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Autocross/Street Handling '72 510 Wagon


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Today a lot of work got done on the wagon.

 

Interior shots... since they have been missing:

 

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Now back to suspension... Old leaf out

 

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Quite a difference

 

For people who want to do composite leaf springs make sure you hold onto a couple of parts from the old ones, mainly the rubber bushing type piece and the big U shaped box bracket.

 

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Turns out we got a bolt measurement wrong when we sent Flex-Form the info for the springs so we had to make a second sleeve to fit in the first bushing. But it got fixed, not too hard! just frustrating.

 

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Recap on the fronts since I never really put up a pic of them.

 

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Finally all the suspension done! (kinda, still need to work out all the bugs)

 

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Unfortunately I don't get to keep the Panasports... they have to go back on my dad's car, but they'll stay on until my wheels get here and get tires.. or until it rains (they're slicks) so whichever comes first laugh.gif

 

 

Now for the actual reason that I even made this post...

 

Before:

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After:

 

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I love me some rake!

 

I'll get pics with the hood on at/after school tomorrow.

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So the springs are becoming kind of a hot topic biggrin.gif I'm going to post the message that I sent to Rustina and erikcarter:

 

 

website:

 

http://flex-form.com/Default.asp

 

under products there is a "place order" button that takes you to a form to fill out. The form has a bunch of measurements for you to fill out. The easiest way to get all the measurements is to take the springs off and take them while it's sitting on the ground. They have made a couple of the 510 wagon springs already so they may be able to fill some measurements, but make sure you get the bolts at the ends of the springs so they can the bushings right, and I think the bolts vary from year to year. Give them all the stock dimensions then in the "added comment" section tell them things like you want the new springs to lower the car "X" inches (eliminating the need for blocks) and the spring lb rate and they make the adjustments.

 

I am going to warn you that they aren't cheap, they run about the same cost as a brand new set of front coilovers and springs. Also, they did take a long time for them to make, but now that I have them I'm happy with the way they look.

 

Just shoot me another message if you have more questions about specific measurements!

 

--Matt

Now for an update, driving around today really let me figure out that the car is just too low in the front to run the 205/50/15 tires (especially road race "slicks")

I'm getting full on rub in a hard corner, keeping the steering from making it to a full lock. Unfortunately I can't raise these coilovers any higher... the joy of using somewhat makeshift strut housings. So the current plan is to try to use new wheels (I have some in mind but they are a secret) and probably a 195/50/15 tire, unless I can find a 205 that somehow is thinner than what I predict the more common tires to be.

Car also needs to be aligned before it can be driven any serious distance (more than a couple miles) because the steering is pretty fubar right now.

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^ Sorry but the hood had to go back on... just a little bit too much of the "Look at me I'm doing something stupid" thing around cops... I get double dinged for being a teen driver anyways

 

Pics with better light:

 

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you can really see in the middle pic how that wheel/tire combo just isn't going to work that low as it is.... have a few options, one is to raise it about half an inch to make the tire fit, or got to the 195 and see if it clears...

 

 

 

However, I'm already looking towards the future. Not engine swap future, but something just as interesting... That "mystery box" in my first post was full of these:

 

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TRACTION BARS!!! Not just that but Telescoping traction bars.... for a goon! Kelvin Dietz designed them and should get the credit for the idea and design, he's totally redefined how I see my wagon when I saw his at Canby.

 

There is still fab work that needs to be done before these go on. The wagon will probably be going back to Luke Ihde (the awesome fabricator that did my seat brackets) to get the ears welded to the car so that those will actually bolt in. Hopefully they will remove the dreaded wagon diff slap (=Moar Lower) and will stiffen up the car overall... plus they're badass... cool.gif

 

Thank you again Kelvin if you ever get a chance to read this.

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This thread is full of badassery! Great stuff, and very knowledgeable for your age. How old are you anyway? I love the bond you and your pops have over Datsuns. And your Dad's dime... Wow!!

