Scott Briant crammed a ramshackle collection of bits into his Datsun

NANA’ S CAR
STORY LIAM QUIRK PHOTOS CHRIS THOROGOOD
Dat rod
Scott Briant crammed a ramshackle collection
of bits into his Datsun 120Y – and bolted
an ironing board on the roof – to create the
ultimate poor man’s sleeper
088
street machine
street machine
089
S
HEPPARTON lad Scott Briant
is a man with a penchant for the
nation’s underappreciated cars.
For starters, he once built himself
a tough tubbed Corolla wagon
with a blown Holden 355ci
stroker (SM, Sept 2009), but he
soon found himself without much of a use for it.
“All the events stopped in Melbourne,” he says.
“There was just nothing we could do in the wagon.
I thought I’d offload it and build something that I
could use daily.”
His solution was a D22 Nissan Navara with a
300ZX VG30 turbo motor on LPG, which was fast,
practical and reliable. “I wanted something cheap
that I could drive every day. E85 wasn’t an option
because it isn’t very common in the bush, but LPG
is available wherever I go,” Scott explains.
The only downside? An unfortunate tendency to
backfire and blow the airbox to smithereens!
“As I was trying to figure that one out, I bumped
into a local guy, Paul Sera, who had a fast VL that
was running well on LPG. When I asked who did
his tuning, he put me in touch with Jason at Tunnel
Vision. Jason sorted it out and I never looked back.
“Then I started wondering how the engine from
the Navara would go in a lighter smaller car so
I bought a KE55 Corolla and put it in that. We
ended up doing 11s at over 120mph, but I got
sick of everyone saying it was just a Toyota with
a Nissan engine, so I decided to build something
that was all Nissan.”
Scott sold the Corolla to a mate and then started
searching for something with a Nissan badge to
start afresh. The search didn’t last long.
“The 120Y was in a paddock in Shepparton
with a blown head gasket. The guy had pulled the
head off, then realised he didn’t know how to fix
it. Overall it was in good condition, not much rust
or anything, but they lived on a dirt road so it had
heaps of stone chips. I mean, every piece of glass
on the car was chipped in some way! I gave it a
paint job and new glass to freshen it up.”
But obviously that’s not all he did. Up front he
squeezed the three-litre Nissan V6 into the engine
bay, a task that ended up much less hassle than
he thought.
“It was surprisingly easy to fit,” Scott says. “The
engine bay and trans tunnel are untouched. The
only place we’ve cut is where we recessed the
dump pipe into the strut tower.”
The dump pipe hangs off the back of a decently
sized Holset HX40 turbo. Usually found on trucks
and tractors, Holset isn’t a name commonly
associated with the performance aftermarket, or
indeed even petrol-powered vehicles.
“Basically I didn’t want to spend $1500 on a new
turbo!” Scott laughs. “I went on eBay and these
Holset turbos popped up from a tractor place not
too far from home. He had them listed for $350,
and when I offered him $500 outside the auction
he declined, saying he had been getting upwards
of $700 for them. Anyway, I ended up winning it for
$350 because nobody else bid! He should have
taken my $500!
“The exhaust housing was too big because
they’re off a diesel. I researched them and there’s a
place in the States, Tim’s Turbos, that use Holsets
on everything. He makes smaller exhaust housings
for them so I picked one up for $US210.”
bBQ recipe
• The internally standard motor gobbles
up 30psi from the Holset turbo
• The unique custom plenum was made by
hacking up a Kenworth bullbar
• An R32 GTR radiator is a perfect fit for your
next VG30-into-120Y engine conversion
• The ex-diesel Holset HX40 turbo runs a
smaller exhaust housing to make it suitable
for the small petrol V6
• Twin LPG converters are mounted low to keep
the engine bay neat
• The intake manifold has no injectors, injector
bosses or EFI wiring messing up the view
• Throttle body is an S440 LPG unit
• A polished front mount intercooler nestles
neatly behind the standard 120Y grille
• The hard breather lines that run behind the
motor used to be Kenworth mirror supports!
