Hello, my names Andrew and I am 21 years old. I have always been a fan of older cars, however never been by any stretch of the imagination a Datsun fanatic. This 120Y came into my possession when a friend at uni's 120Y stopped working and she planned to take it to the wreckers who quoted her $150. I decided to buy it off her, and she let me have it for $100 if i promised not to wreck it and to keep it the same colour.

The car is an A12 with a 3-speed auto, and after putting new leads/plugs/etc in, and replacing a few fuses, the car was running to an acceptable standard. Prior to roadworthy it required the engine to be quite a bit less smoky, new seats, windscreen washers and little things like that. The most expensive part was a new windscreen, which i was hoping the original would pass whoever i was not that lucky. The engine was pulled apart at home and new valve stem seals were all that were drastically required as they were non-existant. After fixing that, and the choke cable that was making the car run constantly on choke, the smoke issue was a non-issue.

The main changes i have done to the car are;
Bionic Blue respray, done at home
Rust removal and general panel beating
Good quality front seats to replace the old ones, sourced from an rx3 and a mazda 1300
13inch Wheels from a Datsun Stanza
Grill and Dash Mat resprayed
New Pioneer Head Unit
2'' Lowering blocks for the rear, and 1 1/4'' lower front springs
New struts for the front suspension
Minor fixes to the interior

As its a daily driver i only plan on a few more upgrades, and these will only happen when i have enough money and a good deal comes up. I plan to put an A15 in and keep the auto gearbox, maybe replace the carb with a side-draught, and get some wheels. As you can see in the first photo i plan to put superlites on the car, and my circuit cars wheels are close to fitting which are 15x7's so i have a good idea on what size and offset i require.

Hopefully you all like what ive done to the car, i will post photos ASAP

hi swing_6969 the only suggestion i could make is if you ceep the auto have some work done to it or get somthing better and work that abit the autos are a power drain and the A-series engines dont have much to spair.

Hey mate, thanks for the advice. I would much prefer a manual, and i have access to a 4-speed from an A-series Engine. I'm just not sure how much is involved with the conversion, once you add a new tailshaft, manual pedal box, clutch master and slave cylinder, and any other miscellanous parts i need, it might put the daily off the road for a while. Once the circuit car is finished i will look into it though, maybe hunt for a blow-through turbo kit for a bit of a laugh

If you live near a wreckers that you can easily get a few bits off like the tail shaft gearbox x member and the pedal box you could easily knock it over in an afternoon I did it on my girlfriends 120y not to long ago. You seem to know your way around a car you shouldn't have to much trouble

Well time for an update. The car remained very similar for the past year and was suprisingly reliable considering the amount of km's i put on it. The only thing i changed was getting Chrome dress trims for the wheels, and installing new speakers in the front. Unfortunately the Auto has started to flare a lot, and the A12 is starting to sound like its on its last legs, so i have been torn on what to do with her. When i was younger we had an 1980 Datsun Stanza (A10) as a paddock bomb, and it has remained parked under a tree for the last 8 years. After some research i decided to remove the engine, gearbox and pedal box from the Stanza and slowly prepare the datsun for a L16 and 4 speed conversion.

I have decided to go the route of removing the Stanza engine mounts and weld them to the 120y Crossmember at the required location, and i believe the 4 speed should bolt up to my Automatic tailshaft. The diff will remain, possibly welded, and i will try and find out whether the diff from the Stanza could be easily made to fit.
I pulled the head off the L16 and everything looks in very good condition considering, and have begun painting the manifolds, exhaust, rocker cover and block as i want to have an attempt at trying a "hidden wiring" look for 120y.. purely so i can learn this skill which i believe will be vital for any future projects. The L16 will remain stock, matchport the intake and exhaust and give a tiny port of the head to smooth things out. I am considering a cam, but that will be for a later time.

As the L16 carby from the stanza seemed to be a giant headfuck.. emissions crap everywhere and the carby seemed to have seen better days, so i ordered an adapter plate for a 32/36 weber. Unfortunately when it arrived it was for a 40 Weber, however dad mentioned he had a progressive '40' left over from his Ford Capri and we decided to port the manifold and have a crack at getting the '40' running on the L16. I realise this carby is not often used, but i dont mind a challenge and it will be something a bit different (and cheaper).. also will be more appropriate if i decide to get a L20 bottom end down the track . I will hopefully begin the engine removal and install later next week, and will post pictures as soon as i can.

Hey everyone, just looking for some advice if anyone can help. I am looking at replacing the camshaft on my L16. What is a good 'street' cam that will suit my application. The extent of the modifications will just be a weber, 2" exhaust, electronic ignition, and a tidy up of the ports. Or is there no real use in changing cams with this mild modifications?
ThAnks

Well just a quick update. Had a few free days over the weekend and removed the original A12 out of the 120y, removed suprisingly well even with the gearbox attached. I completed the assembly of the L16 and gave the engine bay a quick paint with Black Acrylic, and began the trial fit of the engine. I removed the 120y crossmember prior to the fit, and removed the saddles off the the Stanza crossmember to weld onto the 120y crossmember. The stanza saddles ended up being located almost exactly where the original 120y mounts were located, which was obvious by the location of the spot welds. The crossmember was trial fitted to the engine to ensure the angles were correct in relation to the engine mounts, and finally the crossmember was installed.

