Mpower280z

Its not that the pedal is soft, there is plenty of pressure. There just seems to be a lack of friction between the rotor and the pad. I know for sure the calipers are installed correctly (Bleeder screw on top). My stock calipers did the same thing so Im starting to wonder if I should buy another set of Brembo rotors or have them turned. I dont see how that can help, there is no heat marks or imperfections on the surface of contact. Just for shits and grins, Monday I'll go have the rotors turned and see if that helps. Might as well, couldnt hurt.

Just finishing up the final touches on the 78 when I ran into a problem installing the Toyota brakes. I had them plated and rebuilt. I always use DOT 4 brake fluids and assembled the brakes correctly. After installation, Bleeding went very easy, the pedal became stiff only when the car was off. When the vaccum assist came on with the engine, the pressure went to zero and pedal to the floor. At this point I realized it might be better to go with a slightly larger master cylinder. I then purchased a master cylinder made for a 1981 280zx. I installed the master cylinder and made progress. The pressure remained the same even with the vaccum assist on. But now the brakes feel as though you really need to give it your all to stop the car. Its as though there is grease or WD40 between the rotor and pad. Feels as though there is no friction. Any ideas?

Coolant Temp Switch. Unplug your coolant temp wires and see what happenes. If that doesnt wok, pull the plugs for inspecion.

Ok, there were a number of things wrong with the car. After finally correcting a few wire misplacments, The engine fired right back up, but still showed evidence of the same problems of hesitation and that timing feeling. After establishing a way to get more fuel to the engine (tricking AFM) and timing the ignition with precision, the engine began to fuction more along the lines as its supposed to. There was still a problem. He later found that the gasket between the throttle body and the intake manifold was the wrong gasket. To a person who is not experienced enough, the gasket could easily be mistaken for the correct one being that there similarities are strikingly alike. So after that, she fired right up and drove well. Now that I was actually able to put a good load on the engine, I found that the clutch slips at mid to high rpms. That was a new clutch! Now the transmission needs to come back out. Its ok though, I am much happier that its finally running the way its supposed to. I want to thank all of you for your advise and support through this. You have been very helpful and Im sure your kindness will not go overlooked. I will be sure to post some pictures of the progress made so far.

I welded 16 gauge steel into my floors, covered them in fiberglass, applied asphalt undercoating. I then laid down the material from motorsport (sound & Heat protection) and used an adhesive to stick it to the floor. Used with the foil side down, it will eliminate much of the heat from the exhaust/engine, and also reduce most noises you dont want to hear. As my other post about my fresh engine says, I have driven the car only once and the roads were wet. I couldnt even hear the rain water splash the wheel houses on all four corners. All I heard was the faint sound of the DTM Muffler. I couldnt believe the results of the floors. It makes the car seem more tight, well built and coming from someone who hates rattles, I must say that this combonation solved a lot of issues that I am picky about. I also have a 2002 BMW 330 coupe with 30k miles and believe it or not, the Z is quieter inside than the BMW. I think that between the fiberglass and the product from Motorsport, you should have one quiet ride.

There is a piece of weather strip on the passenger and driver side doors. Starting from the top window frame of the structure, follow it down toward the front of the car. You will find it near the area where the INNER door meets the INNER fender on the upper section. I think that the window frame is mounted there, its held in that location by two screws. It is a peice about about five to eight inches long and is held to the door by three rubber rivets. Thats usually the case with water leakage into the floor of thses cars.

I dropped it off at the garage last night. Today, we figured out that the coolant temp. switch was bad so it was replaced. It fired right up and held a smoothe idle, but as soon as I drove it down the road it began to buck and hesitate. It would not smooth out even in higher rpms. Finally, I pulled over to check the timing and while adjusting it the car simply shut off and wouldnt start again. I swear, this thing has a mind of its own. It will run for a bit then shut off just as quick as it started and say "I dont wanna!" haha. I even think I heard the car laughing at me while trying to diagnose the problem(s) myself! haha. The guys I dropped it off with are considered the number 2 shop in the Chicago land area so they should be able to figure it out. I took them about three minuts to find an error in the temp switch... Sad to say that was a problem I spent three days trying to find! Ill be meeting up with one of the guys from there tomorrow to further our attempts at getting her going so Ill be sure to post an update tomorrow night. Thanks!

