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The most common problem that I've seen is dirty/corroded battery connections. Clean them up and try again before buying anything.

Hood/fenders and headlight covers looking like liquid gold. The rear bumper is finally done and was easily the 3rd most difficult part. It's intended to look like a shortened and shaved 87-89. But it's the 86 that has been sectioned into 7 pieces, shortened 2-3" and shaved. Everything is finally wrapping up now and all that is left for paint/body is to finish making the front carbon JDM front spoiler fit tighter and then paint the front/rear bumper, side skirts and rear mud guards safari gold. Then all of the trim in the OE satin platinum gunmetal. He will cut/polish the entire car and then will reinstall the trim, and door/ T top rubber before it comes home to have the engine fit, crossmember built for the transmission, all wiring done and then I will reassemble the rest and put the interior back in. Lastly, Freed engineering will take the car for exhaust and finally, tuning. I had used the black friday sale at Techno Toy Tuning to order their stellar adjustable control arms, torsion bars, tie rods and the Brembo BBK since it will fit the watanabe's so hopefully those items will finally ship by the time it leaves paint. They were backordered for 8-12 weeks.

Well my friend, my original system didn’t have the centre resonator - it was merely 2.5” pipe back from the MSA collector to a Magnaflow turbo box (and later the Z-Story classic muffler) at the back. Apparently this is the classic hot-rod setup that the PO had installed. I merely ceramic coated the lot. Sounded way louder and more aggressive with delicious popping sounds on the overrun. Sounded very race car like, but alas, the droning drilled into your brain when cruising in 4th/5th between 50-70mph and became unbearable for anything more than 5 mins. The popping sounds are still there but a lot less anti-social and more like someone remembered to put the lid on the sauce pan while making popcorn. On the old system and with the L26 she would even shoot out a two foot yellow flame when coming off the power at 6k RPM! Scared the b’jeezez out of me and impressed the driver of the TR6 following! ;) I know little about exhaust design but I would say that Sean’s centre resonator and it’s position along the system greatly eliminates the drone. I believe it has a lot to do with the length from the collector to the tip of the muffler and the frequency of the reflected waves along the length of the line. The expansion in the resonator takes the energy out of it and the position changes the standing wave frequency (or something like that). Also, the whole thing essentially being a wind instrument means that changing the primary diameter and lengths + change of metal type from mild to stainless steel is likely to change the frequency characteristics yet again. I imagine Sean has been experimenting with getting it all to work together as a system.

I would start with compressed air. Maybe some brake cleaner

Negative Effects of ZDDP Generally, high levels of ZDDP result in volatile phosphorus being transferred from the combustion chamber to the catalytic converter. Phosphorus can blind over the catalytic reaction sites in the converter, making it less efficient in turning carbon monoxide (CO) into carbon dioxide (CO2). Beware if you have a catalytic converter.

No one feels the pain we feel mbz "almost"

I was waiting for that ^^ I had to wait over 3 weeks just for the cat to arrive. Make sure when you order one it's carb approved. If you do it yourself. I'll have to read up on the ZDDP additives again. Don't recall what the hoopla is about. Memory isn't what it used to be I guess. My 77 has nearly 300k miles and I have owned it since 50k miles and have always used Castrol 10-40. The head looks really good, no abnormal wear of any type anyways.

Yeah, I kind of figure that since the Royal Purple that the PO has been using for years probably has already affected the Cat. That said, it costs less to replace the Cat than the engine, so I’m going to protect the engine. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know it all too well. Except I don't drive it anymore.

Unless your car can run clean enough without a functioning cat, for emissions testing, then you'll need a new one to pass emissions. That is if it was damaged by using ZDDP additives. I needed to replace mine and it was just under $300 IIRC. My Z needs it to pass. 0.5 percent CO is hard to get out of these cars without a fully functioning cat.

you west coast guys have the nicest places to drive. One of the reasons I want to leave florida is the exceptionally BORING drives. Still hoping for at least some action up in NW Ga as soon as it stops raining every other day.

BTW.... had a really nice drive in the Z through Decker Canyon this morning. Decker Canyon Road Anyone familiar with the area knows that drive, and if you haven't driven it, you can take the 23 South from the 101 all the way to PCH.... LOTS OF TIGHT WINDING ROADS AND HAIRPIN SWITCHBACKS.?

