conedodger

I wish. I would qualify but I need my wife to have a more steady income. Otherwise the house owns me if you know what that means. Still looking...

Oh the carnage! I cannot believe the housing market! I looked at a 2million dollar home today that they begged me to buy for $800K and they would throw in the $25K worth of model home furniture. Has a lapping pool and hot tub as well as an outdoor BBQ and fireplace. Down below the pool is a chipping and putting hole that spans the length of the back yard. It has a small wetlands area in the middle of it with a bridge you have to walk over to get to the hole after you chip. The RE agent asked me if I golf and I said "badly." He nearly choked on his coffee... Nice... But I would need a map to get back from the bathroom if I had to pee in the middle of the night and that is from the master bath attached to the master bedroom!

I am going mini-mansion shopping in Lincoln on Friday but the rest of the weekend is open. Don't ask. 3000 square feet on 2 acres of land will never be good enough for my wife so now we are going to look at 4000+ square feet on 1/4 of an acre. I am ok with this as long as I get a 4 car garage

Sorry. That is not true. You may be exempt from smog inspection but you are never allowed to remove smog equipment. Those are Federal Laws, not State.

My theory is that if there is not electrical signal to them they should not be squirting any pattern at all and no fuel should flow. Even if they are leaking unplugging should get you less, not more HC. He unplugged and it got worse. So, with no pattern he is still getting fuel into the #5 cylinder. Dribbling fuel with a poor pattern doesn't burn. Anyway, as I said, what do I know - It has been years since I had an L28 motor. I am just following a logic path.

Well, if the HC numbers are worse with the injector plug removed we can be fairly sure that your injectors are leaking. Pull them, send the to Marren or RC and get them cleaned and blueprinted. Put new seals in afterward.

Double whammy. If you are in Lancaster and the car is rusted, you have rotted rubber to deal with from that unrelenting Mojave sun as well... Rubber can cost as much as rust to replace... Use parts from it but don't use it as a platform.

The seller is by law required to give the buyer a current smog cert but if the buyer accepts it without, it becomes the buyers responsibility. If it sat, you may have some gummed up injectors "spilling" fuel instead of squirting it. Clean, or have your injectors cleaned. You should not have an O2 sensor on a '76. Perhaps you are thinking of the Cylinder Head Sensor which goes to the front of the engine? If this is disconnected, it is sending a resistance signal of infinity to the brain. The brain interprets this as an overheating situation and increases the injector time to full. That will cause unburned fuel which sniff as hydrocarbons at the tailpipe. Hook it up. Replace it if you can. Not sure if they are still available. I have a new one around here somewhere. Freakin' smog guy should have known that. If they are test only he might have been trying to get you to do it. IIRC, California models had an EGR but 49 State did not? In any event if you do have one you may also be all coked up so take it off and wire brush it. Others may know better as the 280 efi engines have not been my thing in a while...

Nice... I think we are starting to gather a crowd. We should have some kind of NorCal get-together. Perhaps drive the Berryessa to Napa roads and eat at that famous drive-in on 29. I am confused though, you list Sacramento as your location but most of your pics are from the Fairfield area. I even recognize the damned Chevron you are parked at, Vacaville? That is Infinion by the way... Although judging by the shorts on the previous owner it was called Sears Point at that time!

Thanks for the interpretation Andy... You were right on the money:classic:

Oh and they have a serious case of CSS. But they are what I had on hand when I went to the paint booth... I need the passenger side mirror glass if anyone has a set sitting in the garage.

See the red car in the logo at the top of the main page? Those are Vitiloni Californians if I am not mistaken.

If you mean the Vittiloni Californian mirror, I have them not sure I have a picture handy though. They look great when painted body color.

Same at my house. Datsun Z 85K miles. Porsche 911 55K miles. Porsche 914 75K Miles. Toyota 4Runner 180K miles and still humming.

Hey! I'm innocent. (this time) . He asked if it was a low VIN. I just said Ahhh... Yup!

Each car is individual although you will find that many of the early efi systems were made by Bosch and you will find many of the same characteristic patterns in these cars that used LJet, DJet etc... As an example, when my 914 was DJet, if I pulled a vacuum line to create a vacuum leak the engine would surge to 3000 RPM. My 911 which is a much later derivative of LJet than your 280Z is completely unaffected by removing the oil cap. By the way, you should also find the car kills when you remove the oil cap. The idle you posted is not really indicative of a vacuum leak. There is a procedure for testing individual efi components. It can be found in the FSM. You might consider running these tests. I had a situation not unlike yours and I checked the CHT resistance and found it to be higher than spec. Replacing it cleaned up the way the car ran in more than one way. Hydrocarbons down, driveability up. Because of that higher resistance the efi brain has to assume that the CHT is high and to protect the engine it increases injector pulse time. Pop the caps on your TPS and AFM. Each has a set of copper strips which can get gunked up with corrosion after years of use. Use a very soft pencil eracer to gently clean this off then replace the cover. Most efi components in the LJet system send resistance signals to the brain which controls pulse time on the batch fired injectors. If things get gunked up resistance can increase, sometimes to infinity.

Ahh... Yes. Very low.

I agree with the several who have called this normal. You create a big vacuum leak when you do that and it kills the motor. You mention that you rebuilt and that it is running rough. Did you stick an aftermarket cam in? The stock injection on the late '75 on with LJet does not respond well to loss of vacuum signal. Most of the aftermarket cams I have seen will give you very little vacuum.

The receipts will help but only if you do one of two things. First is to do nothing. If you just refuse to settle, telling them their offer is ridiculous, they will have to come up higher. An adjuster has one job for his company and that is to settle fast and low. You are a thorn in his bonnet if you just don't settle. The second is to name a number that you can live with. Don't be shy about it. You have the right to be made whole. You lost X so why settle for less than that? Think about it, you paid a certain amount for the car, you put a good deal of money into the car since buying it. The car isn't depreciating in value at this point - it is only going up in value so why shouldn't you have what you have in it or more?

So they offered you $2200 and you don't sound totally bummed. Now, I want you to call the adjuster and make a counter offer of $7500. He expects it. You will then get a revised offer of $5000. If you were not totally destroyed by the $2200 offer you should be happier with the $5000 right? The salvage value will not change. You can still keep it for the offer less that $86.

Drunk driving in Norway will get you life in prison...

You need to learn to say large numbers with a straight face. When he says $1500 you say "oh no, $15,000 and not a penny less. If you can't authorize that get someone who can and don't call me back until you do." Insurance adjusters are paid to settle. Quickly and low. My advice is don't. The longer you make him wait the better it will turn out for you.

Where are you at in Sac area Owen? Loved your garage build.

Her insurance will be the hardest one to deal with. They will total it. Then offer you $1400 and take your car away. If you want to keep it, you will get less - say $900. You will have a fight on your hands unless you by some miracle had an appraisal done valuing the car at what it is worth or refuse to settle without a post accident appraisal. Either way, if your state has a savage title program you will likely have one soon. You don't have by chance a stated value insurance policy or an agreed value policy. Even when it is her fault, you stand a better chance of getting what it is worth if you have established value before the accident.

You guys remember, jets and such are relative to your altitude. Consider that before you go changing things based on someone in Denver's recommendation when you live in Miami. Ideally, set them on a dyno with tailpipe sensors for your richness and such...