Wow, I just wrote a five paragraph essay! Sorry, you can skip to the conclusion! haha.

76Datsun280z, Its funny you mention your number 5 injector not firing. I had just discovered that my number 5 wasnt firing as well! Funny how things work with these cars. Anyway, I fixed the wiring error and still have the same problem. I even put a noid light on all 6 injector wires and got a little light to shine. Do you know how bright the noid light is supposed to be? I only watched a dim light blink for the pulse. At least there is a pulse! DatsunZsRule, The car has quite a number of modifications and upgrades to the excisting structure. I planned on installing a 500+hp 383 Stroker V8 into the car, but that plan was scrapped when I couldnt find the time to weld in the roll bars and improve the unibody's structure to the extent a motor like that requires. However, I did do some other things to stiffen the structure. Being that the floor of these cars acts as a foundation, I installed custom floors with 16 gauge steel and modified them not only for more strength, but to better fit the more modern sport seats in. (that is a recent modification that has not yet been photographed). I also welded in the frame rails under the cockpit using 16 gauge steel and coated the underbody in fiberglass to help seal out moisture and salt... if I were to drive in the winter. A layer of asphalt undercoating was applied because it covers the ugly look of fiberglass and is a lot tougher that your typical undercoating found at the near by Autozone or Napa. The rest of the structer is in very good shape and required no modification or repairs. As you might notice in the picture I have posted viewing the front brakes and suspension, I have taken all the suspension pieces and beed blasted the corrosion off. I have a guy in Kenosha, Wi who works at a plating company so I just drop off a box full of parts and pay him under the table to run it through the process. After plating I then decide what part I want painted and what parts to leave gold or silver. The plating is a good idea because with or without paint, it will never rust... for another thirty years at least. Other than that, I added a set of MSA's Sway bars (strongly advised for safety. stock, these cars have way too much body roll) that measure one inch in the front and 7/8's in the rear. All bushings are polyurethane and or new. I installed a set of KYB performance struts that offer next to zero body roll along hard conering. The brakes are all stock, but have been cleaned and plated to look nicer. Oh and minus the Brembo rotors. The car is lowered about three to four inches all around to close the ugly gap between the top of the tire and the apex of the factory wheel flares. Then I decided to buy the Motorsport strut bars for both front and rear. The engine is an F54 Block with a square port N42 head. I had the proper machine work done and purchased turbo head bolts. The camshaft is currently at factory lift until I see how it reacts to the turbine which will be installed in the near future. The head was hand ported and polished by myself and a friend who was teaching me how to do it... Very simple! I am trying to go for the "clean look" on the intake manifold, so I have a single fuel rail and no cold start valve. I have yet to find it safe to eliminate the AAR. I have a 60mm throttle body, but havent figured out how to install in properly yet. The block is painted black, the head is alluminum, the intake manifold is left blasted and cleared for a deeper alluminum color, and the valve cover is gold infront and faded into a copper color to the rear. Looks nice on a black car! I also installed MSA's headers and wrapped them with that insulation to subtract heat also purchased through Motorsport. The transmission is a five speed out of a 280zx turbo. Its not rebuilt, but It seems tight and smooth. The drive shaft is alluminum and the rear end is an R200. Keeping that F54 cool is a custom made Griffin alluminum radiator with a 2300cfm electric fan controlled by the coolants temp. The body of the car I mostly left alone. Its a great looking car with or without the bumpers. I think the body lines of that car were ahead of its time and needed very little work to get it looking right in my eyes. As you see, I "shaved" the rear end smooth, added MSA's front spoiler and lost the front bumper to go with the lines of the rear. I like the front spoiler because if your looking directly at the front of the car, you can see the fronts of the tires. Just makes it look more aggressive. I also need to order the carbonfiber front bumper MSA offers. The interoir has become quite fancy. I installed a nice set of leather sport seats that hold you in better and will work with any 4-point harness. The carpet is all new and had to be custom fit to the modifications I made to the floors. My friend did a very nice job installing a CD player connected to four Infinity speaker located behind and to the side of both driver and passenger allowing excellent sound quality. I bought that rally steering wheel and hub from motorsport, but that will only be tempoarty until I find the right Momo. hmmm... It took me five month to pick the right tire size, how long do you think it will take me to select the right steering wheel? And as you might have noticed, the wheels are 16x7 konig troubles. hmm... thats kinda funny; It took five months to select a tire size and I cant even remember what size they are. I had to add custom made spacers to all four corners to bring the inner wheel further away from the spring. No worries, the wheels arent sticking out like those lowrider pick up trucks! Infact they are perfect with the wheel flare. I have put hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into this car and Im sure you can now see why I am a little depressed and upset that with all that work and money, it still wont run! I appreciate the advise about the possible fuel blockage. but my filter is clear and the gas tank is brand new. I have 35psi running off the return line and can adjust it to whatever I want it at. If I cant figure this out by tomorrow, I will be trailering the car to a garage first thing friday morning. I'd really like to avoid that though in all ways possible.

