Le Mans '75 - '76

Albrecht said:
Yes - but this is not surprising really is it?

We know what engine spec the car was using when it crashed ( and therefore also what it qualified / final practiced with ); the 'Safari' / FIA head casting and Works triple side-draught injection with the Jetronic 'computer'. Such a set-up would have absolutely no problem producing that nice round "300ch" peak power figure - if not more.

Your friend assumed that the quoted "300ch" figure must have indicated an LY crossflow engine ( and committed this to writing without checking his facts ) - but we know that the car was not fitted with an LY when it crashed.

I think it is dangerous to assume anything........
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Count,

I'm not baiting you here but can we assume that the engine the car crashed with was the same engine it qualmified and practiced with ?

The A.C.O can be very fickle and more biased and 'blind sometimes' than Bernie Ecclestone !

I think my, hrhum, 'friend' assumed such because he might have difficulty in producing an SOHC engine that gets near the 300 mark ! Therefore assuming (for his own pride) that the engine would have to have had a 'trick' head in order to produce such power !
 
doesnt matter, at this time ACO regulation permit to change the engines !

Above, it is the engine of the 300ZX of clayton Cuningham racing
 
From genuine entry form from ACO
The 75 is L24
The 76 is L24-2001 (meaning that it was prepared by Sion Autos 2001 wich was a parisian Datsun dealer) the man who signed the entry was Claude Douieb) Sion Auto had three places in 20ème and 12 ème arrondissement.

I spoke with Buchet yesterday
 
thanks ! i knew this pic. It was taken for Agence France Presse and the paper which with it say "Bernard Haller" who is in fact a french actor !!!!:mad:

rubish..

where is ALbrecht ?
 
AMICALEMANS said:
I had a confirmation. The 75/76 car had a L24 engine. In 76, they modified it to become a 2,6.
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AMICALEMANS said:
From genuine entry form from ACO
The 75 is L24
The 76 is L24-2001 (meaning that it was prepared by Sion Autos 2001 wich was a parisian Datsun dealer)
Click to expand...


AMICALEMANS,
To be honest with you, I would not pay too much attention to the engine capacities quoted on the ACO entry forms. There is plenty of opportunity for this to be wrong ( for many different reasons ).

With the origin of the car itself being an ex-Works circuit racer, the engine would already have been more than 2400cc ( it was quoted as being "2497cc Fuel Injected" on its Kyalami entry forms ) as they were using the allowed overbore size. Even so, there is evidence that they were running even more capacity than this in Japan - so even the 2497cc could have been conservative.

For '76, the original engine could have been overbored once again, or a more honest capacity size was given. Don't forget that it was also being called a '260Z' by some - even though it had an L24 engine block and a '240Z' based body. SION Autos might well have refurbished the original engine, or another one ( not forgetting the story of engine switches before qualifying in '76 ) but I feel sure that the engines the car raced with were based on L24 blocks.

I will e-mail you with more detailed thoughts about all this anyway............ :)
 
Back to 75 and 76, LeMans scruteneering verified the engine capacity BEFORE the race. And in 75, they verified the Datsun just because the car won the under 2500 class, so the maxi allowed in 75 was 2499 !

so albrecht, just waiting for your news... Thanks
 
I think he is the man I met in Le Mans Classic 2006... He told me he has neither tech info nor any tech skills to figure what was "inside"...
Accident was such a drama that the history quickly ended for all the involved guys as we can expect

I unfortunately think he was telling me the truth



AMICALEMANS said:
Sorry but :
- it is not my job to write some historical research, its just an hobby
- I read the story about the Schuller 300 HP engine... on the web, but i dont know if it is true ! i will ask Claude Buchet for that.
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Yes Claude Buchet did not many things for the car. He was asked to drive by Haller who want a man from Le Mans inboard... he is now the vice-president of Chambre de Comerce du Mans
 
I think Claude Buchet is just to the right (off-picture) in this photo - I met him and briefly spoke but was so occupied in trying to fix the Z so that it may compete, he'd moved on when I came back with a required part !

He told me he just drove and knew nothing about any specification ! Nice chap !:)
 
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and then ? books of that kind are for owner... They want to see their car in a book !

The 94 300ZX was a very true american car, exept the engines !

Only one Datsun/Nissan coming from japan ran Le Mans : the 240z

Others came from Lola, March, TWR etc....
 
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