Modifying cars can be polarising - there are those who think modding is a sin (ruins the originality) and those who mod their car as soon as it rolls in the driveway, and everything in between.

I don’t really have a strong opinion other that you should do whatever you want with your own car, it’s your car. For my part my daily driver is stock down to the floormats, my weekend classic has sympathetic mods like brakes and wheels while our rally car has taken significant advantage of the rulebook where allowed.

As an enthusiast I appreciate all that the car scene has to offer and respect the workmanship even if the style isn’t my taste. I’ll never own a show queen or a ¼ mile drag car but I still enjoy the engineering and attention to detail.

Changes in technology and widespread availability of parts has allowed the modified car scene to change significantly over the years. Early Hot Rodders used cheap old cars, stripped down and powered up to create the iconic Hot Rod look we now know while 90’s style was tilted more towards big sound systems and over the top interior fit-outs while often leaving the drivetrain untouched.

Technology changes have had a big impact too with the prevalence of high power turbo cars from Japan in the 1990’s opening up a wealth of engine swap options resulting in high powered motors being stuffed into hatchbacks and family cars. If you could stick a turbo SR20 in your Datsun 1600 why would you ever want a carburettor?

In some respects the racing world is divided by technology and tradition so while in some areas the latest tech and driver aids are making race cars faster and more reliable, the rule book is keeping out the gizmos in favour of the history and tradition of the “period correct” componentry on classic and historic cars in some classes.

For us in the rally world this has meant a clear divide between the Modern and Classic categories with a demarcation line set at 1986 (or now 1989). The date here is significant as the late 80’s is when the real technology changes kicked in (think Nissan R32 GTR) so it seems a reasonable line in the sand.

In our case with the 1972 Datsun 240z this meant running the car on carburettors and doing away with programmable ignition to meet category rules and for years this has been the way we ran the car and it made it even sweeter when we could be competitive against the modern cars on occasion with our dinosaur.

But recent changes to the Targa Classic GT rules made us rethink the approach, new freedoms around engine swaps and transmissions significantly moved the goalposts and meant those with deep pockets could really go to town (think A9X Torana with a 6.2 LS chevy and a 6 speed sequential gearbox). While a bit rich for our blood the new rules also meant that suddenly Electronic Fuel Injection or EFI was a viable option for our classic racer.

On its own EFI isn’t going to suddenly give us another 50 horsepower but the real attraction is the inherent reliability and tunablilty that a decent aftermarket ECU can offer. For years we have put up with some carby specific issues that we couldn’t tune away such as fuel vaporisation inducing stumbles and misfires not to mention an overly conservative fuel strategy leaving some unwanted rich spots in the curve.

So we started giving some serious thought as to what an EFI conversion might look like and how we could best take advantage of the new rules within our budget.

The new rules actually allowed a complete engine swap, but for our situation (required to be another normally aspirated inline 6 cylinder Nissan motor) this essentially meant swapping to an RB30 from an old Commodore and converting to twin cam head. Sure this would open up a lot more power but the cost of doing so was going to be prohibitive.

So we settled on completing an EFI conversion on the old L28. Nissan actually did this in the 1978 onward 280ZX so it would be a simple job of sticking all the ZX parts onto our engine. But then that would probably be a backward step – the 280ZX was heavily emissions restricted and the EFI is already 30 plus years old.

So what about the cheap options? Megasquirt and more recently Speeduino have brought the world of open source and the hobbyist together with some really impressive technology at very affordable prices. A quick Google or scan of YouTube reveals many people doing exactly this on a range of classics with some amazing results. But I really want something a bit more race hardened and feature rich.

MoTec? I’m a huge fan but the price reflects the market and this stuff is expensive.

Haltech? Another Australian company that I see a lot of but really haven’t had much experience with but the more I see the more this looks the best option for us. Haltech have a range of ECU’s starting with basic units for small engines with limited features right up to motorsport grade hardware with more options than a BMW catalogue.

And then the Haltech Nexus R5 dropped and this was really the catalyst that made us finally take the plunge.

The Nexus R5 is the newest ECU (or VCU) from Haltech and it’s the biggest and newest toy in their line-up – complete overkill for our old L28 but the feature list ticked all the boxes for me and offered a fair degree of future proofing any down the line mods or changes we might think of.

For me that meant the ability to run sequentially fired injection and direct fire ignition, Drive By Wire e-throttle, race features like Launch and Traction Control or Flat Shift with throttle blip alongside the opportunity to re-wire the entire car and use the PDM to control everything – no more fuses and relays.

So it’s on. Orders are placed, parts are arriving and the conversion is under way.

The future is coming, stay tuned (see what I did there?)

The Electrons are coming.