There is a place in Kenosha Wisconsin that does all my plating. This guy works for a plating company and when I bring him a box, he just takes cash under the table. I brought him as many parts that would fit in my BMW and he only wanted 20 bucks! Enigma, the calipers were disassembled when plated. I actually drove the car the other night and they seem to be stopping the car quite well. Yes I finally put the F54 block in. Having a bit of trouble with the fine tuning so I listed a post under the "Help Me !!" Forum. Sorry its been so long since I have writeen anything. Hard times in ones life are not fun. Especially when you have no time to work on your Z! Ill be sure to update the pictures soon. Thanks for the compliments!

I rebuilt a F54 Block and N42 Head for my 78 280z. I just had it running for the first time in about three years the other day. It was not running well though. It ran good enough to drive, but didnt seem very peppy as though the timing was off or it was running on a select few cylinders... But still able to go down the road. I tried to make it run the way it should, so I re-set the valve timing. I put everything back together and still no luck. It now seemed as though the head gasket was at fault with the way the motor turned more freely. I replaced the head gasket and torqued to proper specs... Still no progress. So now I decide to take the valve timing apart again and do one more check over everything. I installed a new Cam sproket, timing chain, spark plugs, plug wires, AFM, and distributer. I now have exactly fourty-two links between bot timing marks. The Cam sproket is set at the number one position and reaches its timing mark with the crank pulley at 5 degrees. Everything now seems correct. I have good compression, good spark, gas, and air... I think. I put everything back together and it runs. Its very hard to keep an idle and everytime I blip the throttle, it wants to shut off. I checked for vaccum leaks, there is thirty-five psi in the fuel system, and I am just getting so confused. I had it driving down the road a few days ago and ever since I tried fixing the hesitation problem, it hardly keeps an Idle. The next paragraph below is what I wrote on Zcar.com and some responces I recieved last night after working on it. Sorry theres a lot of reading on this, but I need all the help I can get. Thanks! 280z Valve Timing Author: MPower280 Date: Jan 29, 11:17pm I attempted to set the valve timing after a head gasket replacement and ran into a bit of a problem. The car ran before, It lacked compression from a shot head gasket so upon replacement I seemed to have gotten a little confused about the Valve timing. I set the number 1 piston to TDC and the timing mark at 0 degrees. I then set the cam/sprocket at its timing mark on the number 2 position. After installing the timing chain and rotating the motor around the cycle, the camshaft sprokets notch winds up about 3mm past the timing mark toward the engines rotation. The crankshaft is back at 0 degrees on compression stroke when this occurs. I tried moving the sproket and cam one tooth anticlockwise and found that the notch sits further away from the timng mark, but on the other side. I did use a wedge in the timing chain when I removed the sproket so that annoying chain tensioner wouldnt move, but anything could have happened. The chain does seem to have too much slack on the distributer side.... I cant remember if thats normal though. Looking down into the timing cover, the tensioner looks ok. I also think it might be important to know that I rotated the engine through the cycle by hand and did not see the timing chain slip over a tooth. I did try firing the motor with the cam past its mark and did get it to run.... kind