The datsun 2000 was a small car, it's engine bay is barely big enough to hold an inline 4, I cant see a 3.0 inline 6 fitting in it with out a lot moddification to the body and chassis.

 

It would be really hard to put a straight six in a datsun 2000, the four barely fits. I can't think of any datsun that would be called a 3000. Datsun didn't make an engine in the us bigger than the L28 till the vg33 came out, unless you count the Patrol's engine which was 4.0 liters. Anyhow the guy could have been bs'ing you back then. Now Austin Healy had the 3000. Hmm

 

Re: sure it wasn't a Healy?

............................................

 

There's one listed as a racer at this site:

<http://www.amsc.co.za/amsc/drags/main.htm>

Whatever the car was, I know it could do about 160 miles per hour, had SIX WEBER CARB.S down the top of the engine, and he regularly had to change the headers as he kept burning right through them.

I think there were very few of them... If I could remember his name, I could try and track him down and ask him but that's about 25 years ago!

He told me about a trip from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada down to Calgary, Alberta, Canada... after passing the radar trap, the cop took over 1/2 hour to just catch up to him! Now that was going FAST!



Post Edited (Jan 21, 1:27pm)

 

is his name Myron Louw? thats who they have listed as the owner of the 3000, or at least the driver.

 

Could he have been one digit off and meant a 300ZX? Could he have been yanking your chain? I vote for the latter.

FWIW, Datsun also put the straight six into the 810 model and Maxima. Maybe it was a hot-rodded version of one of those, although one would wonder what the point was. No stock Datsun that I've ever heard of came with six carbs.

 

Sorry guys, that sure looks like an Austin Healey 3000.

 

sounds like a "fish story" to me. You know, over time the fish gets bigger as the story is retold, 3 carbs become 6 etc......

 

I agree that it is probably a bit exaggerated. But on a side note, there was an inline 6 equipped Roadster that raced in the late 60's in Japan. It was labeled as a private entry, but under the hood was a Prince GR8. This would have been right after Nissan absorbed Prince. The GR8 was the predecessor of the S20. It was a twin cam, 24 valve, 2 liter inline 6. I have a few old b/w pics of the car somewhere. And yes, the engine was a severe shoehorn job.

Brian

 

3000 wrote:

> There's one listed as a racer at this site:
>
> <http://www.amsc.co.za/amsc/drags/main.htm>
>
> Whatever the car was, I know it could do about 160 miles per
> hour, had SIX WEBER CARB.S down the top of the engine, and he
> regularly had to change the headers as he kept burning right
> through them.
>
> I think there were very few of them... If I could remember his
> name, I could try and track him down and ask him but that's
> about 25 years ago!
>
> He told me about a trip from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada down to
> Calgary, Alberta, Canada... after passing the radar trap, the
> cop took over 1/2 hour to just catch up to him! Now that was
> going FAST!
>

>
> Post Edited (Jan 21, 1:27pm)
To follow on with what McAdam said, I googled "Myron Louw", and the articles referred to a V6 in the Datsun 3000. It sounds like he swapped a 300ZX motor into another Datsun.

The rest of the story sounds like pure embellishment if not pure BS.

*Edit*
I did find two references to "Datsun 3000" via Google. One was a VG30 swap into a roadster. The other was an ad for a 1976 Datsun 3000 for sale in South Africa. I haven't seen anything yet to support your memories.



Post Edited (Jan 21, 3:47pm)

 

Okay, if not Datsun, was there a Japanese car that was specially tuned for racing from the sixties that had an inline six with six webers down the top of the engine? ANY make here... TOYOTA, HONDA, MAZDA, SUBARU... whatever might fit this description?

 

JR wrote:

> Could he have been one digit off and meant a 300ZX?

Ummm... I don't think there was a 300ZX thirty years ago, was there?



Post Edited (Jan 22, 12:34am)

 

No

 

3000 wrote:

> Okay, if not Datsun, was there a Japanese car that was
> specially tuned for racing from the sixties that had an inline
> six with six webers down the top of the engine? ANY make
> here... TOYOTA, HONDA, MAZDA, SUBARU... whatever might fit this
> description?

Not that I'm aware of. There is the Toyota 2000GT. It was an inline 6 with triple Solex carburetors.

Tony D, are you on the road? I'm surprised we haven't heard from you on this.

 

a straight six with six weber carbs?....seems unlikely....unless he's counting the butterfly's not the carbs themselves...

or he could be running six motorbike carbs...but then again, they wouldn't be 'on top' of the engine like you state

 

Wrong country, being a Ferrari, but this one had six carbs. so such cars did exist...

From this page:

<http://www.ferraris-online.com/pages/carintro.php?reqcardir=FE-275GTB4-10669>

 

Okay, so there was a Ferrari V-12 with 6 downdraft carburetors. How does that relate to your inquiry on a 3 Liter Japanese engine with 6 Weber carburetors? By the way, unless the engine had a very unique head or a very strange intake manifold that curved over the engine, the carburetors, even downdraft carburetors, would have to be mounted on the side of the engine, not on top.

 

The Datsun 2000 had a factory option in the U.S., 1967 was the only year that a unique 150 hp competition kit with Solex carburetors was available. 'Original Solex' vehicles are considered to be very rare vehicles that were very much sought after.

Don't know much about that one.

I'm pretty sure it was never set up with six carb.s from the factory... I've never held onto that belief. Rather, I figure that SOME sort of compact inline 6 was fitted into a DATSUN 2000 and the race enthusiasts then just tended to refer to it as a DATSUN 3000 for the heck of it.

Lots of inline 6 engines mentioned here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-6>

 

There was a one of a kind ONLY 1967 Datsun 2000 Roadster raced without completing the Japanesse Grand Prix with S20DE... it went missing and is now considered a Mythical car.