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Fisch+Jun: Thanks! I really am having a blast with it!

 

Fisch: I'm 16, until April. My dad has owned 510s since the late 70s and I've been around the Datsun scene since I was old enough he could convince my mom that I needed to go to car shows with him (like 3 or somewhere around there laugh.gif) so I'm necessarily "new". Just new to actually getting to wrench on one! I get tons of coaching from my dad and when I'm not working on the car I'm on ratsun reading everything I can find, or reading through all the Dime Quarterlies, or looking at "how to hotrod your datsun books" and I've recently acquired my own Haynes manual. For the first few months that I had the car he was pretty much there for everything that I did, but now I am running around doing most everything on the car and texting him with questions. He still helps me with the bigger projects on the weekends, but it's nice to be able to just pick up a bunch of tools and go wrench on the car. (510s are super agricultural so I can beat my through problems or find weird make shift solutions to things) We are planning on getting to Canby with my car in a good spot and to JCCS with both our cars. Can't wait to see his car on the road again cruising with me and the rest of the gang.

 

I spent an hour procrastinating looking at your art site last night... super cool stuff... and you should do up a 510 wagon some time... you know after everything else lol

 

Jun: The composite springs are definitely more attractive than the old metal ones, and they can make them pretty much to order with ride height and lbs... so no more blocks!! unless you're me and you decide that you can go lower than 2 inch drop and still have half inch blocks sitting in your garage. It's a Campy Raphael Geminiani, bikes are his other big hobby. He more recently got that bike, it's really cool, it's his special collector bike (he rides the other 4 or 5 that are working right now)... I've been looking for an old steel lugged track frame to make a track fix geared out of, but 63 and 64 frames are few and far between, and more expensive than I can afford with the datto taking up my time at the moment. I like to think that they are my other hobby too, but my knowledge in bikes pales compared to his...

 

Oh and I love your wagon, totally cool!

 

 

 

 

Updateish time...

 

I measured the tires that are on the car right now, they are 216mm from shoulder to shoulder, and there is 2mm of strut clearance right now with the wheel locked all the way in a turn. That, coupled with the +12mm offset of the panasports means that I have approximately 122mm of strut side wheel clearance to work with when I get new wheels and tires (a must at this point, if you look at my dad's car the only reason that those wheels work on his car is because he has these super subtle flares that make the fender slightly higher, clearing the wheels)

 

I am convinced that on the new wheel I will need to go to a 195/50/15 tire,

 

using the tire rack spec finder thingy I know that on a 6 inch wheel a Yokohama S Drive will be 198mm shoulder to shoulder. (it will actually be less than that on a 7 inch wide wheel, but playing on the safe side I did it this way) This gives me 111mm strut side, at +12 offset and 114 at +15

 

for a Kumho Ecsta AST it's 113 strut side at +12 offset and 116 w/ +15 offset

 

I'm thinking that the more tire I can get on the strut side the better I'll be because it will reduce the chance of fender rub.... so probably be shooting for a total offset of +15 with the new wheels I want (working with spacers)

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Okay, today I raised up the front of the car about a third to a half inch and it doesn't rub so bad anymore, unless I hit a big ass bump, but hopefully that will go away with new wheel/tire set up (going to try to go 205s). We also did some crude alignment fixes (going to get it professionally aligned next weekend once we have the sleeves that troy ermish ordered for us).

 

However while on the test drive my dad and I decided that we would fill up the car. So we stopped at the gas station and checked the tire rub. Dad yanked on the fenders and they actually moved out a little (pretty funny how easy it was) so maybe they will rub even less. While he was doing that I filled up the wagon. Being cheap and never wanting to spend very much money on gas I've never actually filled the car up past about 7 1/2 gallons, this time since dad was paying and told me to fill it up all the way I did. Unfortunately this brought about a new problem... a massive leak coming from the gas tank.