of... I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.... Nope, I cant. Adjusting the distributer helped, but it still ran very rough. What do the numbers 1, 2, 3 on the cam sproket indicate? Advance/Retard, but where do I want mine to be? Tomorrow I will be removing the timing cover and so forth to get a better idea of what might be going wrong in there. Until I do that, any advise would be much appreciated. Thanks. Reply To This Message Edit My Post Re: 280z Valve Timing Author: coyote Date: Jan 29, 11:58pm i am not sure what you might have done wrong (if anything) but dont forget that once the chain is set at the proper marks on tdc , it will change marks once rotated. the pulleys are different sizes so they will not line up at each roatation like they started. if you were to turn one rotation the marks would be off ie if you were to back it up that same one rotation they would line right back up. if it runs better with the dist advace maxed out you might have it off one tooth on initial set up factory nissan mechanic since 72 co-owner of z car shop in phx , az Spankysautobody.com 72 Z-won best engine comp. twice @ MSA 99 and 03 73,77,86 Z (2) 74 Z won Best of Show @ MSA 04 90 cpe,93 vert , 94cpe..took 1st place modified class @MSA 2006 Reply To This Message Re: 280z Valve Timing Author: Primer&Rust Date: Jan 30, 12:15am I would get the engine back at top dead center, take the cam sprocket off and put the cam dowel point upward to the top bolt on the camshafts front plate. The # 1 cam lobes should a be point somewhat upward. Than put the cam sprocket on in the #1 position and give it a try assuming this is a stock camshaft Sweet 280z Reply To This Message Re: 280z Valve Timing Author: MPower280 Date: Jan 31, 12:52am Ok... I completely disassembled the front of the motor and checked everything out. I brought the lower end to TDC aand set the cam sproket at its timing mark (number 1 position). The tension on the chain now seems normal and the tensioner itself is corrected. I replaced the timing chain and cam sproket. I also made sure there were exactly fourty-two links between both timing marks. I fed the oil pump and shaft into its position with the holes lined up correctly, but it seems as if you were to line up the holes and then push it though the timing cover, the shaft will rotate when it meets the gear on the crankshaft. So anyway, I get it all back together and rotate the motor around the cycle by hand. Now when the camshaft timing mark meets the sproket timing mark on the compression stroke, the cankshaft pulley reads five degrees... if that matters. Then I reassemble the rest and attempt to fire it. I get the same deal... Only this time I can get the motor to idle somewhat well, but when you blip the throttle it wants to shut off and its a challenge with a quick hand for ignition timing to keep it running. So now I decide to try replacing the AFM and that didnt make a difference either. I checked for vaccum leaks, fuel pressure is at 35psi, I have great spark, electricle seems to be in order, I installed new injectors (not rebuilt), tried changing distributers, plug wires, replaced spark plugs... However, there is no cold start valve; going for that cleaner intake manifold look. Ran fine without it before! I dont know what else to do... My friend said that maybe I should try tweaking the AFM... Just thought I'd check with your opinions first. Before I forget, I'd like to mention that the guage is not reading engine temp, but even then the motor ran before. Reply To This Message Edit My Post Re: 280z Valve Timing Author: MPower280 Date: Jan 31, 12:54am And one more thing: The rpm needle seems to be "jumping" at idle, but steadys itself out when rpm picks up... Dont know if that matters either.