Turbo7MN

The car is a 72. I had already drained the fuel tank and put fresh gas in it, but I suppose the bottle method will be worth a try. Thanks.

Alright, so recently I've started trying to get the 240Z started again. Back story: Car has sat for 8 years, pretty sure it has a bad head gasket, some other little issues... etc. I worked on it a while last fall and got it to the point where it fired once on its own and then the igniton system died. So now I have a Pertronix system installed in the car, I know I am getting spark. The car will fire and rev up to 1000-1500ish when I spray gas in the carbs, but will die as soon as I let go of the key. When I try cranking it without spraying gas into the carbs, I can tell it's kinda firing... It wants to go but doesn't quite make it. I know there is fuel getting to the carbs, which I sprayed down good with carb cleaner already... One of my friends suggested that the timing is too far off for it to run. He reccomended that I turn the distributor around 180 degrees, which I did. The car promptly backfired out of the carbs when I tried starting it. So much for that theory. So I put it back... now I'm back to where I was before. What do you guys think? To me it sounds like the carbs aren't delivering enough fuel, but my friend still thinks it's timing. Does this sound like a timing thing, or just a case of old worn out carbs? And this is all kind of futile anyway since I will be putting in an L28 soon. But I really want to have the stock setup running, if for no reason other than to make the car easier to deal with so I don't have to push/pull it around. I come from spending 5 years in the world of rotary engines and EFI so a lot of this stuff is new to me... just trying to figure it all out... Thanks! -Darren

Sorry I have not updated this in a while, it's been too cold to work on the car lately. Anyway, I never managed to get a manual transmission distributor. However, tonight I finally broke down and modded the AT unit. Getting the pertronix mounted was really as simple as drilling and tapping one hole. Zealous, your picture was most helpful. The bad news is there is no way the vacuum advance will properly function after this. I had to position it in a strange way in order to drill the hole in the plate and there's no way to get that mechanism back in. In fact, I believe that the position where it's stuck is the "fully advanced" position. So I'll have to compensate for that when I set the timing initially, I guess. This is not a setup I would even consider running permanently. Right now I have a running L28 and 5 speed sitting in my friends garage waiting to be installed, and at that point I will actually make a serious effort to get the proper distributor. But for right now, I mainly just want to hear the car start for personal satisfaction, and it would be nice if it could drive onto the trailer under its own power rather than having to use a come-along. So tomorrow I am hopefully going to finally get it all together and wire it up in the car and see what happens... Wish me luck.

I'm not gonna have my car driveable until at least spring, more likely summer. I need to get this ignition stuff taken care of and replace the head gasket at the very least. But I wanna get that old automatic transmission out ASAP too, I was hoping to do that this spring. And I wanna take care of the worn out suspension bushings and whatnot. Lots of work to do before I'd be comfortable taking the car more than a short distance. Also on that note, I don't suppose any of you local guys have a spare MT 240Z distributor laying around?

Yep... same road I'm thinking of. Good stuff.

I remember taking 95 all the way home after getting my new tires on the RX-7... that was a fun trip . If we're thinking of the same 95, but the way you describe it I think we are. Right now I live in St. Paul on the U of M campus, but my car is up in North Branch. If it ran I'd love to cruise with you guys sometime.

We have no emissions testing here in MN . No worries. DeesZ, I have read on here about more than one instance of someone switching from the dual point to the single point distributor with any issue. And seeing as the Pertronix replaces most of the factory ignition system anyway, I'm not sure if I should worry too much about this. This car hasn't run in over 8 years and I'm quite sure it has a blown head gasket anyway... this effort may be futile in the end no matter what I do. I'm hoping I don't regret the decision to try and fix it up as-is instead of V8 swapping it...

Alright... 99% sure they aren't. I can see all the holes that the pertronix system is supposed to mount to, they're just in different places on the AT distributor. Since the mounting plate (the bottom part of the "contact breaker" assembly as referred to in the '73 FSM) is actually removable... it stands to reason that the MT contact breaker could just be swapped in, since really all you need is the bottom plate. When I get my hands on a MT distributor, I'm gonna give this a go and see what happens.

So I've given up fighting with the stock points system and broke down and bought a Pertronix setup. I was trying to put it in today, but had some issues with getting it in and rememberred that the autos had the 2-point distributor which was different than the single point of the manual transmission cars. I called MSA and they couldn't tell me if they were compatible or not, and the problem is there's literally not a single picture on here actually showing a Pertronix installed in a 240Z distributor, so I'm not sure if I've got it in right anyway, I can get the main screw holes lines up, but then there's another screw hole that doesn't line up with anything, and I really have no clue if it's in how it's supposed to be. I really was hoping to get this car out of my friend's yard this weekend so any insight into this would be great. In the meantime I guess I'll begin the hunt for a MT distributor.

Doing stupid things on public roads is the reason I no longer drive an RX-7. The car was modded pretty good... lots of suspension work and some nice tires made it insanely fun to drive, and since I used to live in the country, there was nothing more fun than taking the car out to tear up the twisty backroads where I lived. Well, I was out one day with a friend in the car actually, and was screwing around, and started taking a posted 20mph turn going about 70... I knew the car could normally take it, I've done it before. But something happened, I'm pretty sure with my front drivers side tire (it was hard to say what happened to the car before/after the accident) and the car began to understeer horribly. Flew into a very steep ditch and flipped the car. Me and my friend were okay, but the car was trashed pretty good. I still don't know why I walked away from it, the roof was smashed in about an inch from my head. I can complain all I want and blame it on tire failure, but when it comes down to it, I just should not have been taking that turn that fast, and especially not with someone else in the car. I'm keeping the 7 around because I'm pretty sure once I have a good amount of money to throw at it it'll be fixable, but for now I've got the Z to keep me occupied through college. I've learned my lesson here. As far as racing... I've done it once in the middle of nowhere on a deserted road. I like to watch, but that's about it. The Z will be driven in a pretty sane manner once it's running. End of story.

Yep. If everyone lived out West there would be no need for stainless . I live in Minnesota... stainless is the way to go if you want it to last here. If I was to buy the system I would gladly pay more for stainless.

Yeah, stainless is obviously more expensive... but in my experience, quite worth it.

I'm definitely interested... I'll have to hear how it sounds first of course, but it looks good to me. The rear part of the system anyway, maybe not the header. What kind of tubing? Aluminized? Stainless?

I guess I should have pointed this out before... I know what the resistor does, and I made sure that when I picked up a replacement coil I got one designed for use with the resistor. I also knew it was bypassed when cranking... I downloaded a 73 FSM which isnt exactly the same as my 72 but its close enough for most purposes.

Right, the coil was the first thing I replaced actually. But yeah, I actually burned myself on the resistor when I touched it. I'll probably try the resistor bypass when I get a chance just to see what happens. My issue is that it did fire previously. I know plug gap isnt an issue. I tested the spark with a spare old plug that we pulled out of the engine anyway, not one of the ones I was using at the time. And of course, the fact that the tach is not bouncing concerns me greatly and seems like it would be an obvious symptom for something if I knew enough about the system. Thanks. -Darren