 

Upon further inspection it looks like the gas was leaking from the sender unit that sits on top of the tank. Turns out the O-ring is crap... so we siphoned some gas out of the car and now it doesn't leak. Well rather than leave it at that we want to fix the problem... so has anybody had a similar problem? And is there anywhere that I can get my hands on that O-ring, or one that will work, I searched for topics on this already but only came up with knowledge that you can no longer get the sender unit from nissan, which doesn't spell well with getting the O-ring. Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

Oh and the center console from Fuzz also came yesterday, cleaned it up and it looked really good. Going to wait to put it into the car until I know what transmission (either the longtail ZX 5 speed or the short tail from something else) I am going to be able to get my hands on so I only have to fit it once and can do as little modification as possible.

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Got the real camber plate bushings from troy on thursday and put them in today, while the car was up in the air I decided to put the spook on...

 

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I think it's sitting a little crooked so that'll have to get fixed next time its up and easy to work on.

 

While I was at Troy's I got a chance to see the wheels that I wanted in person,

 

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It's rota's knockoff of the hayashi st. Unfortunately the only easy way to make that wheel work is with the +25 mm offset (the only other offset in a 15x7 is +4) and it doesn't actually look like that, the center on the +25 is raised up and is flush with the edge of the wheel... so there isn't any dish at all... lame.

 

So I thought about doing a steel wheel with stock dog dish hub caps, but the only place that I could find that would let me do a 15x7 wheel (with a baby moon cap) would be a 25lb wheel... and my little L16 is underpowered enough as it is.

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Any industrial supply shop will have a huge selection of o-rings, just carefully remove yours and take it in with you.

Your wagon looks great, and your dad is a huge asset to have for the build. Nothing like sharing a garage with a guy who has both tools and experience ;-)

There is another father/son Datsun combo here in Half Moon Bay, dad has a wild motored 510 and his 16 year old son is building a goon, small world...

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Yup having dad around to help is amazing.

 

Hope to see this other father son team sometime ;) , was almost going down to Half Moon tomorrow but weather doesn't look very beachy. Heard about you guys from James at a sac swap meet a couple months ago... couldn't believe that there was another father son team out there and that the teen had the same name as me :w00t: Totally small world

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^ super cool!

 

I've finished putting in all the door panels that I made, and have finished rolling fenders and I think that I've eliminated all of the rubbing. Tomorrow I'm going down to Marina to the NorCal UFO autocross school... in the rain. Will be very interesting, I promise pics of everything new tomorrow and all of the autocross pictures.

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Well I'm working on a father son project with a 510 also! I am 15 years old so a very small world it is

 

My dad and I built my 510 as well. He wants to get his own 510 now! Lots of father son projects here.... lol.

 

^ super cool!

 

I've finished putting in all the door panels that I made, and have finished rolling fenders and I think that I've eliminated all of the rubbing. Tomorrow I'm going down to Marina to the NorCal UFO autocross school... in the rain. Will be very interesting, I promise pics of everything new tomorrow and all of the autocross pictures.

 

Nice! There is an SCCA AutoX event tomorrow in Oakland but I don't have the money to go :(

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Car was great at the autocross school today, I was running about three seconds faster on my last lap than most of the Evo's and STIs/WRXs, and generally ran faster than anything bigger than an Alpha GTV (guy was really fast) and a couple of Lancia Scorpions. Something very wrong being able to drive a station wagon that fast (or right from my point of view)

 

Dad was able to get a couple of pictures in between his own runs as an instructor:

 

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"corded the front driver side tire on the last run

 

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ahhh the power of psychology in theory the Evo's and STIs/WRXs should have been faster than you all day long, but they were thinking of the mechanics bills if they screwed up where you could take a couple hours and fix it yourself if you screwed up. But ofcourse having your dad as the instructor helps too.

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I actually had another guy who was really good instructing me and my dad was instructing his sons.

 

Turbos don't seem to work very well in autocross... I think that's the problem those guys were having, by the time the turbo spooled up they had to lay on the brakes for the next corner, leaving them with a crap low end power band because they weren't able to make use of their power.

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