Hi OZ Datters
I have had the one Datsun 1600 for more than 25 years. It has been a daily driver as well as providing a platform for club level motorsport.
It has had all the inevitable 'L' series engine upgrades from 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 L the last being a very enjoyable 2.2 litre grunter.
It has been used in dirt rallies, dirt circuit sprints in the Newcastle area and tar super-sprints at all the race circuits in Sydney (Amaroo Pk, Oran Pk & Eastern Creek)
The car was always driven to and from each event and only once in all that time failed to be driven home under its own power. After 2006 it became a dedicated track car and was trailered to and from the circuit until 2009 when she was finally put out to pasture (literally)
It sat in the back yard for a couple of years and was at risk of going to the tip.
Due to the weeds growing up into the engine bay, it looked a very sad sight.
It was the OZDAT site that saved her. Reading the many build threads relating to 1600s gave me the incentive to attempt a bare metal resto including an SR20DET transplant.
For many years I have tinkered on making it go faster but had never attempted or even considered a bare metal restoration.
It has been a long build and at times I didn't think it was ever going to be finished.
A big thank you to all the OZDAT contributors for showing that you can get to the end of a project. (although you never really finish)
I haven't documented the build as well as many others on this site. I have a number of photos that show some of the story.
Like most of us that have done a rebuild upgrade restoration, (as apposed to a back to factory spec restoration), I went down plenty of rabbit holes chasing ideas, but in the end other than the electric power assist steering there's nothing radically different to my build to most 1600/SR20 projects.
The following three pictures are of the 2.2 litre grunter mentioned earlier.
Cheers
Muzz
PS Sorry for the large file size of the pictures. If you have a slow internet connection they will take a while to download.
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File comment: Enjoyable grunter
Grunt1.1.jpg [ 797.82 KiB | Viewed 5171 times ]
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File comment: Enjoyable grunter
Grunt2.1.jpg [ 735.88 KiB | Viewed 5171 times ]
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File comment: Enjoyable grunter
Grunt 3.1.jpg [ 721.75 KiB | Viewed 5171 times ]
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Last edited by Muzdat on Sun Apr 02, 2017 10:14 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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