Cool Article in Sept Road and Track

Mag350Z

Cool article in September issue of Road and Track comparing and driving a 240Z and a Stillen 370Z.
Also they publish their long term wrap up of the 370.

6MT

Link?

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Andrew

2009 370Z Sport/Touring 6MT sold
2013 Honda Civic Si coupe D/D

Mag350Z

Article Player

HKYStormFront

glad they finally got the BRE setup... when they showed it at the Mitty where it debuted Colin (from NNA) told me it was held together by hopes and dreams (and a few pieces of chewing gum) lol

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Patrick // 06 Frontier 6spd Nismosis // Mods: Uprev Tuned @ Z1 Motorsports: 257whp & 292 ft lbs
09 Pontiac G8 GXP // M6 // Sunroof // Tint... For now

Cmike2780

I don't understand why they didn't start with a Nismo in the first place.

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[09][MB][6-Spd MT][Touring][Stillen Gen III][K&N][Borla CBE][Evo-R]

HKYStormFront

yea i'm not sure but i guess because it was cheaper. i believe it was a pre-pro or media car to begin with. i know the wing on it came off the car that C&D wrecked at VIR during the lightning lap competition. it looks good in person, really good in fact, but when i saw it at the mitty it wasn't ready to race

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Patrick // 06 Frontier 6spd Nismosis // Mods: Uprev Tuned @ Z1 Motorsports: 257whp & 292 ft lbs
09 Pontiac G8 GXP // M6 // Sunroof // Tint... For now

Mag350Z

Road & Track

BRE Nissan 370Z & Datsun 240Z - Special Feature
Forty years may separate these two Zs, but they both celebrate the BRE Datsun 240Z’s historic SCCA National Championships in 1970 and 1971.
By Andrew Bornhop / Photos by John Lamm

July 14, 2010

Slideshow >> Video >> Most people familiar with Brock Racing Enterprises immediately think of John Morton and the Datsun 510. With good reason. The boxy red, white and blue No. 46 BRE car won the SCCA 2.5-liter Trans-Am championship in 1971 and 1972. And the affordable 510 adapted so well to racing that scads of them, many painted like original BRE cars, popped up at racetracks around the country. Even today you’ll see the occasional 510 road racing, often in BRE-inspired paint.

Before the 510, however, Peter Brock and crew—who were already campaigning Datsun S2000 Roadsters in SCCA club racing—hit the track with the sleek 240Z…and with great success. Aided by Datsun’s West Coast President Yutaka Katayama, BRE obtained an early Z (chassis No. 492) in January 1970 and turned it into an SCCA C Production race car at their shop in El Segundo, California. This No. 46 Z, in fact, graced the cover of our November 1970 issue. James T. Crow reported on the build of the car and concluded that the new racing Z was well on its way to doing well. “Watch for it,” he wrote. “It will be worth seeing.”

Indeed it was. This was the heyday of production-based amateur road racing in America, and at the SCCA’s 1970 American Road Race of Champions held at Road Atlanta (the precursor to the Runoffs), Morton’s C Production BRE Z won easily, defeating the likes of Bob Tullius and Lee Mueller in Triumph TR-6s, Alan Johnson in a Ginther-prepared Porsche 914-6 and Bob Sharp, who was building 240Zs out of his shop in Connecticut.

Quite a debut for the BRE car and the sleek new Z in general, which swept the top three positions that fall day at Road Atlanta. And the following year, it seemed that the harder the Zs pushed, the more the Triumphs and Porsches broke. At the 1971 ARRC, two BRE 240Zs (Morton and Dan Parkinson) were on the front row, alongside Sharp. Allan Girdler, reporting in our March 1972 issue, described Morton’s winning drive: “[He] put on an exhibition, leading all the way in his routine madman style and power always fully on, into each corner at seemingly impossible speed, out with wildly spinning tires, using all the road in the process.”

All told, Datsun Zs went on to win 10 straight SCCA C Production titles, but that 1971 national championship marked the end of the BRE Z era. Brock—with Z sales booming and 510s languishing on dealer lots—had decided to go professional racing with the latter in the SCCA’s 2.5-liter Trans-Am championship.

And sadly, the original championship-winning No. 46 BRE Z was destroyed in 1973. Brock had handed the car back to Datsun after the 1971 season, who in turn gave it to Parkinson, the former BRE driver who subsequently totaled the car in a rollover crash at Phoenix.

