TURBO OR TERRORS!
THE ALL-JAPANESE NISSAN EXA TURBO WAS SWIFT, BUT THE AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERED PULSAR ET WAS THE COMPLETE PACKAGE
Anyone looking back on the era when Austra lia had a car manufacturing industr y might do well to study the Nissan Pulsar ET of 1984-87. Masterminded by Nissan Austra lia’s product planning manager, the late Howard Marsden, this car took an essentia lly Japanese formula and improved it dramatica lly.
The process t hat culminated in t he f ive-door hatchback Pulsar ET was exactly what has made the Austra lian automotive industr y unique in t he world. Marsden essentia lly re-imagined a Japanese four-cylinder turbo terror to optimise it for Austra lia n conditions. (In a dif ferent way, Mitsubishi Motors Austra lia Limited was a lready working on the invention of the Magna, based on but ver y dif ferent from t he Japanese Galant.)
The Pulsar ET was any thing but a car developed by a cumbersome committee. It was bespoke. In 1984 it was certainly t he best small performance car available in its price class.
The Nissan EX A, fully imported from Japan, had gone on sa le in 1983. This was a somewhat spunk y looking two-door coupe based on the Pulsar but equipped with a turbocharged 1.5-litre (E15ET) engine. It was amazingly quick for this era when the Austra lian market was just recovering from t he sad days since t he introduction of t he ADR27A anti-emissions legislation which came into ef fect on 1 July 1976. At t he end of t he 1970s, any car t hat could cut t he standing 400 metres in less than 18 seconds was fast indeed!
Certainly, the EX A constituted a turbocharged cat in among t he prett y chickens. Turbos were not unknown here in 1983 because we’d had Saabs since t he late 1970s and t he 1982 Mitsubishi Starion had raised t he performance bar for sports coupes in the $25K range. But the EX A cost just $11,950, $1200 more t han t he (non-turbo) Cordia (t he Turbo variant being some months from launch). Mind you, for t hat price you got plastic wheelcaps, not a lloy wheels.
It was fast, managing 10-f lat for t he zero to 100k m/h sprint. But its manual steering lacked feel and lif t-of f oversteer was a ll too readily on of fer at higher cornering speeds. The EX A was f lawed in its basic engineering. The suspension was underdone. The bra kes were marginal for the high performance.
Enter Howard Marsden, whose idea was to use the EX A’s mechanicals in an Austra lianmanufactured Pulsar hatchback but wit h signif icant upgrades. His Pulsar ET hit that market around Easter 1984 at $12,500 and was enormously superior to the EX A.
The EX A’s 1487cc engine was fine, making 77kW at 5600rpm. In fact t his was t he same basic unit that powered common or garden Pulsars but with tougher connecting rods, which were a lso t hree millimetres shorter to reduce the compression ratio from 9.0 :1 to 7.4, much more suitable for a turbocharged application. There were heav ier-dut y big-end bearings and tougher new pistons wit h chrome top rings. An oil cooler and additiona l cooling fa n were f itted. Rev ised va lve seats and other minor changes completed the transformation.
Marsden thought that a high performance car like the one he planned a lso needed disc bra kes on t he rear as well as t he front. Repco-PBR developed a new bra k ing system specif ica lly for t he Pulsar ET. It’s important to remember that small cars with four-wheel discs were a rare breed in 1984.
The st ylish new a lloy wheels were no heav ier t han t he lesser Pulsars’ steel items. They were shod with a new t y pe of Bridgestone 175/65 HR14 t y re. As for the suspension, Marsden had insisted on major rev isions. The front coils were changed from progressive rate to linear, principa lly to reduce understeer. A t hinner anti-roll bar was chosen. Spring and damper rates were modified to reduce lif t-of f oversteer. Twin-tube gas dampers were f itted at t he rear.
An under-nose air dam and rear spoiler were a lso added. Through fast corners and at high cruising speeds, the ET was much more stable, a lt hough you still had to be caref ul (see sidebar).
Even t he interior came in for major rev iew. Nissan Austra lia had a great reputation for its seats and t he ET followed t he tradition. They were the same ones as fitted to t he Bluebird TR X. The clot h was a wool blend from a supplier used by men’s outf itter Fletcher Jones.
A computer slipped beneath t he front passenger seat limited top speed to 182k m/h, whether at 5500rpm in fourt h or 4500 in f if t h. Apart from the law, about the only thing that would stop you cruising a ll day at 160 was wind noise, mainly from the front doors.
The switch to unleaded fuel for 1986 meant some loss of performance and the standing 400m time went from 16.7 to 17 seconds f lat. The loss would have been greater had it not been for a reduction in gearing.
In the 1984-87 time frame, the Pulsar ET was an exceptiona l car. It was somewhat overshadowed by the Cordia Turbo launched a few months later. But it was rea lly cars like t he Peugeot 205 GTI of 1989 and the Corolla SX of 1990 t hat dated it. Full credit to t he fa r-sighted Howard Marsden for his ingenuit y in producing a unique to Austra lia hot hatch t hat was superior to any thing Nissan was doing in Japan.