Chris, I've posted this response only to Ozdats as the Bluebells might get annoyed - there a bit fractious over there at the moment. You might find an L18 or two in NZ these days, not many left in Japan. Most of the L18's in Australia are in need of a rebuild. If you can pickup a L18W and throw a set of good ole Made in the US of A Hastings CM rings in it and reco the head, you'll get reliable service out of for many a good year. It's not uncommon to see 300K miles on original bore with these engines. Before imports got popular in Australia, the engines we got were from wrecked cars that weren't crashed, they just gas axed them and stuck the bits in a container with a kangaroo on it, but apparently that trend has changed somewhat over the past 5 years or so. The Japanese car industry is kept alive by Govt regulation that makes annual registration more expensive on a sliding scale, some say to prop up the local industry or as you say to keep pollution levels down, I know if our Govt tried a stunt like that they'd be laughed out of town. The Japanese car industry isn't as regulated as it used to be, they threw away the maximum width rule in the mid to late 80's so we see decent sized cars (wide bodied they call them) come out of japan these days. The Govt has made it uneconomical to keep a car for more than 7 years or so and as the average age of a car in Australia last time I checked the ABS Data is 15 years, so we just grab slightly used Japanese models for a fraction of the local price. The Aussie Govt is trying to change the rules here though, they would like to only allow models to be imported that aren't available in Aus and it will be interesting how the imports are affected by the GST - so far most pollies wont touch the current legislation as they think that they wouldn't survive the next election. Imports are certainly big business here these days. regards Terry -----Original Message----- From: Chris Halpin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, 12 June 2000 1:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: L18's I was just wondering whether you can still pick up L18's from Jap or other country importers ... I know a few months back one of my mates bought some more modern engine from a Jap importer in Melbourne, it came with about every modification under the sun, and it was heaps cheaper than it would cost to do it yourself. I heard something about people in Japan having to sell their cars after a certain time frame, to keep pollution to a minimum, don't know how long, or even if it was true - but i'm just about to begin work on an L18, and was wondering if it's possible to get an engine from these guys with a few parts already.... thanks chris ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com This message comes to you from the Datsun 510 mailing list. List rules and instructions are available at: http://bluebirds.datsun510.com/bluebirds/listcharter Authors retain implicit copyright to their material. Obtain permission from the author before redistributing messages. --membersozdat------------------------------------------------------- OZDAT Mailing List Please Note:- Send (un)subscribe requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send submissions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] No unauthorised redistribution of this email http://www.datascribe.com.au/ozdatonline/index.htm http://www.datascribe.com.au/ozdatonline/listindex.html http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
