ZX ignition/Stock Coil - Ballast = Dead Coil?

[sideshowbob]

Ok, the background:

1977 280Z with some odd year of ZX dist. (probably an e12-92 with no markings) and a stock ignition coil.

When wired through the resistor, the tach appeared to work fine. I removed the resistor (per Zgarage instructions) and gained greater spark but the tach read nothing! Added 10k Resistor and the tach works but bounces oddly and sometime during this process the engine developed something of a miss (it's bouncing too!). I don't think replacing the ballast resistor did much good, but I'll try it again. Perhaps I should invest in a new coil? :stupid:

[Gav240z]

Interesting problem but I'm also interested in the distributor you say you have. If you could provide pictures of it that would be really good but with regard to your problem.

When the tacho bounces does the engine also miss? Also the ballast resistor can be run with the distributor and you can just bridge the resistor see if that helps. That's how my Z is wired up.

Not sure about the coil being the problem but it's worth a shot i guess. What's the condition of the rotor button and distributor cap?

My tach started to bounce and the car had a slight miss due to the distributor itself. If you look inside the distributor you should see an inner ring just below the rotor button and an outer ring also. These rings have points on them that pass by each other as the distributor spins. If these points at all touch they cause the distributor to arch out and result in a miss. Hard to explain pictures would help.

[sideshowbob]

You're talking about the air gap between the reluctor and the pick up, yes? Haven't checked yet, but a good idea and I'd been planning to due the diagnostics this weekend but the wife wanted her headliner replaced (didn't come out too badly, but could be better. we used vinyl on a formed fiberglass headboard ). I'll see if I can get a pic later this week when we get a cam for my son's birthday, but I'm fairly certain it's the dizzy that came with the f57 block currently in the car (81 maxima, I believe). Oh, and it came with headers and new tires/exhaust for all of $700. The body, unfortunately, has seen better days. My dist cap and rotor...weeeeel the button looks good, there's gray scratches in the cap (my scraping it against the rotor during familiarization? or carbon tracks?) but oddly enough the 280z and the 280zx cap's are too small to fit my little mystery car. Not to mention the mystery cam (other post). Hell, scooby and the gang will be showing up to paint the thing with flowers in their @>!*&^ mystery #%$# van! hehe, it's 3 am.

[Victor Laury]

It should work properly with the resistor removed and the leads joined. I can't imagine what's up. Although a local fellow came over last week with the same situation. He, Also just installed the ZX dizzy. In his case the tacho was rewired in the past for some circa 1970's ish capacitence discharge unit. We still havn'e sorted that mess out.

Change the coil too! the stock coil is not ment to run the full 12volts. It will have a melt-down in short order.

[sideshowbob]

A blaster-2 would work well in this situation? Are there differing ohm varieties of this coil, or is the blaster-2 a single type?

[Victor Laury]

I think the blaster II is ok, that is, I've read others using it without the resistor. I beleive you want the Low Ohm (0.6 ?). The safest is to go back to the wrekers and get the ZX coil and bracket (it's fatter than the stocker). I have the ZX coil on my car and a Mallory on the roadster (also Nissan EI equipped).

The EI dizzy and the 12 volt coil really heats up that spark! You can run a larger plug gap, but only if your cap, rotor and leads are in great shape

[sideshowbob]

Ok, Thanks. I'll be getting one shortly (the Blaster and stock are about the same price, I think I'll try the blaster first

[sideshowbob]

Ok. Today I purchased an Accell super Stock coil and installed it in my car. Instant rev problems at anything above idle, the car stumbled and spat in an irritating way. I replaced the Accel (nice chrome BTW) with the stock coil and it was back to it's lumpy unstable idle but I could rev quite smoothly again. Back to the parts store it went (supposedly, electrical parts can't be returned once installed but the guy took it back for a MSD coil anyway). I have yet to install the blaster-2 but I have already noticed an important difference here. Perhaps I had the internal resistor type from accel (it did say FULL 12VOLTS on the box, however). The Accell coil's resistance reads at ~2.5 ohms on the primary!!!! A far cry from the .7 the blaster-2, I now hold in my hand, is reading (#8202). Regardless of the source of this problem, I'm fairly irate. What would happen had the counter rep not agreed to exchange it? I would be stuck with a worse-than-useless chunk of chrome. I do hope the MSD doesn't perform as miserably. This Z has enough problems.

[sideshowbob]

Ok, a bit late, but I have pics of this thing. Not that it looks much different from any of the other intergrated IC distributors . Oh, and it has the two extra lower prongs (can't seem them here) that I've seen on the e12-92 IC unit.

[Gav240z]

Thanks sideshowbob.

It's hard to tell from the pics if it is the distributor I'm trying to identify.

What will probably be best if If I take a picture of my distributor upclose and personal and get others to comment.

I do know this the distributor I have and am trying to find similar ones of contain mitsubishi parts in them and are marked on the module and rotor button.

I know because I thought it was strange at first but I'm trying to locate these as I feel they are quite well built over the E12 ones. :eek:

[sideshowbob]

I think this one has the 'mitsi' stamp on the body somewhere, if memory serves. The rotor definitely does, right on top. I do have misgivings about the IC unit, however. They stem from comments on Zgarage regarding the performance of the e12-92's, which are meant for EFI control (the extra prongs). If there's a particular marking you're looking for I can check tomorrow.

EDIT: Didn't mitsubishi make just about every electronic dist. for nissan?

[Gav240z]

I'm not exactly sure what mitsubishi did for nissan.

In terms of Zgarage it's one man's opinion and experience the site is an excellent reference but not the be all and end all of Z car knowledge some may think it is.

If you could provide a picture of the module on the distributor that would help it seems like it's the same size as the E12 module which would indicate it's not the correct one I'm looking for.

I really should provide a picture of mine and compare it with the E12 style distributor so people can see the difference. I'll make sure I do as soon as possible.

Cheers

Gavin.