My '83 280ZX has begun acting very strangely. On start-up (cold) it runs normally, but as it warms up it starts to bog if you accelerate past 3,000 rpm. The hotter it gets, the worse the bog. Through trial and error I have found that if you turn off the key while driving, and turn it right back on again, the problem dissappears......til the next time, which could be 5 seconds later, or 15 minutes later.

I think I've narrowed the problem down to either gas or electric (). Seriously, I was leaning towards a bad coil as the existing coil gets rather hot to the touch when the engine is warm. However, on installing a brand new coil the problem only got worse. The new coil got so hot it started to melt the insulation on the a/c lines. Now, it is possible that the replacement coil is not the proper replacement or is defective as well (they don't call the store crappy tire for nothing ), but that's a bit of a long shot. Funny thing is, as hot as the coil itself gets, the pos/neg leads going to the coil remain dead cold and show no signs of insulation damage from melting.

Could it be a bad ground between the coil casing and the fender wall (are they even supposed to be grounded) or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?

As always, any and all suggestions gratefully accepted.

p

My guess is excess resistance due to bad plug wires, excess corrosion of the primary or secondary terminals on the dizzy cap or the rotor, but it's just a guess. I had a similar problem on my 73' and it was the wires.

I would say start the car in the dark, pop the hood and watch for sparks!

Will

Thanks for the input. But now I'm thinking along different lines. The "bog" has been getting progressively worse to the point that last night it became undrivable. Car starts and idles fine, but won't accelerate without bogging, even in neutral, and even when cold.

Checked for "fireworks" last night but didn't see any signs of wires shorting out at the coil, distributor or plugs. Distrubutor and rotor look fine, and judging from my internal volt-meter (I pulled off a plug wire while my other hand was on the cam cover ) I'd say we're getting a full 50,000 volts to the plugs.

So if we (temporarily at least) eliminate gas and electric as possible issues, that only leaves air. I'm now wondering if the problem is with the air-flow meter. I'm going to check for corroded connectors etc this morning, but if anyone has had issues with their air-flow meters before I'd sure like to hear from them. Do you experience a gradual deterioration of performance as I did, or do they just fail?