79 280zx misfire

[rollingwrenches]

Please help. My girlfriend's mom's car has been sitting for 2years. Bad fuel pump/replaced. Car runs great at idle. But misses terribly with any throttle. While checking relays, reached under the dash (pass, side) got a very nice shock! (no, seriously. Electrical Shock from FI Relay!) replaced with no change in performance, but no more shock. All cyl. firing at idle.Checked firing order/good, pulled Distributor cap and found the three little vac. plate bearings, lifted electric ign pickup and the magnet? underneath was cracked in several places. I know this needs to be fixed, but is it causing my problem?

[sblake01]

I'd start by checking the fuel pressure.

[zbane]

Stephen's suggestion is a great place to start. The car has had varnish sitting in it for a couple years, and has most likely gunked up the entire system in some way or another. Have you checked what the interior of the tank is? How are all the rubber fuel lines (new or old and nasty?), fuel filter (in engine compartment), fuel strainer (in tank, on sending unit), fuel pressure regulator (on fuel rail)...

Also, what is the condition of the rubber boot that goes to the throttle body? If it is cracked, it'll allow unmetered air into the system, throwing everything off.

Check all these things out, let us know.

Also, you might like to run a search for "Seafoam" and it's many applications. It'll help clean out some of the accumulated carbon and old oil from the head, thus smoothing out some of the rough idle problems (but not all).

...And yes, you need to get the dizzy fixed.

btw- welcome to the club!

[Six_Shooter]

Yep a broken dizzy will not allow the timing to change with RPM.

Personal experiance on a Z car:

I have a 1974 240Z, with an L28 that was installed before I bought the car.

I also bought an electronic dizzy with it, but it turned out that the vacuum pot was broken, so I thought I would try and run it anyway, I know of a few friends cars that run "locked out timing", so I thought it might work.

It didn't I could either get it to idle fine, but not drive without bucking, or to drive ok, but not idle well.

Also the AFM to TB boot as suggested are a known problem on these cars, well it would be on any 29 year old car.

Fresh fuel in the tank?