From the May 1981 issue of Car and Driver.
A half-hour into the journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles, the all-too-familiar red lights are flashing in my rearview mirrors. Damn. I’m doing nothing outrageous, just slicing briskly through traffic, trying to get out of San Francisco before rush hour sets in. I pull over the spanking-new Datsun 280-ZX Turbo, grab my driver’s license, and try to radiate a combination of innocence, friendliness, and respectability at the approaching officer. He looks at my license, sees that it’s out-of-state, and, having noticed the car’s California plates, asks me how long I’ve been in the area.
I explain that I’m with Car and Driver and have just left the 280-ZX Turbo press introduction at Golden State International Raceway. My hope is that this will pique his interest in the ordinary-looking Z-car; but it’s a risky ploy, for it could just as easily launch him into an anti-auto-journalist tirade.
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He falls for it. “What’s different about it?” he asks. My spirits soar. I point out the NACA duct and the new tires and wheels, pop the hood, and explain the turbocharger installation. He’s genuinely interested and listening with rapt attention, when he realizes that he’s still holding my license. What’s he going to do?
“Here, I won’t need this,” he says. Both relaxed, we chew the fat some more about the car, and find common ground lamenting the demise of the fast American cars of the Sixties and Seventies. He’s particularly incensed by the barely 100-mph top speeds of modern-day police cars. I’m sympathetic—but just between you and me, that’s one problem that rarely keeps me up nights.
Finally, he apologizes for talking my ear off and lets me go. I thank him fifteen or twenty times and proceed into the thick of the Bay Area rush hour, wishing that all my police encounters could turn out so pleasantly.
I’m also thinking that I am fortunate to be driving a Datsun Z-car. No new Corona or Fairmont, turbo or no, could sidetrack a peace officer from his dastardly intentions. Fortunately, the Z-car has captivated car nuts for over a decade. Even the move from basic sports car to GT cruiser—the advent of the ZX—carried on the tradition. Although many original fans were horrified, dubbing the ZX a Japanese Corvette, those who judged the car on its own merits saw a reasonably priced, high-performance luxo-GT, and the car picked up a whole new following.
Perhaps the more visceral ZX Turbo will bring the two groups together. An AiResearch TBO3 turbocharger has been tucked onto the left side of the tried-and-true 2.8-liter six. The engine’s internals have been modified where needed, and the most sophisticated electronic-control package yet seen on a foreign car has been tucked under the hood for good measure. The system, called ECCS, includes a detonation sensor to keep the spark timing at peak efficiency. All the fancy hardware yields a power peak of 180 hp at 5600 rpm, up from 145 at 5200. The torque peak is up to 203 pound-feet at 2800 rpm, increased from 156 at 4000. Not only are these substantial increases, but the more-than-doubled spread between the horsepower and torque peaking speeds signifies a power band flatter than Kansas. The turbo’s waste gate is set at a modest 6.8 psi of boost, but every ounce of this pressure is on the job between 2400 and 6400 rpm. For now, the Turbo is available only with a beefed-up automatic transmission. But a five-speed will come along, once the Japanese are satisfied with its long-term durability.
Despite the ostensibly non-sporting transmission, the car is a rocket. From a full-blown, wheel-spinning launch, 60 mph comes up in just 6.8 seconds, the quarter in 15.2 seconds, and 100 mph requires just 5.5 seconds more. It’s the quickest automatic-transmission machine in the country. In fact, the only cars on the market that can put the 280-ZX Turbo on the trailer at the drags are two Porsches: the 911SC and the five-speed 928. The vanquished include Ferrari 308s, Jaguar XJ-Ss, and 924 Turbos, as well as every current Corvette, Trans Am, and Camaro money can buy.
The performance is equally satisfying in the real world. Flooring the throttle moves the boost gauge’s needle smartly to full pressure at almost any speed—and the driver right back to 1965. The automatic transmission and abundant midrange torque feel just like a big, preemissions V-8. The low-restriction turbo exhaust rounds out the delusion with a lusty burble out the back.
