Ian's 260Z (Evo 5 or 6 maybe?)

[Byron510]

Went by a cruise in tonight at the local A&W - old event and has always happened Thursdays here in Maple Ridge. The usual collection of cool rods and customs, even a couple antiques and a camperized 68 Mercury Econline van which my wife and kids loved. I came at the tail end pulling the car hauler with the Xterra on the way home, dropped in really just to see dad as he had his 53 custom Ford out there. Anyways, as everyone was packing up, and many of the cars had departed, in drives a very familiar grey 260Z of Ian Tanner.

Now for the locals, Ian's been around for many years - many - many years. And he's always had this silver early 260Z. I know I have photos of it back in the late 80’s at the Museum of Flight and Transport shows that Ross and the roadster guys used to put on.

Anyways, Ian's car has seen more than one direction of mods over the years - big carb, then big carbs, then turbo, then bigger motor turbo - but all under the stock skin and keeping most of the S30 spirit.

So I walk over, and from a distance I can see a pile of red snakes under the hood and it's plain to see the old L motor is now gone. And low and behold, it's an SHO motor. And not to be out done, a paxton SC and intercooler on the front as there was no shortage of space for it.

The photos speak for themselves. Ian has no idea what it's actually putting out, but he says there is no issue burning the tires down to the cords in short order! Somewhere around 300 HP/Torque at 5 LBS he guesses.

But what a nice installation. Ian says no modification or cutting of the car – every thing utilizes existing holes in the S30 chassis and he says he spent a lot of time keeping ti that way. If he wanted to convert back to the L, there would be no issue as nothing was cut. He noted lots of OEM bits, like an S10 intake pipe that perfectly fixed a tight air inlet problem into the SC, and various other makes of OEM parts, brackets, bottles ect that he made work. Ian told me the whole motor/trans was made to drop, lock stock and barrel, right out the bottom. I should have taken a photo of the LH side header - a work of art rolling around the stock Datsun steering shaft to make dropping ou the bottom possible. The ECU is fully stock SHO. The manifold was flipped 180 degrees as the stock one runs out over the transmission in a Taurus. To do this, 3/8” spacers were made under the inlet manifold to raise it up to and have the TB clear the cam belt drive system.

Anyways, it's the first SHO motor that I've seen in a Datsun, and it runs through the Z gearbox with an adapter that Ian machined up. Nice clean installation, and nice to see something new for a change.

Cool project, enjoy.

Byron

[McShagger510]

VERY cool swap! Get any pics of that '67/'68 Barracuda parked beside it….? Ha!

James