The Red Baron

[TheHeretic]

Catching up on some progress made many months ago so that new pictures and updates will be more current. First thing is to document the original condition of the car before I did the auto-to-manual conversion and also dropped in the L20b. So without further commenting, here she is.

[TheHeretic]

Interior and more engine shots after a decent clean. The engine bay has probably never been cleaned before I got to it!



























Original 52K miles!

[TheHeretic]

Literally the first update I did was to remove the inner chrome ring on the taillights. Every 510 I've ever had I've does this to it. IMHO it makes the lights look much better!

[2DoorJim]

That is one sweet car!

Thanks for sharing more pictures of it.

It might not get said but we all dream of owning one as clean as yours, a very, very rare find.

[ctdavid73510]

Car looks great! What size wheels and tires are you running?

[TheHeretic]

Thanks for the comments! It's a staggered setup with 15x7 in the rear and 15X6 in the front. The tires came with the car and are complete crap being M+S rated and 600(!) treadwear. Size is 195-50-15.

[TheHeretic]

Picked up a stock radio a few months ago and after a much harder than anticipated search, finally found the mounting brackets. Cleaned up every reasonably well and installed with stock housing. Debating if I should hook it up and get the AM radio to work but doubting if I will ever even turn it on.

[ctdavid73510]

Do you happen to know what offset the wheels are? I will probably go with a similar setup.

[TheHeretic]

They are +9 offset and fit very well. I think you got to check them out at the show last week right?

[TheHeretic]

Might as well catch up some more of the build thread. Ended up just not having the time last year to do the engine swap so basically cleaned up the new L20b the best I could along with the transmission and dropped it off at Troy's to take care of the swap of both the engine and conversion from automatic to manual.

Engine condition when acquired...not so clean. But I can fix that!





Checking out the bottom end after dropping the oil pan and then cleaned, primed and painted the plan.









Installed a KA24DE higher pressure oil pump



Picked up some NOS motor mounts


Cleaned up thermostat housing and installed a new thermostat and sensor

[TheHeretic]

Updated pictures after removing 1/2 of a coil on the rear springs and also getting the rear cross member slotted earlier this year. Just picked up some 14" Watanabes and will be downsizing from these 15" Panasports in the next couple of weeks. Will probably use some of these pics for the Craigslist ad.

[bertvorgon]

That looks really good now, nice job!

Love the RED, which I'm partial to of course.

[TheHeretic]

Love the red as well even if is a shade brighter than the stock Datsun Red. Probably one of the last things I will do to the car will be to paint the exterior back to the exact red it was from the factory which will match the engine compartment, door jams, etc. Until then I will continue to refurbish the things that really matter i.ee, driving experience areas. Next step...the entire rear suspension and braking. Out with the old...

[TheHeretic]

With the goal of the car being ready and able to not only be tracked on Laguna Seca but also run 1000+ miles in vintage rallies every year, the rear lower strut/coilover mount points were reinforced. I'm only running 250# springs in the rear but some of the back country roads have some mean potholes and since the control arms were out anyways, might as well put them back as strong and pretty as possible.

Custom gusset welded to control arm and mount




Eastwood Chassis Black

[TheHeretic]

Installed the Ground Control rear coilovers today with the following specs:
- 250lbs 12" Springs
- Firm Bumpstops
The only trouble we ran into was with the install of the Datsport adjustable rear crossmember at the same time. Basically with all the settings loose and none of the alignment of toe and camber set and the suspension unloaded the coilovers were touching the control arm and rubbing against the inner shock tower. After a call to Ground Control we figured out that a baseline alignment would need to be made for the install which is what we did. Once that was done the coilovers fit tight but with enough clearance.