Marcus Fry’s wild 1970 Datsun 510 started turning heads at LS Fest a few years ago, and it’s only gotten more potent in the time since. “The engine that was previously in this car was there basically to prove the chassis,” he explains. “It was sort of placeholder for the stroker LS2 that I was building. That engine finally got finished a few months ago, and after my clutch disc failed, I thought it was time to swap that in. And I figured it would also be a good opportunity to, you know, rebuild the whole car!”

The naturally aspirated, high compression LS2 belts out a healthy 640 rear-wheel horsepower – about a 200hp jump from the mostly-stock LS3 that was previously shoehorned into the Datsun’s engine bay. “My dad used to race a Corvette back in the '70s, and he had a Hilborn eight-stack on that big block,” Fry says. “I love individual throttle bodies because it’s a really efficient setup, and they’re meant for high-rpm abuse. And if there’s anything I like doing, it’s abusing the gas pedal.” His father now builds race motors now and put together the new mill for the 510, and Fry says exact combination is a closely-held secret. “He won’t even tell me what the camshaft spec is!”

Weighing in at a scant 2,400 pounds, the stroker-powered 510 had the potential to become a bit of a handful without the right setup, so Fry wanted to make sure the rest of the car could handle the newfound grunt. “At this point the weight balance is as close to 50/50 as I can get without moving the firewall,” he tells us. “When I was building the car, the intent was to campaign it in Formula Drift, so I was focused on designing it around that rule book. I wanted it to be the oldest car in the series. But then they changed the rules, and the car ended up being way too light with no real way to make it eligible, so over time it has really become more of a track and autocross car.”

The power is wrangled through a custom close-ratio Jerico four-speed manual transmission and sent to a Winters quick-change rear end, both of which were rebuilt earlier this year. “The rear was really tired – I noticed it was starting to act like an open diff on more technical courses. When RTS opened it up for the rebuild, they discovered that basically everything inside was toast.”

On the suspension front, Fry has been testing different spring rates and sway bar combinations to help the Datsun maximize grip in the corners and put the power down when he gets on the loud pedal. “We also went to Annex coilovers up front, and they valved the dampers to my weight and this type of application. The rear suspension is a custom design that I put together, too – the original single trailing arm design is really basic and not adjustable, so this new setup is a trailing arm with two links, like a side-by-side.”

And there’s still more upgrades to come, he notes. “This is basically the stuff that I knew I could get done before LS Fest; I wanted to make sure I could compete in the Grand Champion event. Next up is a full belly pan, rear diffuser, and I’d like to find a place where I can do some wind tunnel testing on this brick of a car so I get as much downforce as I possibly can.”