Today, I finally headed out to the BIG junkyard I mentioned in December looked around for some parts that I could use in my 510. In particular, I wanted an L-series intake manifold (to adapt to a Z-series EFI intake), a fuel filler neck/cap assembly, a fuel guide valve (controls fuel-line vapors, among other things), and some misc. door bits.

My wife suited up and came to the junkyard with me (awesome!) and we zeroed in on the Nissan/Datsun region of the junkyard. As large as the yard was, the section I needed wasn't really that large, and most of the cars were circa 1980 and later, which made them less useful me than I had hoped. Lots of Sentras, a couple of Z-cars, and one 1979 510. I had this false picture in my head of endless Datsuns or something, but it didn't end up playing out that way.


1979 Datsun 510. I don't like them.

The 1979 Datsun 510 isn't really much like a "real" 510 at all, save that it came with an L-series engine and was rear-wheel drive. Apart from that, the similarities end. Because this one had the L20b motor, the intake manifold I needed was on the car, but after about 20 minutes of wrenching, I gave up on pulling the part. There were too many things in the way, and this particular intake had a lot of vacuum-related accessories that weren't really worth the trouble.



In the meanwhile, my wife was backing screws out of the fuel filler tube I needed (awesome!), and after pulling we pulled that part out, we figured we got what we needed. Because the previous owner shaved the sides of my 510, the filler neck is in the trunk in this photo. I'm not sure when I'll get around to cutting a new hole into the side of the car to install a proper filler access, so in the meanwhile, I'll just have to pop the trunk any time I want to put gas in the car.

I didn't see a fuel guide valve; I think that the vapor system was probably changed over the years, and because I wasn't familiar enough with the 1979 system, I wasn't quite sure what to look for. I did, however, pull the charcoal canister which is a part of that system, but decided to leave it. If I'm going to use a charcoal canister to scrub the fuel vapors, I might as well get a new one.



I also picked up a new fuel pump from Kragen for $29.99 (price-matched to Autozone's current price), since I'm now confident that I thrashed the one on the car when I failed to install the fuel pump spacer. And lastly, I tightened up the alternator, since one of the mounting bolts was rattling around.

Once summer rolls around, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate the heat... but being able to go to the junkyard in a t-shirt in January is pretty awesome. And having a wife who is willing to join me is pretty cool, too. Thanks, dear. :)

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Not everybody is a big fan of junkyards, on account of environmental impact or general appearance. I happen to love them. The idea of scavenging for abandoned parts to use for spare parts for my own vehicles appeals to me in a Mad Max sort of way, And for this reason, I'm pretty excited about the local junkyard availability.

For reference, here are a couple of aerial photos of the pick-and-pull style junkyards back in Washington:

Tumwater: 562 cars


Lakewood: 752 cars


And here's Fresno -- less than a half hour drive from me -- with a hefty 1,636 cars on the lot. Delicious.

Pick-a-Part Auto Wrecking. 2274 East Muscat Avenue, Fresno, CA‎

Edit: I just found THIS one in Fresno as well, with 2,616 cars:

Pick-N-Pull. 3230 E Jensen Ave, Fresno, CA


I'm going to need to invest in some 18v cordless power tools...

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(click image for bigger)

I'm not a big fan of car magazines that attempt to attract readers to their lack-of-content pages with pictures of barely-dressed women on the covers. However, this samurai-themed Datsun 521 drawing is so appropriate and well done that I had to post it. It's not a Datsun 510, but the 521 truck is similar enough in style that I like it nearly as much as the 510.

The artist is Scott Fischer, who is also a member of the datsun forum I frequent. You can see more of his outstanding artwork here: http://www.fischart.com.

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I've got headlights!

I've been a little stubborn about the wiring in my car, forgoing the wiring harness that I have available and deciding instead to manually wire everything. I think a part of my reasoning is that I want to really know my car, and I want to feel like everything in the car was put there by my hands.

However, the further I get into the wiring, the more my engine bay is starting to look like spaghetti.



I think I'll abandon my wiring pipe dream and go ahead and use the harness. I don't need the cabin harness, since I'm using custom gauges and all that, but having the engine bay harness will probably bring my car to completion more quickly.


In other news, I blew out the voltage regulator in my alternator. I don't have a high-volt warning light installed in the dash yet, but I noticed that my volt meter was pegged at 18 volts, which is considerably higher than what you want to see in a car. Fortunately, I have a lifetime warranty on the alternator, so I'll get that swapped out.

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All this time, I thought I had my timing set at 20-degrees initial, and 36-degrees total. I threw my timing light on the car this evening before making a few runs, and it looks like it was actually back around 15-degrees initial, which ends up at 31-degrees total.

After setting it to 20-degrees, my engine managed to hit 115hp, but if you compare this run with the first set, you'll see that the peak torque occurs a little later in the RPMs. This is the case with all three runs today:



I've had a few people advise that I might have been running too much advance, both initial and total, but as long as my engine isn't pinging (I'll have to wire in a microphone+amplifier and do some logging to confirm), I think I might be right on target.

I've also been advised that the 38mm SU carburetors are the bottleneck, and that I could achieve significantly better numbers if I had carbs (or a fuel injection system) that let the engine breath more clearly. So I'm currently on the lookout for some 44mm carbs without spending a ton of money. Because I'm interested in forced induction in the future, I really would like to go fuel-injected; spending a lot of money on carbs might not be a worthwhile investment unless I can recoop the costs later on.

Note:
Truth be told, because I don't know if my test road is perfectly flat, I'm taking an average of my best run in BOTH directions. I got 115hp going in one direction and 111hp going in the other direction. 113hp may be a more honest number at this point.

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