about $9 USD, or about twice what a domestic magazine cost). They will also get subscriptions for you at a bit of a discount.

Seattle's not a mega city (pop only 470k), but the whole Seattle-Tacoma metro area is about 3M, so that's a good size and we get a fair selection of international stuff. Rumor has it there are half-dozen illegal Skylines running around here. There are also reportedly 60-70 legal ones in Vancouver, the next big city to the north. Speaking of Prince, the only trouble with Nostalgic Hero is ... it's Prince, Prince, Prince. Every month it seems. The largest Japanese characters on this cover say "Prince" and that cover car is a Prince.

Then at Barnes & Noble they have a couple Aussie mags (Drift and Fast Fours, if I recall). Last month they had the "150th edition" with "Australia's Quickest CA18" in it, a Datsun 1200 ute owned by Mark Bourne.