Exhaust drone, anyone can google it to know the cause but it IS sound freqencies not only from the exhaust but combining with tire noise vibrating up through the chassis too. This is why it's only heard/felt at highway speeds. The simple addition of a resonator eliminates this by allowing the gas to expand therefore altering the freqencies. But a resonator does much more. Not only does it curb the dBs leaving the rear (still plenty loud if wished !) but it encourages exhaust chamber scavenging (again, please Google it) to help release more torque and power. Alis' swap to my Race-Sport header obviously helped enormously combined with the 2x secondary pipes becomming 1x as far back as possible (the rear of the gearbox in fact) so as to prevent any suck-back of exhaust gases up the pipes again towards the head. Each cylinder sends gas pulses down the primary pipes and behind these pulses are vacuums that help suck out the next detonation point gases and so on and so on. These pulses are to be encouraged and therefore the exhaust gases to be stablised - whilst not losing any gas velocity.....so not too big a diameter pipe, not too small with room to expand just after the 6 become 2x3 which become 2 and finally join to 1x. What surprises me is that MSA and before them d*** Barbour (perhaps others) have been selling these straight-tru pipes for decades telling people that they're performacne exhausts when in fact they're just the cheapest mock-ups they can find to sell on ! The 6-1 header is particulary awful at producing exhaust drone and killing any power gains an attenttive owner might have invested in his engine......so long as it's noisy - the client will feel fast and be happy. Just like sticking on a cherry-bomb muffler to a 50cc m-bike and feeling like Evel Knievel.... hot damn - is that his Z ? https://www.banpei.net/2009/04/07/popular-bosozoku-cars-nissan-fairlady-s30

New batteries can and do fail. I would check the battery voltage first. You can find battery charge/voltage charts on the web. Low horn would/could be another indicator of a low battery . After running and shut down the battery would have been charged some and the engine is warm.

You should have mentioned this from the beginning. Side to side, the engine is fine. Front to back is your concern and, as grannyknot said, your driveline angle is important, although it's not the driveshaft angle that matters the most. It's the match between the rear diff pinion shaft and the engine's crankshaft, they need to be parallel. You can jack the ends of the car up to get the oil to drain, if that's a problem. There are how-to's all over the internet. Here's some examples from the past. jmortenen's link to the hybriz site has a bunch, in detail. https://forums.hybridz.org/topic/43993-differential-laser-alignment-tool/

Starter solenoid may be going bad. They can go bad even when they sit

This is what I used... Car ran great. But the tach was just bouncy when I got on it at all.

The "levelness" of the engine isn't anywhere near as important as the driveline angles for the driveshaft. As I understand it you are swapping in a different trans and have to make up a new or modified trans mount so just concentrate on the driveline angles, you want to make sure that you are not altering the angle on one end of the driveshaft without compensating on the other. Unequal angles can get you some terrible vibrations at certain rpms as well as wear out the ujoints prematurely, if a few ounces of used oil remain in the pan after an oil change that is not going to hurt anything.

Yeah, I’m about 30 mins south of you, so we have the same draconian California overlords telling us how to live our lives. [emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know how difficult it is to pass smog (Ventura County) so I don't chance it. Your emissions testing is the same as mine, PITA.

I don't use it for the reason above. Hopefully someone will chime in if they have some info contradicting it.

I have been using it 4 yrs now and love it, bit expensive but I get distributor pricing, I use it in Datsun and BMW engines and down in LA you would have no problem with the viscosity, it's also available in 10w40.

That's interesting, opening up the system decreased the drone. I have been fighting drone for yrs now and all my efforts seem to do is move it up or down the rpm range.

Frenchie, I hope you don’t mind me commenting here - happy to delete if you object. Before buying Sean’s full Race / Sport system, I ran the MSA header with 2.5” back to a turbo muffler on both my L26 and it’s replacement hot L28. Due to a shotgun sounding misfire I managed to utterly blow the baffles and Sean very kindly and speedily (at his cost!!) sent me his Classic muffler to help me out of a hole and able to get to an event I really wanted to go to. The classic is a straight through (spot the Z I worked hard to get into the pic!! [emoji12]) I was absolutely jaws on the floor at how much power had previously been left on the table. She now rushed to 6.7k RPMs rather than topping out at 5.6k ish. I like the classic raspy sound of the turbo muffler however this one is deeper and more TVR / V8 burbley. But the system as it was still droned like hell between 2.2-3krpm and was exhausting on the motorway. I then bought Sean’s full race / sport on the same engine and set up. The quality is great. Here’s the headers side-by-side for comparison - a very sexy beast!!! The fit under the car is tight but a near tailored fit. Don’t have a decent photo to show except the one below. At first I was worried about how close to the gearbox it was but NEVER has there been a single clonk even with some serious thrashing on bumpy fast country roads. The power at the top end just opened up to another level - I’ve had to add a limit on my 123 ignition at 6.8k rpm as the engine now sprints into the mid to high 7k region and I don’t want to bust something as I’m not running forged pistons and rods. I rarely need to cross 6k - unless I want to really upset an N/A 911 or Impreza STi! ;) The sound is very nicely muted below 3.5ish maybe 3.8k rpm but anything over that is totally grin inducingly vocal! With the windows down and over 6krpm with a barrier or wall on the driver’s side, I dare say it’s a bit of a nascar howl! Absolutely ZERO resonance or drone on the motorway now or where it existed on the old system. Here’s my first drive after fitting (headphones on, sound up) ... Here’s a much longer one with some thrashing and some cruising while I was tuning carbs (yes that AFR was all over the place with the wrong needles). The window was slightly open so the iPhone microphone struggled a bit to capture the fullness of the bass in the sound track ... My buddy (same orange car as Sean’s pics) with an L26 has the exact same package but with a JDM muffler. Driving our cars back to back was a hoot and showed that on the smaller engine the JDM was louder at the top end than the classic muffler on mine with the bigger engine (he’s running a 275 degree cam I think versus my 270) - a bit raspier on his and bassier on mine. He has a beautifully progressive power band with this set up. I did, for personal reasons, want to see if I could make her a little quieter and Sean being a beautiful gentleman (no matter what they say [emoji12]) has kindly sent over the track muffler to test. Sadly I’ve been utterly buried for the last few months and not had a moment to do anything but store it or even to be able to see my car! It’s a straight through but with a much bigger box than the classic so it should be quieter but flow the same. Will report back once I get her on.