Although Parkinson, who Morton says is very fast, has never publicly admitted writing off the historically significant No. 46 car, one man who knows it’s true is Ron Carter, an avid Datsun vintage racer who’s built the beautiful BRE 240Z featured here, which is considered by many to be the most faithful re-creation there is of the original No. 46 BRE 240Z.

“I loved the research; it was so much fun,” explains Carter, who said he was the only guy crazy enough to undertake such an historically accurate re-creation of Morton’s car. He methodically started collecting parts in 2002, beginning with a clean 1972 Z chassis that he had media-blasted down to the bare metal and stitch-welded.

An early fuel door and rear hatch gave the Z the proper 1970 look. BRE spoilers went on front and rear, as did aerodynamic headlight covers. The rollbar was copied from that of a BRE 240Z pace car used at Ontario Motor Speedway. As for the strut suspension, Carter wanted to keep it as original as possible but still be competitive in vintage racing. In went Hypercoil springs, Tokico Illumina 5-way-adjustable shock absorbers, camber plates and adjustable rear toe. And with the large anti-roll bars and sticky Hoosier DOT race tires, size 205/50ZR-15, Carter thought it prudent to reinforce the Z’s suspension pickup points.

Under the hood is an original BRE-built L24 2.4-liter, a sohc inline-6 purchased from a vintage racer who was upgrading his Z to a larger engine. This Z was quite a find, as it supplied Carter not just with the powerplant but also the original triple Solex/Mikuni carburetors, the Nissan Competition intake manifold and original American Le Mans magnesium wheels. The gearbox is also from Nissan Comp, an early 5-speed overdrive unit (with “medium-close” ratios) that sends power to an R190 limited-slip differential with 4.44:1 gearing.

Differences from the original No. 46 are numerous but not that major, done mostly for added performance or safety but without changing the simple, honest character of the car. The ATL fuel cell, by vintage rules, is isolated by a bulkhead, and the original rollbar has been built into a full cage with door bars. What’s more, the rear brakes are discs, whereas the original BRE Z raced with finned aluminum drums. All told, Carter’s BRE Z weighs about 2100 lb., and the engine, redlined at 7000 rpm, puts out around 240 to 250 bhp. The headers, of note, are an exact copy of the original BRE exhaust on the blue No. 3 BRE 240Z, the sole remaining true BRE Z in existence.

Given that it’s the 40th anniversary of both the production Z and the BRE Z’s first championship, Nissan helped us take Carter’s vintage BRE replica out to Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch for some lapping fun. Making things even sweeter, we’d get to drive it back to back with Nissan’s one-off 370Z BRE Tribute car, a modern Z done up in a paint scheme that pays homage to those folks who put the Z on the sports-car racing map.

...Continued... Pages: 1 2 Photos

Mag350Z

The BRE Tribute car is a Nissan 370Z built by Stillen essentially to the SCCA’s T2 class rules. As such, it’s not overly tweaked. It has a gutted interior and a cage, plus race seats and belts. The car started out as a 2009 Touring Sport model, to which Nismo bodywork, wheels and shocks were added, the last teamed with Eibach springs that lower the car a bit. Stillen anti-roll bars are fitted to the car front and rear, and the 4-cam 3.7-liter V-6 is untouched internally. It is, however, stripped of its catalytic converter and fitted with a Stillen cat-back exhaust, a reflashed ECU, a Nissan Motorsports oil cooler, an aluminum flywheel and a heavy-duty clutch. Power is in the neighborhood of 350 bhp, and stock brakes (with braided stainless-steel lines and Hawk pads) handle stopping chores. The car also had a stock viscous limited-slip differential, although Nissan plans to fit the car with a tougher clutch-type LSD from Nissan Comp soon.

First up, the BRE 240Z. As Ron Carter is a big guy, I fit in his seat well. With this being the first time the car has run in anger on a track—and it being dearer to his heart than just about, well, anything—I tell myself: Don’t do anything stupid. The car fires easily with the pushbutton starter and a squirt of gas from the pedal. And boy, is it loud! The clutch takeup is simple, and soon I’m out on the track being deliberate with each shift. The Z is spacious but has a narrow feel, and the pedals are placed for easy heel/toe downshifting. Nothing feels assisted. During my familiarization laps, the steering is heavy, the brakes are heavy…drivers really were men back then. I shift at about 6800 rpm, as Ron suggested, and the straight-line power is excellent. In steady-state corners, the grip is great; however, there’s a miss from the engine that only clears out on the straightaway, so I head into the pits.

