Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Hi everyone,

Longtime lurker here, I’m close to restarting my roadster project so I figured it’s about time I joined. I first discovered the roadster about 40 years ago as a young guy working in a body shop. My boss had one and as a project and I had never seen one before. I had a 720 pickup and the little two seater fascinated me. The shop ended going out of business, the owner felt so bad about letting us go that he gave me the car and so began my love affair with the roadster. It was a 67.5 SPL1600, the car was mostly there, sort of ran and was in really bad shape. A couple of years later I heard about another one sitting in a junk yard a days drive away and I bought it sight unseen. In retrospect I’m amazed I found this car as it was before the internet. It turned out to be a 68 SRL2000, it was mostly there but didn’t run. The 1600 was so bad that I decided to strip it of everything useable, junk the rest and concentrate on the 2000. Shortly afterward I decided to go to college as a non traditional and the roadster went into storage. Fast forward another 10 years and I bought a 67 SPL1600 and started restoring it. As usual life got in the way and the project got back burnered again. Well now I’m 61 and getting ready to slow down at my job and have time to work on it again. I’ve decided to go the restomod route and I’m planning on going with a VQ35DE drive train, so I’ve been reading about the other builds with great interest. This board is a wealth of information for the roadster and I’m looking forward to it.

Welcome Oldslowguy, though with the VQ I kinda doubt that name will apply to the car once done! What's gonna be the power to weight ratio on that beast? We look forward to reading about your build and addition to our family!

Thanks Greg. I’m guessing with the added weight of the VQ and a roll bar around 1800lb, 287hp would put it around 6.3, it won’t be a Z06, but should be pretty respectable for something without electronic aids.

Welcome to the forum oldsloguy. It’s great to have another roadster owner in mid America. You should fit right in! I think you are going to need to add about 500lbs to your calculations to achieve a realistic power to weight ratio, but it’s still going to be a wild ride.
You should come to the LGGPR in Garnett Kansas the weekend of October 10th & 11th and spectate. It’s free and only an hour and a half from Greenwood. There should be several roadsters there. I think Shannon is bringing his swapped and highly modified car. I’ve not seen it but by reading his build thread it must be one of the best in the country!
I have attached a link describing the event. It’s very rare to see another roadster in this part of the country, let alone several being flogged around a track or autocross.
viewtopic.php?f=67&t=33407

Thanks for the link, I’d love to go to that and check out and check out Shannon”s ride.