I got my dash recovered by Boss Trim in Penrith, for AUS$185. looks great and the insert still fits pretty well. that was done 2 and
a half years ago.

Justin

Sure you could do all that cool stff with the L26, but why not save the trouble and weight and do a VG30? You get more power and torque and less weight and it fits
with MANY fewer modifications?

2.6 liters in a 1200 would be cool ,but why not 3.0L if it's less work? I know of a 1200 ute with a VG30 and it fits really well!

Just my $0.02

Dave Lum
www.datsuns.com

I had my dash recovered by restore-a-dash in Revesby Sydney for AUS$220. It looks sweet, but as it's a cover, the plastic cluster insert is a tighter fit. The foam/vinyl cover on the
steel frame is a must for rego in NSW. Otherwise your poor passenger may split their head open in an accident. I think doing the dash yourself could be an interesting project, but
it's best left to professionals with vacuum forming equipment.

Chris

I personally would like to see it done. But I don't think it would be possible without extending the engine bay...yes a lot of work..

The little 1200 has hardly any dash depth, so moving the engine slightly inside the cabin would be difficult. I've seen an injected L26 in a 510 sedan at the '99 Shasta. The guy was a dude
and the car was very cool. He professed that he could drive around in top gear if he liked. It involved a 3/4 of a foot box section cut out of the firewall. And his engine bay was quite
full.

The purists seems to shun him a little, but when it comes to conversions...I think it's also about just being different.

If local laws allowed, I'd love to put an extra foot in the front of my 1200 and involving chassis, fender and hood mods. Basically adding a section behind the front wheel arch. Then maybe
a 1000hp RB26DETT..Hmm! It'd be different. But I'm certain that it wouldn't go around corners too well.

So there you go. I think it wouldn't be possible, even if you were 'mechanically minded'.

Chris.

I was mistaken about the Hitachi carbs, they are not Mitsubishi, thanks for reminding me. It has been a bunch of years sinceI have been around one now. I have only been around two 260Z cars
and both overheated until the carbs were re-engineered. They can be brought back to SU basics and be as dependably as the SU's but that takes a lot of work that very few people ever learned
how to do.I have never seen a Datsun mechanic get them right. My friend, Trigg, got his 260 in 1977 and that is when I learned how to rego the carbs. Another friend got one in 1982 and a year
later, I went through his whole intake and carb system. Neither 260's overheated afterwards. I never knew of the out of round castings of the 260 block. I have never had a job as a mechanic
so there is a lot I do not know but I have an excellent mechanlcal mind. I have been around race cars since I was big enough to walk. By the time I was 15 years old, I was building winning
dirt track motors. We ported and polished the hard way, with an air grinder and bits and sanding bits. I was fortunate to learn from the man who bought the first chassis dynometer in the
state of Tennessee. I got to see what each little change on a motor did to increase or decrease power. I still think more power can be made easier and cheaper from a Datsun motor than can be
made from a Chevrolet motor and Datsun motors will hold together better than Chevrolet or Ford motors. I am not up on Nissan motors and I do not like front wheel drive cars. Thanks for
keeping me in line.
Mareo

With all due respect, I disagree with you on this one. I too did my time in a dealer and the L26 deffinatly did have an overheating problem, at least out here in the western U.S. The basic
reason for this was /is because the L26 is basicly an L24 block that was bored. Some of the castings (quite a few that we saw) had tcore shift and the cylinder walls are thinner on one
side than the other, causing the heating problem.
The only cure we found was to put a radiator with a larger core into the car to compensate for the extra heat.
As far as the carbs on the 260Z, they were basicly JUNK, they were recalled twice. First for a fix, and then a socond time to replace them with ones that worked. By the way, they were made
by Hitachi NOT mitsubishi.
My dealer time? 1974-1989.

yeah man i always re-gap out customers plugs too, even though ngk's come with .85 and 1.1 we still never trust it, we had a car the other day that had been back to a garage 3 times,
not running right, the garage its self sent it to us and said they had replaced the plugs so first thing we wipped the plugs out and one had been dropped :) the gap was a bit on the
almost non existant side, lol, chumps.
its all good.
choice from chris.

I beg to differ about the 260Z overheating all of the time. Some of them did and that was because no one understood how those Jap SU copied Mitsubichi carbs worked. A few of us figured the
carb system out and never had any troubles anymore with them. The whole system was a classic example of factory over-engineering and they had to be brought back to the SU type of basics to
work properly. The FI of 1975 in the 280Z kept the Z car from becoming extinct real fast. The 260Z was considered a lemon here in the states for sure but that was only because very few
mechanics were mechanics, they were only parts changers. A mechanic could fix anything. When I built Mareo Speedwagon 1 in 1981, a friend had a shop called the Z Doctor in Tampa Florida and he
kept telling me that the turbo I had would not work becasuse it was a Ford part. I told him that it was an AIR RESEARCH part that Ford had adapted to their 4-cylinder Mustang and I was
adapting it to my 1200. All he could say was that it wouldn't work. He had a 280ZX turbo and my 1200 kicked his ass. He could never figure put how a Ford part could work on a Datsun. I told
him that he was only a parts changer and not a mechanic. I asked him if he gapped spark plugs and his answer was that they are gapped from the factory. I would never let anyone like that
service my car and that is how 90% of the ASE certified mechanics are. In 1966, I bought a 1965 Pontiac GTO with the 390 HP tri-power 389 (6.5 Litre). I took it to the dealer to get it tuned
up and it didn't run as good when I got it back as it did before I took it there. I realized that I was a better mechanic than the dealer had. I was 18 yeasr old then but I had a major history
of dirt track race cars by then. What is simple to some is overcompilcated to others. The 260Z was simple to me.

hey nice dash! sure beats cracked vinyl! is that what lies beneath the vinyl of a dash? cos now u got me thinking...
Has anyone reskinned their dash themselves? i think there was talk of it a while ago, but i cant find anything. my dash is cracked, and poo brown, and i dont know what to do with
it. I dont know enough about vinyl and adhesives either, so if someone does know that stuff, lets have it!
is the metal insert aluminum or stainless?

cheers,Linc.

The engine is too long,too heavy and too tall also
in the z-car that engine was under powered
and over heated all the time you would do better
with the L28 if you really want to shoehorn
a straight 6 into your coupe...Wubbits
(former Nissan tech 1982-1989)
(1200 coupe owner 1982-present)