“Are you channeling John Morton yet?” asks Carter after I shut off the car. “Not yet,” I admit. Second time out, though—after Carter’s crew tweaked the float bowl levels a bit—I pick up some speed and begin probing limits more aggressively. The grip from the Hoosiers is exceptional. I’m shifting at 7000 rpm now, carrying more speed into corners and exiting them with a lot more side load because of the added pace. It felt fantastic, very mechanical, and the Z really came alive when picked up by the scruff of the neck and driven hard. Only then did I begin to imagine what it must have been like to be Morton in a BRE Z, dicing with the likes of Tullius in a TR-6 at Road Atlanta. As I pulled in, it was hard to wipe the smile off my face. Our best lap of the day: 1 minute, 56.27 seconds, a decent effort given that the engine still sputtered a bit in Turns 1 and 2.

Brock, on hand for the test, quickly pointed to a couple of potential causes for the misfire. One, the car needed a shield between the headers and the carbs to keep heat from causing issues. Two, the carbs needed to be isolated with rubber to keep fuel from frothing in the float bowls at high rpm. Carter took mental notes as Brock, a youthful 73, recalled the details from 40 years ago…

The Nissan 370Z Tribute car—with BRE livery personally created and directed by Brock in the paint booth—felt quite different from the old 240. With its full cage it’s actually tighter on space than the 1970 240Z, but it’s much easier to hop in and immediately drive faster. And the first time I hit the assisted brakes, I nearly put myself through the windshield. Although the grip of the Yokohama Advan Neova AD008s, the stock Nismo tire, felt remarkably good, it was still not quite up to the level of the stickier Hoosiers.

All the controls of this modern Z feel Teflon-coated for ease of use, and the adjustable rear anti-roll bar from Stillen (which was set on full stiff and may not be legal in T2) makes the car quite tail-happy, with power oversteer on tap while exiting tight corners. Road Test Editor Jonathan Elfalan (who did the timed laps) and I both agree that the Z was tuned great for the Corvette Loop we were on but would be hairy on a big fast track such as Willow Springs.

Second session in the car, with all driver aids turned off, I’m having more fun. It’s hot, over 100 degrees, and I’m keeping an eye on oil temps as I continue to be impressed with how well the new Z hides its 3300-lb. curb weight and laps with no apparent vices. It’s clearly better damped than a stock Z. Toward the end of the session, though, I notice more inside rear wheelspin on corner exit, an indicator that the limited-slip diff was not working well. Turns out that differential cooler hadn’t been installed on the car yet, and our lapping on a hot day proved too much for the diff. Our best lap of 1 min. 55.53 sec. would have been considerably better had the car been on Hoosiers and fitted with the limited-slip diff from Nismo, with a remote cooler.

So, neither the Nissan nor the Datsun had a perfect day at Spring Mountain, but these siblings—40 years apart in age and effectively on shakedown runs—proved to be remarkably close indeed in performance. More important, they provided me with a sense of what it must have been like to be John Morton back in the day, and perhaps what a modern BRE 370Z might be like, had BRE stayed in the business of racing Datsuns or Nissans.

Will we ever see Carter’s BRE 240Z on the track at vintage races? “Probably not,” he admits. “I put too much energy into building the car. I built it too well. I’m afraid to crash it. And I even put a clear coat on it. Everybody knows you’re not supposed to do that to a race car.” That said, we can only hope to see the Stillen-prepared Tribute car in T2 action soon, keeping the BRE flame alive and putting the Z where it’s repeatedly been since 1970…at the front of the field.


Pages: 1 2 Photos
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HKYStormFront

might wanna edit that down a bit br0

__________________
Patrick // 06 Frontier 6spd Nismosis // Mods: Uprev Tuned @ Z1 Motorsports: 257whp & 292 ft lbs
09 Pontiac G8 GXP // M6 // Sunroof // Tint... For now

Mag350Z

sorry, done

HKYStormFront

muy bueno

__________________
Patrick // 06 Frontier 6spd Nismosis // Mods: Uprev Tuned @ Z1 Motorsports: 257whp & 292 ft lbs
09 Pontiac G8 GXP // M6 // Sunroof // Tint... For now

Brazilbro

sad that a 40 old Z could hang with a nismo on the track.. makes me want to fix up my 240z

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Juke AWD/240Z SR20
08 Evo 10(Stage 2) SOLD
Fastest Sport 6spd 370Z 11.8 @126.5SOLD

LateralG'z

Cool nice post

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2010 Mag Black, 6MT,