83 280ZX won't start, won't fire. Just turns over.

[jmw_man]

Vacuum advance plugged, engine warm, sitting at 8 degrees with RPM at 670. Didn't have to change a thing. Now I just have to see if my problem is still/back to intermittent.

[jmw_man]

Okay, I can't quite close this topic yet as I need to drive the car a little more and need to see if it ever fails to start... BUT, I ran into another issue; acceleration is slow from 0 - approximately 2000-2200 RPM and acceleration is insanely high from 2200 RPM and up. For whatever reason it has trouble getting over that around the 2200 hump but once it's over it shoots up to 4k so fast that I have to immediately shift gears. Not sure if this warrants a new topic or not. It's funny though, I drove it around the block about 5 or 6 times and the first couple times I was thinking "wow, the car is accelerating better than it ever has while the car's been in my possession because the car has ALWAYS had someone slow/sluggish acceleration and I figured it to be the small engine, lol", during the last few laps around the block I started to think "this isn't right at all". During the final lap it felt like the car did not want to go over 2200 RPM AT ALL. I don't know, maybe I pushed it a little hard...

[jmw_man]

Still starting.

 

As for the weird experience yesterday... it went over 2000 RPM but acceleration really skyrocketed when I got over 2000 RPM but before that it struggled to get over that hump. I don't know, maybe it's normal. To be perfectly honest, I've always felt like this Z car has slow low rpm acceleration and fast high rpm acceleration. I've especially noticed this when driving from El Paso to Dallas on I-20 while the speed limit is 85 MPH. Accelerating from 70-85 takes nothing it seems like.

[jmw_man]

Yea, okay, definitely NOT normal. I'm starting a new thread for the new topic.

[jmw_man]

Well, I did make some discoveries while inspecting the old distributor. 

One of the stator pieces is broken.

Some of the bottoms of the reluctor teeth are a little bent from where someone was prying to get it off most likely.

The vacuum advance diaphram is broken because the vacuum advance won't engage with a vacuum applied.

 

That's just so far.

[jmw_man]

Also, there is not CAS inside the distributor. The only "electronic type" devices inside the distributor is just the pickup coil. Was there supposed to be a Crank Angle Sensor in the non-turbo 280ZX?

[Zed Head]

Also, there is not CAS inside the distributor. The only "electronic type" devices inside the distributor is just the pickup coil. Was there supposed to be a Crank Angle Sensor in the non-turbo 280ZX?

No, it looks like you have the right distributor for the engine management system.  No CAS for NA.  And the problems you described are all common to old distributors.