The L16 was installed with the gearbox attached, and was a snug fit however ended up slotting in okay. The rocker cover did rub against the firewall due to the "dangling" angle of the gearbox, however it fitted quite well. The engine mounts didnt exactly line up with the mounts on the crossmember, however with elongation of bolt holes on the engine mounts it fitted quite nicely. The gearbox was then held into place with rope, and i ensured the tailshaft fitted. I was pleasently suprised when the tailshaft fitted, could possible use a little more freeplay, however i am happy.. hopefully the diff doesnt move too much.

The gearbox crossmember was time consuming, however not overly complicated. All that was required was to extend the metal "wings" on the crossmember, in order to reach the existing mounting holes. Fortunately their was 3 gearbox mounting holes, 2 that were originally used, and the unused mounting hole was closer to the crossmember, therefore the length of the welded plate needed to be less. I will post up a few pictures of the crossmember we designed later.

Next came the wiring and general fitment issues:
--Firstly the coil and ballast resistor didnt enjoy being used on the L16 distributor.. with the ballast resistor getting very hot. It may work for other users who does this conversion, however my ballast resistor is already pretty dodgy. Replacing the coil and ballast resistor with the Stanza items remedied this problem.
--The stanza alternator had different wiring, and in all honesty i couldnt be bothered.. As already the charging system had failed on this car so i wanted the reliability of Internally regulated alternator, which i have currently ordered
--Black wires with yellow tracers that run down the transmission tunnel must be bridged. These wires only allow the car to start in Park or Neutral with the Auto, and are useless for the Manual conversion.
--Existing fuel lines are too small for the inlet for the DCNF 40 Weber, so a new outlet barb from the fuel pump is required. Also due to the orientation of the Weber, a longer throttle cable is needed. (ANYONE KNOW OF ANY SLIGHTLY LONGER CABLES THAT WILL WORK???)
--Radiator will be difficult, the fan currently sits close to the shroud, so butchering of the radiator support will probably be required.

I have uploaded some photos to show the progress, feel free to ask any questions, i have noticed information on this conversion is quite scarce, so i hope i have provided some good information

Wow tight fit! Looks great though

I'm guessing it's not so easy to put an L16 into a 120y with a manual gearbox due to different transmission tunnels? Or am I totally wrong.

I'm itching for more power but I do not want to cut metal

_________________
Datsun 120y Wagon, Second Owner

Looks good I was using the 1600 radiator in my l18 1200 with a thermo fan on the front witch was a tight fit but worked well.
I now have a corolla radiator with a thin plastic fan from rare spairs and it refuses to get hot but quite a few mods to get it to fit

When I put an L18 into my Sunny, the radiator I used was a bit of a jigsaw. I used N12 pulsar top & bottom tanks with the outlets in the correct positions (there are 2 different top outlets, so you need the one with the outlet on the right hand side), with the standard N12 core, the sides were from a Sunny with air conditioning, but if you have a wider 120Y radiator you could probably use those, & I used the outlets from a wrecked Stanza radiator to get the sizes. Seems difficult but its really just an N12 radiator with different sides & bigger outlets. There was no way I could fit a fan between the radiator & the water pump, so a 12 inch electric fan was put on the front. The radiator cooled perfectly after we got all the mud & rust out of the block, which took 2 reverse flushes, 2 radiator cleanouts & a radiator filter like a muslin bag I got from a Natrad dealer, which goes into the top inlet of the radiator. This car was used for supersprints, so the cooling system got a workout. Can I suggest you hook up the heater, as I did on my Sunny. The short hose in the middle of the fire wall goes to the little fitting at the rear driver's side of the head. The other hose which usually goes to the pipe at the front of the motor, I simply loosened the clamp in the passenger compartment, turned the hose through 180 degrees & ran it across the back of the head & down the drivers side of the engine. I found an adaptor somewhere, it might have even come with the motor, that fitted the Sunny heater hose up to the size that fitted the L18 thermostat housing. I think I used the offcut from the long heater hose to join the other outlet, as it needed a straight piece. Its nice to have a working heater at Goulburn during the middle of winter or during a wet race meeting.

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words. I cannot access my old username so i have had to make another. I am unsure of the differences between Auto and Manual, however the 4-speed from the Stanza is physically quite small so i believe their would not be too many issues with making it fit into a manual transmission tunnels. I will get some photos on the weekend of how it all fits, been pretty busy with Uni. I bought a KC Laser radiator off the internet, which is about the exact size of the metal radiator support. The hope was to be able to install the radiator without chopping any metal, however due to clearnace issues with the motor i have decided to cut the radiator support flat and install the radiator that way. I am aware its not the optimal way, however its the cheapest haha. I will post some photos of the radiator fitment this weekend when i head home. THanks for the ideas and suggestions for radiator fitment, its suprisingly hard to find good information regarding the L-series engine into a 120y.