Help car will not start

[grantf]

My 77 280z has run pretty good for a year now, ran great today till I decided it was time to do some maintenance. I parked the car at about 5:00 pm, popped the hood and inspected the distributor cap , has worn contacts, put it back on, looked at the ignition cable contacts and found bright blue residue on one, cleaned it and reinstalled, tried to start the car at 6:00 pm and it ran then died after 2 seconds, now it does not fire, I checked for spark, good, checked fuel pressure good, near around 40 psi, then a return line hose split and burst fuel, I will fix this in the morning, but I do not see why suddenly my car would not start, I cannot find anything that changed other than me looking at it. So got fuel, got spark, now what? oh and I listened for injectors firing with a screwdriver pressed to my ear and thought I heard a very quiet tic tic tic but I am uncertain if what I am hearing is the injector or something else. Help:disappoin

Edited May 28, 2011 by grantf

[FastWoman]

Well, if you've got spark, you probably don't have fuel. Quick test: Spray some starter fluid in the intake and give it a crank. If your ignition is good and your fuel is not, the engine should fire up for a second or so and then die.

To check whether your injectors have got power, go find a christmas light bulb -- one of the tiny ones maybe 3/16" in diameter. Pull one of your injector connectors, and plug the bulb into the connector. Then crank the engine. You should see the bulb flash as the engine turns.

You might also check around your thermostat housing to see if all the connectors are still good. Those connectors on the front of the engine get pretty crusty.

[grantf]

Silly me, I did not push the coil wire firmly into the distributor. :stupid: It runs now. On a side note, I replaced the dizzy cap today, it turns out I have a zx dizzy, is this common? Thanks for the quick reply fastwoman, I have got a ton of info from you're posts.

Edited May 28, 2011 by grantf

[SteveJ]

Yes, the ZX distributor swap has been done to many cars. My 260Z has it, and I'm going to do it to the 240Z.

[grantf]

is there any perticular reason or advantage?

[SteveJ]

Well, the ZX distributor's module is mounted on the distributor. I'm not sure if the 280Z had that. Don't they have a separate box? For the 240Z & 260Z, it does away with points. Also there were a lot of 79-81 ZXs made, so parts are plentiful.