For #1 ... the driveshaft length with yours should be fine. For #2 ... in the spirit of "light restoration" examine the u joints for play carefully, replace if any is detected, not costly and easy to do yourself. If you put in greaseable joints, be sure to orient the joint so that when the half shaft rotates to give you access the the zerk fitting, it is accessible.

Get a new tail shaft seal I thinks it's called. I used one of those rubber end caps, 2" I think" on my trans end to keep it from spilling out. That stuff is nassstayyyy!

https://www.healthline.com/health/erectile-dysfunction/zinc#zinc-deficiency

Okay, I am back! And it has been a productive last couple of days. Propane torch and the jack worked great to break it loose and I was able to drain the differential of oil. I have now dropped the differential, mustache bar, cross members, drive shafts and a few other miscellaneous parts and pieces for clean up and powder coat prep. Few questions: 1. Is the propeller shaft different from the 4 speed to the 5 speed on the 77/78 280z? Saw a note of this on the Haynes manual related to 240z and 260z, but wanted to verify it was the same for 280zs as I was under the impression that the 5 speed was only an over drive gear. 2. I am new to restoration, is there anything I should be looking for or reconditioning on these drive shafts while they are out? (rubber, seals, grease points) and is there anything I should be wary of damaging when cleaning them up? 3. Is there a way to cap steel brake lines at the hub? Want to refinish the hubs, but trying to minimize how much brake fluid I waste as I just replaced it a few months ago. 4. How much play is considered acceptable for the input shaft from the transmission from the engine? See video below. It looks like there is roughly 1-2 mils if movement. IMG_2258.MOV

I would unhook the lines from the rail and try to blow compressed air into the rail from the return line end. See if it's debris stopping up the end of the rail. The rail may be fuel of garbage or rust even

No, it should be open. That being closed off will raise the effective pressure on the float valves

Some more work on the nacelles today. After I got them coated with truck bed liner on the inside, I prepped them for paint. The last picture shows the high gloss clear coat and you can even see the ceiling filter and burnt out fluorescent bar! Very happy.

I have a later copy that lists more 280Z stuff. Haynes is usually one of the better non-OEM books. But on important specs, I always check against the FSM.

Just checked my book shelf and I found that I still have a Haynes manual but it's older than yours, has only 240Z and 260Z content, no 280Z at all. However I found this on the Haynes website, it now lists the 280Z on the front cover. I wonder if they added more content. https://haynes.com/en-us/nissan/280z/1975-1978 This one has 256 pages, my old one has 229 pages. How many pages in yours? Cheers and Happy New Year Mike

In 2020 I will have been producing performance exhausts for 10 years ! Firstly, I would like to thank all my loyal customers over the years to make this happen and I’ve been rewarded in return by having many of you as friends. I’d also like to thank all those Z-professionals and track, rally and hill-climb competitors who continue, respectively, to sell and exploit my parts ! To celebrate this I’ve produced some exclusive super-goodies which I’m including as gifts* with each 2020 order and so as to be clear : Silencer, muffler order = free keyring (your choice) Manifold/header order = free T-shirt (quote size ‘L’ or ‘XL’) Complete kit = free 10yrs keyring and T-shirt (quote size ‘L’ or ‘XL’) These items may also be bought seperately with worldwide shipping** included in the prices below : Keyring 10 yrs : us$11 Keyring Z profile 50yrs : us$15 T-shirt 50yrs : us$23 (two sizes only ‘L’ and ‘XL’) *so long as stocks lasts ! **I will group ship so as to reduce the overall shipping cost. Obviously if bought as an extra and included in an exhaust order, there will be no shipping cost ; so less expensive ! Please contact me via mail (or PM) for any enquiries : seanz@wanadoo.fr So, Merry Christmas and I wish you all a happy and above all healthy New Year with new Z (and ZX) adventures !