But the 20-mpg EPA city fuel economy brings us back to the present. The Turbo’s combination of fuel economy, performance, and luxury has never before been available. No other turbo, even with less mass and a manual transmission, can match this blend.
In comparison with the powertrain, the Turbo’s suspension is underwhelming. Relative to the standard ZX, the Turbo’s spring rates are surprisingly softer (12 percent in front, 20 percent in back). Bushing rates are also lower. To compensate, the shock absorbers have more rebound control, the diameter of the front anti-sway bar is up 1 mm, to 23 mm, and most of the rubber bushings are installed with tighter preloads. Power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering has replaced the recirculating-ball type used previously, and high-performance, low-profile Bridgestone Potenza tires are mounted on new fifteen-inch-diameter, cast-alloy wheels.
The net effect is quite in keeping with the ZX’s well-established comfortable-GT image. Now the boulevard ride is more Rodeo Drive, less Woodward Avenue. Even so, the Turbo has a tight rein on body motions that’s desperately lacking in normally aspirated 280-ZXs. Likewise, the new steering has a good combination of sensitivity and power assistance, with absolutely no lost motion. The new Bridgestones stick tenaciously, and the Turbo is well balanced in the corners. The combination of smooth power delivery and the semi-trailing arms’ on-off throttle high jinks makes right-foot steering a breeze.
Conventional hand control over one’s direction, however, is not so smooth. A quick turn of the steering wheel produces a two-phase turn of the car: the front end changes direction as you’d expect; then a moment later, as roll sets into the chassis, the rear wheels tighten the arc even more. It’s a phenomenon called transient roll oversteer, common to most semi-trailing-arm rear suspensions, that puts a nasty kink in the Turbo ZX’s otherwise linear handling.
The brakes, unchanged on the Turbo, are certainly up to plebeian driving duties, but they will fade when you use the strong acceleration to telescope corners together. They’re also not the easiest to modulate, though the stopping distances (70 to 0 mph in 196 feet) are very good.
Despite these complaints, the chassis is really very competent—it’s just not up to the level of excellence of the killer engine. Perhaps when the five-speed becomes available, Datsun will provide a commensurately sporting suspension, just to indulge us card-carrying members of the white-knuckle set.
We’d also like to see a bit more external pizazz to differentiate the Turbo from the hoi-polloi ZX. We’re not advocating extra badges or any bogus hood scoops, but a pair of functional front and rear spoilers, say, would give the Turbo its own identity without straining its subtle high-performance character.
Inside and out, the Turbo is a posh chariot indeed, bristling with every manner of creature comfort and gadget ever stuffed under a T-top. Two things are new: a dial for manifold pressure and one for oil temperature. The seats are fully adjustable for rake, seat-cushion angle, and lumbar support. The driving position is excellent, down to a proper dead pedal for the left foot. Power assists motivate the windows and mirrors, and the center of the dash holds a beautifully integrated electronic stereo radio/cassette deck. (Unfortunately, all four speakers subscribe to the boomy-bass-is-best school of sound reproduction; they shouldn’t be inflicted on a CB radio, let alone a high-fidelity sound system.)
A few interior details could benefit from redesign by a serious driver. The horn buttons are out of reach from the three- and nine-o’clock wheel positions. The driver’s left knee hits the electric window switches during hard right cornering. And the transmission’s detents are nonsensical, allowing free movement between neutral and drive but not between one, two, and drive.
But it would be nit-picking to dwell on minor failings and miss the underlying significance of this car. Datsun has shown that very high performance, luxurious accommodation, and reasonable fuel economy can coexist. In 1981. For less than $17,000. More important, the previously peaceful Japanese have dispatched a warrior to the ultra-high-performance arena that will hold its own against the best from Porsche, et al.
On the local front, the Turbo ZX goes way beyond the Corvette pretensions of the normally aspirated 280 T-top. It’s good enough to make car freak and cop alike think back a decade to the time when plastic Chevrolets had all the world’s horsepower, fuel injection, and handling in one affordable package. Furthermore, it ought to be good enough to make the guys designing the 1983 Corvette think ahead: will the American sports car of the future measure up to what’s made in Japan today?
