CALLING Alan T / HS30-H

[Synlubes]

Hey Alan can you get any of these Valve Covers to the US?

[HS30-H]

Hi Doug,

First of all, do you know what it is? It's not a UK product - its made in Japan.

A little bit of a "history lesson" might be of interest to you;

The original pattern for these valve covers was developed by a Japanese company called KAKIMOTO RACING. They were a fairly small company that became well-known for a particularly powerful 3.1 litre L-series conversion that used the LD28 crank, L14 rods and Yamaha XL500 motorcycle pistons. One version of this was tested by Car Boy magazine and produced 330ps at the flywheel. This was back in the late Seventies / early Eighties. Most of the power came from the extremely high compression ratio and the very heavily re-worked ( extensively welded and reshaped ) head. Kakimoto made their own cams too.

Mr Kakimoto did quite well selling engines and parts from this publicity, and one of the parts he went on to produce was his own valve cover. Although they were bigger than the standard L-series covers and had proper baffling and venting, it has to be said that the main benefit of the covers was visual. They promoted the company name and made an engine look rather more special than it might otherwise appear.

The original Kakimoto version just had "KAKIMOTO" cast lengthways, and "3.1" across the front above the timing chain.

When Kakimoto's agreement with the casting company ran out, other companies were able to use the same basic casting and put their own names on them. The cover on my car is one of these. It just says "DATSUN 3100" and "OHC" on the front.

You can still get them in Japan - but you might find the price somewhat discouraging ( around 50,000 Yen retail ). I bought mine used in Japan - so it was considerably cheaper than that.

I've had mixed reactions from people when they look at it. Interestingly, they either love it or hate it ( quite a few comments were surprisingly rude! ) but I put it on as a bit of fun, and don't take it too seriously.

 

All the best,

Alan T.

[David K]

That valve cover is trick!

[Synlubes]

Alan,

 

Thanks for your reply.

I don`t know what 50,000 Yen is in US dollars, probly to much.

It is a very nice looking valve cover!

I`m always looking for something different and cool.

[slownrusty]

The exchange rate is around 120Yen = $1US

[yo2001]

O, what's nice about the Kakimoto vavle cover suppose to quite down the valvetrain.

[Guest eric-z]

hey Alan,

you wouldn't happen to have anymore info on that 3.1L engine would you(or even websites). I have never heard of that engine, I always like checking out new(or I suppose old) engine combos.

 

thanks,

eric

[HS30-H]

Eric, I'll have to try to hunt down the original CarBoy magazine article ( I know its in my archive somewhere ). Bear with me while I hunt it down.

Don't be too disappointed at how they got the 330ps out of it; this was back in the late Seventies / early Eighties as far as I remember -and I know that they used an unstreetably high compression ratio. The original engine and car it was installed in was a drag / street racer that I remember as having a suspension setup not very conducive to standing starts.............

Let me look into it. I might need to e-mail you some photos or something.

Regards,

Alan T.