I had my first event for the year last weekend. The 1st round of QLD Super Sprint Series at Morgan Park Warwick. They now have a number of track configurations at their complex, and for round 1 we used the old short cuircuit which is just 1.1km, very tight and very technical layout including two 2nd gear hairpins!

This was a 2 day event, and the format is 4 lap, standing start, multi-car sprint with 4 cars on the track at once. You grid up in pairs and you can race when the flag drops (passing is allowed) or go in your own time against the clock (timing starts when your wheels move). They give a total time for the 4 laps(no individual lap times).

There were all sorts of cars from Lola open wheelers, Historic touring cars like XY Falcons, Monaros, Mustangs, Lotus Cortinas, some sports cars like Datsun sports 200's, MGB V8's, Improved production cars like mine, and as always a couple of those bloody clubmans, and only 1 rotary, a Series IV RX7 turbo. so at least it didn't make the horrible loud rotary bark...

anyway, I reckon all Stevo's talk about his throttle linkages jinxed me - one of my throttle levers started slipping on the shaft on the first run on Sunday. But I managed some dodgy repairs (involving 'epoxy steel' and a hose clamp) and got back out to post my fastest time for the weekend, despite some minor fuel surge on the left hand sweeper that is the back straight, to get me back into 2nd place ahead of a 2litre Gemini race car by 0.5 seconds - which is damn close considering their timing system is a total time for 4 laps from a standing start! Chris Berry (a friend of mine in a 1600 that keeps beating me lately) was 1.6 seconds ahead of me. Even though that's over a distance of 4 laps, it's still a bit of a thrashing... His car handles pretty well, probably thanks to a good friend of his who lives close by - a guy by the name of Murray Coote. And goes pretty well because of another mate of his - Stew Wilkins who built his engine. Guess I'll have to become more friendly with Fulcrum!

Anyway, I had a blast. But it's definitely more fun when you win...

Sorry Harry


I didn't mean to put the mozz on ya.

Shoulds as if you had a blast anyways, We had the secondround of our series on saturday (see thread)

Where did you finish for the day in relation to class possie, overall and points??

go the Datto's

Cheers

Stevo

yeah, I saw your thread about Calder. Good stuff! geez that mate of yours cam is very quick for a road car! Obviously has the good rubber, suspension setup, and brakes to go with the SR20 turbo

I finished second in class, and somewhere around 10th outright I reckon from looking at the times on the wall yesterday. The track is really tight and technical, so it suits the lighter cars There's really nowhere on that short circuit that the more powerful cars can stretch their legs. I won't know the outright position for certain until they mail out the full results. There were 85 entrants, so I'm pretty happy with how the car went. My best time was 3:04.78 for the 4 laps of the 1.1km circuit. The fastest tin top there did 2:57 odd with an SR20 turbo MkI Escort. There was one other 1200 coupe there with an A14, and very well built and presented who was doing 3:06's which is pretty impressive! I'll have to get some pics of it next time. I had a camera there, but like Stevo says, you keep pretty busy when you're at an event.

The pointscore is fairly complicated as well, because you get 1/2 point for each run of 4 laps you complete (we got 7 runs over the 2 days) + points for your class position + points for outright position for the top 20 cars. So I won't know exactly until the full results arrive in a couple of weeks.

Harry out of 60 cars sh*t man thats a great result! I hate those clubmans bastards. They did the same to Stevo but he'll get there with some more hp in the straights. He told me it understeered a bit which is what Ive always heard of them doing cause of the little movement on the transverse leaf front.
Stevos mates 1600 sr20 is a brute and he ran with narrow steel rims and what looked like road tyres. Even my gal who knows little was surprised at how frightening fast that thing went and lapped some of the same group!. The straights favored the more powerful cars rather than the better drivers but it was fun to see stevos 1000 do so well with about 40hp less than Steve Newings old injected a15 1200.
harry how much is you l-series making? youre making me interested in that heavy donk
Stevo who got the fastest lap that night? I would have liked to have seen the your mates 1600 vs the lancia and the red 260z.
That Avanti lancia delta intregale passed us like I was accelerating backwards in my #### box work van on the Tullamarine freeway that night.

I had a look at all the entrants on the running list last night, and it's probably more like somewhere between 13th and 16th outright out of the 85 entrants. Some of the fastest cars were dual entered...

my L series is 1770cc (L16 block with L18 crank and pistons) and makes around 120bhp at the wheels ~ approx 160bhp at the flywheel (estimated). But it consistently beats cars that claim to have much more bhp, and more highly developed suspensions. Even with the heavier L series, my coupe is still relatively light compared to the cars in my class. As I've said before dyno readings are really only useful as a tuning tool, or comparing cars run on the same dyno. I would like to do a serious cylinder head, and get a bigger lift cam sometime down the track, but only after I get a closer ratio gearset (240Z) for my box which should be in a month or two.

In May we will be running on the full State Championship circuit at Morgan Park, and I'll be able to compare my lap times to the Improved Production Circuit racers - that will be interesting

D

The red 260z with the 'sprint car' v8 beat cam by .200 of a second, but cam would have got him overall because they take your best daylight and best night time lap and add them to get your total time.

The 260z didn't do a night run

Just looking at the state round times from last year and i think it's time to enter up. I should be very competitive in my class.

by the way cam had 225/50/15 Dunlop Advans.......a long way from street rubber..........excuses excuses, but i beat him by 2 secs a lap at winton remember and hae only lapped 3 secs quicker on the power track. 84kw at rear wheels vs 190kw at rear wheels.

cheers

Stevo

Harry, good to hear you clocked some good times. Can't wait to get started on my little beasty so I can perhaps make the odd supersprint meet.

Oh yeah.....get friendly with fulcrum. Because whatever you get try that works I will have a crack at doing on mine.

Gotta keep up with the competition.

Craig

Stevo keep up the good work mate I think you're gonna embarrass many more turbo friends of yours.
When last was your a series refreshed and what comp and fuel do you run?
Harry, the L16 is it the same height as l18? did you make room for the crank or did it fit straight in? have you considered the crossflow twin spark conversion for your L or is it not suitable?
Your right on the money about power and I prefer torque and a good mid range. Its great to hear of your feats it keeps me smiling to think that although cheap to buy dattos are getting expensive to do up. Well pricey for an a-series anyway.
The 1975 260z box I once had, had a long first and second which proved nice off the line and moved ahead of the pack easily.
Is that the kind of box the 240z has or is it all close in ratios?

Hi Harry
Allan here I missed the event again due to work holding an outing on Saturday night and I didn't recover very well.....anyways good to hear you're still giving people a run will see you sometime another thing on 1st of April Nissan Datsun Club of Queensland are hlding a meeting at Albany Creek Library and I will be there on discussions about the future of the club and Lakeside.....anyone want to join its in the Yellow Pages under Clubs

Craig, how about I sell you my hand-me-down bits when I get the new stuff? gotta keep ahead of the competition

D, yeah the L16 block is the same height as an L18. no clearance mods required for the crank. the x-flow, twin spark NAPS (Nissan antipollution system) head has low and relatively small inlet ports, the included angle of the valves limits the cam selection etc. They are simply not used in Australia for naturally aspirated performance applications.

My engine only cost about $1400 to build, including buying the L18 bottom end, cyl head, manifold, carbs, machine work, clutch, rings brg and gskt. That was the main reason for going with the L series motor - cheap bhp.

that's the gearbox alright, tall 1st (i think 2.7 or 2.8) and 2nd (around 1.9) which also closes the jump to 3rd.

Anyone who wants to help save lakeside should keep an eye on this link for details of upcoming meetings etc