• Alloy radiator overflow tank is an off-theshelf HQ Holden item
The 120Y was in a paddock in Shepparton with a blown head gasket
BELOW LEFT: If you’re wondering,
the iron is bolted to the ironing
board, which is bolted to the roof
racks! The straps are for show
INTERIOR: Parts of the original interior
have been retrimmed to keep with the
theme. Additions extend to boost gauges
mounted in the air-con vents in the dash
SCOTT BRIANT
1975 DATSUN 120Y
Colour: PPG White
ENGINE
Brand: Nissan VG30ET 3.0litre V6
Inlet: Custom plenum
Throttlebody: LPG S440
Turbo: Holset HX40
Wastegate: 40mm PSR
Intercooler: 600x300mm
Heads: Stock
Internals: Stock
Fuel system: 70l gas tank, dual
LPG lines, twin B2 convertors
Cooling: R32 GTR Skyline alloy
radiator, twin 12in thermos
Exhaust: Custom turbo
manifolds, 3in exhaust
Ignition: MSD, ICE leads
Engine management: Haltech
E6X
TRANSMISSION
Gearbox: D22 Navara five-speed
manual
Clutch: Clutch Masters solid
090
street machine
centre, brass button
Diff: Shortened R31 Skyline
Borg Warner, 3.7:1, mini-spool
SUSPENSION & BRAKES
Springs: Standard (f), standard
with Caltracs (r)
Shocks: Pedders (f), Toyota
Corona (r)
Brakes: Standard discs (f),
R31 Skyline rear (r)
Master Cylinder: Standard
Steering: Lock stops removed
WHEELS & TYRES
Rims: R31 Skyline 14x5.5in
Rubber: 175/65R14
THANKS
Jason at Tunnel Vision
Turbocharging, Kyle Webby,
Haggis, Robbo, Col Sernior, Ken,
Mick Falla, Andy Hoops, Luke
and J Rod Lingard, Midland
Mufflers, Logan, McCaroll Diffs,
my wife Emily and my kids
Sophie and Carter
street machine
091
EXTERIOR: The rims are 14in Skyline
items, with what Scott reckons are
Rambler Hornet hubcaps
I couldn’t make it look tough, so I had to make it look funny
Everything south of the intake manifold remains
as Nissan intended, but up top Scott fashioned
his own plenum out of scrap aluminium. “I work as
a fabricator in truck smash repairs, so a lot of bits
came out of the bins at work. We had a Kenworth
bullbar come through and I thought, ‘I could make
a plenum out of that corner post.’”
The fuel injector bosses in the factory manifold
were filled and the LPG hardware affixed in its
place. “I didn’t want injectors, or wiring, or any mess
in the engine bay. The LPG is a very neat set up,”
he says. Up the back, there’s a 70-litre LPG tank
feeding twin B2 converters that are mounted low
and out of sight, with a single Gas Research S440
mixer hanging off the custom bullbar intake. Unlike
most LPG cars, Scott’s 120Y runs a Haltech E6X,
which he uses just to manage the ignition maps.
Scott reckons the D22 Navara gearbox is plenty
strong enough, but he’s looking at bolting a Jatco
four-speed auto into it soon. “We’ll probably shave
a full second off the quarter mile times with the
auto,” Scott says. Right up the back there’s a Borg
Warner diff donated by an R31 Skyline. Borgies are
slightly longer on one side than the other, and Scott
found that by simply shortening the factory long axle
and housing, the Skyline diff would slot nicely under
the rear of the 120Y.
He has never had the little Datto on the dyno but,
after six hours of road tuning around Melbourne’s
highway network, Scott and Jason called the
tuning done and, caught up in a wind of triumphant
enthusiasm, Scott dumped the clutch in third gear
for the benefit of the Tunnel Vision boys.
“The factory shocks snapped clean in half! So I
092
street machine
grabbed what was left of one and ran around
the corner to Pick-a-Part. The closest things
I could find that looked a little stronger were
Corona shocks. I paid $16 for second-hand
Corona shocks and that’s what’s still in there,”
Scott chuckles. Those $16 shocks round out
a pile of receipts that tallies no more than
$11,300 from start to finish. How’s that for a
budget sleeper?
It’s not just a budget sleeper though; it’s
a cheap-to-run daily driver that’s proved as
reliable as a Swiss watch. “It’s faultless,” Scott
says. “I drove it to Pakenham for the weekend
with the family. I even showed off for a few
mates from down that way that hadn’t seen it,
and I just couldn’t break it!”
On its first and only outing at the drags, the
baby Datsun ran 11.2@126mph, but the best
bit is the fuel economy. “It was a two-and-a-half hour
round trip and we did nine 11-sec passes. It cost
just $26 in fuel for the day,” Scott says, and that’s
just amazing. If this is the only Datsun 120Y Street
Machine ever features, at least we can all agree that
it was definitely worthy. s
BOOT: The bowls bag that donated the
bowls bolted to the parcel shelf became
Scott’s battery box. The picnic basket is full
of tools and spares, and the tank holds 70l
EXHAUST: The standard pea-shooter exits
in the factory location, however a keen
eye will spot the 3in exhaust just above it,
dumping under the car