Comments on: SEMA 2009: OS Giken TC24-B1 Twin-Cam L-Series Head

By: Kevin Truong

Kevin Truong — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:15:49 +0000

That’s one awesome motor!

By: OS Giken

OS Giken — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:03:18 +0000

Thanks for the superb article. We were very fortunate to be able to display such a wonderful piece of Datsun history at our booth; to our knowledge it was the first time a TC-24 head was displayed outside of Japan. If anyone is serious about acquiring one of the proposed new units, OS Japan is willing to manufacture them if enough people are ready to put down a deposit. The manufacturing chief mentioned that they need about 25 people lined up to get the ball rolling, and there are already several people ready to pull the trigger on it! At approximately $30-35K it’s definitely not for the meek.

Regarding the original production numbers, only 9 of the TC-24’s were produced, including the one displayed at SEMA. There were over 20 of the TC-16 heads made, though.

By: Tomitaku

Tomitaku — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:37:22 +0000

Konnichiwa from Japan, Robakun. Hello, guys. It might be interesting for you to check out my website (www.tomitaku.com). Cheers.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:28:19 +0000

hmm..well said. i love this site; learning at work!

By: HaloZ

HaloZ — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:19 +0000

When I was walking the floor at Sema I spoted it and i nearly crapped my pants! I got a few pics of it too, but under the plexi. They where very busy when I was at the booth so i didn’t bother them.

I also spotted the JNC team walking the Honda display on Tuesday.

By: Kev

Kev — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:07:37 +0000

AFAIK back in the early 80s that OS Giken head was veeeeery expensive. Something like Y1.2mil, which pretty much equates to $30k in 2009 dollars I’d wager. For years, L-series fans pestered OS Giken to re-issue the heads, but OSG would point to the original wooden casting moulds being all busted and aged (with big cracks etc) so reissuing the heads would be more or less starting from scratch, and hey…someone’s gotta pay for all that R&D.

But to be honest it’s a little bit of bling. The standard L-series head is capable of being worked to flow just as much, if not more than a TC24, so the opportunity cost of a TC24 would always have to be benchmarked against a custom-ported head from a good race shop. OSG can’t compete with that, so they might as well charge a premium to cover their R&D.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:26:19 +0000

yeah i got carried away with the reverse engineering, stealing a product and its R&D would do nothing toa dvance nostalgics.. but still, everyone else’s cars have choices why do the japanese aftermarket manufacturers ignore the possiblities of new heads for our cars? even honda B-series motors don’t have that many new head choices and those still go for a LOT of money. i guess our sport still has room for growth and that means new possibilities for everyone.