1971 Datsun 510 - One Thin Dime

Gary Savage is definitely not your typical Sport Compact Car reader. To begin with, Savage listed his profession as a "self-employed racecar driver," who's into classic American iron big time. This 31-year-old Oregonian spends much of his free time either behind the wheel of a vintage 1970 Plymouth AAR 'Cuda or working on his Team Nostalgia SSR Dodge Stratus, both cars not fitting the profile of a typical compact car enthusiast. Nope, he's not your typical reader, but Savage is an enthusiast in the truest sense.

Weekends will often find him negotiating the "Corkscrew" at Laguna Seca or the high-banked turns at Daytona International Speedway. And the legendary Castle Hill Climb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in merry old England is on the itinerary for this summer. Rough life, huh?

But the time spent piloting racecars around legendary tracks isn't the only reason to envy Savage. His personal means of transportation also tends to be high-power, one-off cars, though with a definite import slant. Take, for example, this fuel-injected 1971 Datsun 510. Savage purchased the car 10 years earlier when he saw it on a bicycle ride through a local neighborhood. The car had been sitting for at least a year unused and it was slowly oxidizing into nothingness. The owner at the time was a student who couldn't afford to insure the car and had simply left it parked it in front of his house to die. One thing led to another and, after a bit of negotiation, Savage found himself the new owner of the two-door Datsun.

"It had a hot little L16 with SU carbs," said Savage. "It also had 13-inch Libres and was lowered a couple of inches." Considering the car sat unused for more than a year, enduring the Oregon rain, it was still in relatively good shape. Savage quickly put together a plan to improve it further.

"People who've met me know that I'm into horsepower," Savage said. "I wanted more power than the high-revving L16, so I built a high-compression L18." While the new engine temporarily sated the horsepower thirst, it wasn't long before Savage sought even more muscle under the hood. A popular engine that is often transplanted into street-driven 510s is the venerable 2-liter L20b, which can be found in just about every four-cylinder-equipped car and truck Datsun made in the '70s and early '80s.

These ubiquitous SOHC engines are renowned for their bulletproof bottom ends and mechanical simplicity. And, in typical Datsun fashion, high specific output mills can easily be assembled with creative part swapping from other Nissan products. Savage started with an L20b block from a late-model 510, boring it 0.080-inch oversize and installing a Z22 crank, rods and pistons from a 1982 truck. The high-performance "peanut" cylinder head from the original L16 was reworked and installed on the newly rebuilt short block. Savage said the cylinder head was the secret to big horsepower in the L-series engines. "I had the peanut head ported and flowed, and I had the combustion chambers reshaped and opened up." The result is a stout 10.5:1 compression ratio that can still run on pump gas without a hint of detonation.

A variety of aftermarket camshafts were evaluated with varying levels of success. "I had tried several different reground camshafts, but I was getting tired of noisy cams that wore out fast and didn't work like they should." Savage eventually copied a cam that had been ground for a friend's car and it made all the difference. "This specific grind has a 0.520 lift and 280-degree duration. The engine has great torque down low in the revs, but it still pulls hard to more than 7000 rpm." Since then, Savage and his good friend Kelvin Dietz have run the camshaft in a number of other hot L-motors, including Kelvin's 8500-plus rpm L16 racecar. Norris springs, lightened followers and a shortened 240Z spray bar round out the bumpstick operation in Savage's car.

Which brings us upstream to the intake system. Just about every knowledgeable Datsun devotee who peers under the hood of this car can't help falling head-over-heels for the fuel injection system. Monster dual 48mm two-throat TWM throttle bodies with air horns are mounted on TWM port-matched runners. A custom aluminum air box and conical K&N air filter supply cool, clean air to the engine, while the TWM fuel rails and Lucas 30 lb/hr injectors handle the fuel-squirting duties. A fully programmable Electromotive TEC-I ECU controls both EFI and spark management. Savage has spent more than a few hours fine-tuning the fuel maps and ignition curve to get a car that now puts out an estimated 200 hp. "I don't recommend tuning the Electromotive system by yourself," Savage said. "You really need someone else driving the car if you're going to play with fuel maps on the laptop at 100 mph!"

Putting all of these ponies to the pavement is the job of a Nissan close-ratio five-speed transmission and Subaru limited-slip differential. Fuji Heavy Industries in Japan supplies differentials to both Subaru and Nissan, and the R160 LSD units out of Subaru XT Turbos are an easy swap into the early 510s. Savage experimented with 4.11-ratio gears in the car (from a 1990 Subaru Legacy), but he eventually switched back to the original 3.70 gear-set after dialing-in the engine. "With the torque available from the 2.2, I've found that the higher gear-set [lower-numerical] gives the best all-around performance for the car."

Horsepower is one thing, but the Datsun 510 is known for its superb road-holding abilities. This car is no exception. True aficionados of the badge refer to the sweet handling characteristics of a properly set-up 510 as the "Dance of the Dime."

The secret is a logical balance of springs, shocks and anti-roll bars. Savage's car is outfitted with 280ZX struts with Carrera coil-overs on the front and custom-built Carrera coil-overs on the rear. Shocks are KYB four-way adjustables on the front and Carrera three-way adjustables at the rear. Suspension Techniques anti-roll bars, front and rear, keep body roll to a minimum and custom front control arms with heim joints and urethane bushings keep the sprung and unsprung parts working in symphony. The original 13-inch Libre rims were replaced with 15-inch American Racing "Spyders" shod with Toyo T-1 rubber. The result is a car that turns corners as well as it accelerates in straight lines. Savage has regularly won Top Time of Day (TTOD) in the highly competitive Oregon autocross scene, was class champion in OSP several times and has set three NHA hill-climb records in this daily-driven car.

But performance is only half of the story. The task of keeping up outward (and inward) appearances was not forgotten. With the exception of a four-point roll bar, Momo steering wheel and competition seatbelts, Savage left the pristine interior pretty much as he found it. The exterior of the car, however, received the full Savage treatment. The emblems and license plate lights were shaved, then the entire car was sprayed with a deep Sikkens Isuzu spark blue paint. While nearly impossible to capture in a photograph, visual examination of the sheet metal behind the front tires reveals phantom pearl BRE stripes that appear wraith-like in bright afternoon sunlight. "Brock Racing Enterprises made 510s famous in the old Trans Am races," Savage said. "A lot of guys paint their cars with the big red and blue stripes like the BRE cars, but I wanted something that wasn't so loud." The results are intangibly beautiful and they serve as a subtle tribute to Brock and all the other Datsun racing pioneers of the early '70s.

After 10 years of ownership, does Savage still drive the car? Sadly, no. The quest for even bigger horsepower recently led Savage to sell the car to a local Datsun enthusiast. The proceeds from the reluctant sale were reinvested in another 510 project, albeit one with a turbocharged V6 stuffed between the fenderwells. The new Dime has a dyno-tested 340 hp and 400 lbs-ft of torque propelling it down the road.

"I used to think that there was no such thing as too much horsepower in a 510," Savage admitted. "Now, I'm not so sure." Does he miss the old 510? "Yes and no. The horsepower in the new car is awesome. But the old car took me 10 years to get sorted and dialed in. It will take a lot of time to get the new one to that same level of perfection." We're convinced the new car will get the same careful attention and sorting the old one did from this "self-employed racecar driver."