Last month I took the coupe out to a Porsche club track day. The handling is most definitely better, with the rear seal in the tranny now fixed I got loads of laps in and the hula is gone. The car still hops around over dips and bumps but so do many cars in that particular spot on the track. In Turn One (the spot in the video I originally posted) I can now slide the car smoothly. In fact I was able to be so aggressive with the car that on one particular lap where I entered a little two hot, I rapidly wound on opposite lock, booted the throttle in the same instant, then snapped the lock back out again and the actually lifted the inside front wheel due to my manhandling it back on line. The car did this all very predictably. Note I was running a different tire this time; Avon ACB9s instead of the Hoosier TD's, corner speeds appear to be equal, the Avons have a taller sidewall so this may have contributed.
Now unfortunately the motor developed a miss; I had to change the coil recently due to my snapping the stud off the negative side (to quote Homer Simpson Dooh!). I simply grabbed one of the extra coils I had and it appears, by looking at the part number, that it was a coil that needed an external ballast resistor. The tach was bouncing around wildly. When I got home I swapped it out for one that didn't need an external resistor and the tach stopped bouncing around. I'll be going to a test day in a week so I'll know for sure.
On the plus side I was talking with someone running a horsepower car and he told me that he was surprised by the Datsun and that I was really driving the wheels off it. I complained that it had a misfire that was just killing the lap times, he and his friend laughed and said great now we feel even worse that we are struggling to keep up. A fellow club racer mentioned later in the day that various guys were just dumfounded on how anyone could make the little car go like that. The coupe really has proven to be invaluable for track days, especially instructing, once people see the underpowered wonder get past more powerful cars it really hits home that tightening the nut behind the wheel is the best mod that can be done to a car.
On the down side because I was in what I call 125 GP bike racer mode I pretty much did the Avons in, I was so happy with the handling I pretty much flogged the car. The other issue is the brakes are still strobing, I took them and the hubs to my buddies machine shop as they were on the edge of maximum lateral run out and parallelism. I'm trying to have everything perfect for Februarys vintage race at my home track, shooting for 3rd overall, last year i was 6th with the tired A12 so with the A15 it should pick up a few more spots.

Tom

Nice writeup. Keep showing the big boys what you have.

Datsa73 it"s fun to dust off faster cars, but make no mistake I run the car in the intermediate group, as do several other instructors who run gutless wonders (spec Miata), we chuckle about it but are well aware we're running with less experienced drivers and often less talented drivers. I'm also the first to confess that there is a degree of satisfaction in showing what you can do with a Datsun 1200.

Tom

I'm not running the A series motor but even lining up to a Big Block with a 4 cylinder and winning if not making the race close is very enjoyable. Same idea.
It will be interesting to what next season brings.

Sounds brilliant Tom, would love to see some footage and pictures!