Technical Highlights
The Datsun L28ET turbo motor has undergone the usual extensive alterations that characterize factory turbo installations. The turbocharger is an AiResearch TBO3 unit with an integral waste gate. There’s a new high-temperature-resistant-alloy exhaust manifold; a 2.5-inch-diameter (up from 1.9 inches) exhaust system; a muffler with 50 percent larger capacity; a larger airflow meter; higher-capacity fuel injectors; an intake manifold with a larger plenum and a pop-off valve set to vent pressure in excess of 7.5 psi, should the turbocharger’s waste gate fail; a larger coil to provide the hotter spark required by the higher combustion pressures; and an oil cooler. Internally, the turbo motor has new pistons with a reduced compression ratio and improved wrist-pin lubrication, upgraded compression rings, a 10 percent larger oil pump, and larger cylinder-head bolts.
In addition to these “conventional” changes, Datsun has also done a radical upgrade on the ZX Turbo’s engine-control system. The ECCS (electric concentrated engine-control system) uses a microprocessor to control fuel injection, ignition timing, exhaust-gas recirculation, idle speed, and fuel-pump operation. The real sophistication lies in the fact that all these subsystems interact. It’s the first such digital electronic computer seen on a foreign car in America, although the domestic manufacturers have been using similar hardware since 1978.
Interestingly enough, all the old low-voltage functions of a conventional distributor are now handled between the ECCS microprocessor and a trigger device mounted on the nose of the crankshaft. A disc with 93 projections spins at crank speed, and three magnetic sensors located near the disc generate rpm and phase signals for the central microprocessor. The microprocessor selects spark timing and then fires the ignition coil at the proper instant. Idle speed is also under central control. An auxiliary air passage is managed by the microprocessor to keep idle speed constant with varying engine loads (from the AC compressor, the power-steering pump, and the transmission).
The value of this high technology is evidenced by the Turbo’s very high performance and good fuel economy. The Datsun’s EPA fuel economy is at least as high as that of the Porsche 924, Saab 900, Volvo GLT, and Audi 5000 turbos—despite its automatic transmission, higher curb weight, and much higher performance. As such, it must be considered the most sophisticated turbocharged-engine system ever introduced to America.
Specifications
Specifications
1981 Datsun 280-ZX Turbo
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door hatchback
PRICE (EST)
As Tested: $16,500
ENGINE
turbocharged SOHC inline-6, iron block and aluminum head, port fuel injection
Displacement: 168 in3, 2750 cm3
Power (SAE net): 180 hp @ 5600 rpm
Torque (SAE net): 203 lb-ft @ 2800 rpm
TRANSMISSION
3-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/semi-trailing arm
Brakes, F/R: 9.9-in vented disc/10.6-in disc
Tires: Bridgestone Potenza
P205/60R-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 91.3 in
Length: 174.0 in
Width: 66.5 in
Height: 51.0 in
Passenger Volume: 47 ft3
Cargo Volume: 26 ft3
Curb Weight: 3070 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 6.8 sec
100 mph: 20.7 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.2 sec @ 89 mph
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.9 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 5.5 sec
Top Speed: 126 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 196 ft
Roadholding, 200-ft Skidpad: 0.78 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 52 dBA
Full Throttle: 76 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 74 dBA
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 17 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 21/20/24 mpg
Csaba Csere joined Car and Driver in 1980 and never really left. After serving as Technical Editor and Director, he was Editor-in-Chief from 1993 until his retirement from active duty in 2008. He continues to dabble in automotive journalism and WRL racing, as well as ministering to his 1965 Jaguar E-type, 2017 Porsche 911, 2009 Mercedes SL550, 2013 Porsche Cayenne S, and four motorcycles—when not skiing or hiking near his home in Colorado.
Nguồn: Chi tiết
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