FastWoman

Zedyone, I'm green with envy. We have a rule in my family: No more than one toy per person. My Z is both my DD and my allotted toy. Our Miata is our other toy (allotted to my other half). How I would love to have one of those little roadsters, though! Very sweet!

Well, my thought about the stock system is that there might be narrow enough passages, perhaps even internal to the injector, that a fuel vapor bubble might block off the passage, so that liquid fuel would not dribble down into the injector. If fluid movement is blocked, then the assembly will no longer function as a heat pipe. Then if the injector becomes superheated, for lack of heat transfer upwards to the rail, it could flash liquid fuel inside the injector before the liquid can even reach the pintle. What is left, then, is a system that injects fuel vapor -- undoubtedly more volume, but much less fuel to burn. The vapor pocket is eliminated only when a mass of fuel vapor is injected whose total heat of vaporization is sufficient to reduce the temperature to a level where the fuel vapor pressure is less than the fuel rail pressure. (Phew!) So to achieve proper fuel flow, the volume of vapor that must be injected could be much larger than the lumen of the injector and feed hose. I didn't know about the clips on stock o-ring designs. Would it be difficult to construct clips on a DIY rail?

Interesting! Thanks! Here are my thoughts: IF liquid fuel can dribble from the rail, down into the injector body, while at the same time fuel vapor can bubble up to the rail, then two things would happen. First, the injector rail system would act as a heat pipe, such that the injectors would be cooled by the rail itself, with fuel being the working fluid. Cooling would continue until all the working fluid is gone (vaporized, blowing past the pressure regulator). (So the larger the bore of the fuel rail, the greater its cooling capacity.) Second, when you go to fire up the engine, any fuel vapor will be free to rise into the rail, where it would either condense or be carried away in the return line. Liquid fuel would dribble past rising vapor to cool the injector very quickly, so that it would not be necessary to work through the injection of a vapor pocket (whose size could be enormous if fresh fuel is flashed to vapor inside a hot injector). FAIW, I doubt the O-ring system is dangerous, provided the fuel rail is well bracketed (perhaps including a bracket in the middle). I've never heard of a fuel rail popping apart and spilling fuel. I think for that to happen, the engine would have to suffer such damage as to become deformed. At that point you've got more serious issues.

My third-party test vehicle stands ready! If I remember correctly (both of my kids are young men now), it took about 6 weeks before we began to feel rested again -- maybe 3-4 weeks to become minimally functional for anything but coddling, feeding, and changing diapers.

Zed, this is exciting! To be clear, are you using the types of injectors that mount to the rail with an O-ring? I'm wondering two things, but I don't know enough about the o-ring type injectors to know whether these are good questions: 1. Is the opening from the fuel rail to the body of the injector fatter and shorter, so that fuel can dribble down more freely from the fuel rail to the interior of the injector? Put another way, is fuel vapor better able to bubble up into the fuel rail? 2. If I understand correctly, what physically holds the injector into place is the rail itself? That is, it doesn't have the same clamp and insulator as the OEM injector? I ask, because if the injector is getting soaked from intake manifold heat (heated by the exhaust manifold below it), as I believe, then perhaps the OEM injector mount is keeping the injector from dissipating heat to the air around. Do you have a photo? Oh, one more question: Are you running the same fuel you were using on the old injectors that gave you hot-restart issues? Same tank of gas from the same station? I ask because I wonder about winter-blended gasoline as a possible contributor to the issue.

Geoffrey, I really like your ride, and I think it's great Blue dropped in to help you get it straight! Wow, what a great community, eh?! Let's hope the whirring/whistling doesn't amount to anything. I would mark it up to "cobwebs." Now I think I'd tell your daughter she can't ride shotgun, because she only brings your car bad luck.

Zed, I suppose deposits binding the pintles could explain some hot restart issues, but certainly not all. I'd offer the following thoughts: 1. I continued to have some hot restart issues even after replacing my injectors with new ones. Although the hot restart was improved, I did many things as a part of my intake overhaul, and it's difficult to say specifically what improved my situation. 2. The deposits on the pintles are going to be varnish. Varnish is hardest when cool, so I would think the deposits would cause the greatest problems with sticking when cool. But contrary to this notion, time and cooling reliably resolve this restart issue. 3. One could argue that it's a thermal expansion issue, but that would depend entirely on the materials involved. If all the parts are made of the same material, thermal expansion would have no effect on their relative fit. So a steel pintle in a steel sleeve would not tighten with either heating or cooling. Of course I can only speculate as to the materials typically used in an injector. However, I would think that any thermal expansion jamming that would occur in a heat-soaked engine could also occur in a running engine, particularly when idling on a hot road in the middle of summer. But we don't hear about that.

I'm posting this here because it's important and because this seems to be the most viewed forum. Please feel free to move and/or repost! I've become aware of a serious security hole in Internet Explorer that currently has no fix: Vulnerability Note VU#222929 - Microsoft Internet Explorer use-after-free vulnerability Everyone is advised to use a different browser until a fix is available, for instance Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Both are free and downloadable: Firefox: Download Firefox ? Free Web Browser ? Mozilla Chrome: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/ Those of you with Windows XP will not be getting a fix via automatic updates, as update support for XP has been terminated. I'm guessing you can update IE manually.

It might be possible to fabricate a cable that would run from a body mounting bolt to a bumper mounting bolt. The trick would be figuring out how to compress the bumper shock on the vehicle in order to mount up the cable. But if you can do it, this would leave you with an intact bumper shock.

I don't know that you'll HAVE TO change them. I think mine came off intact and could, in theory, be re-used. However, I think it would probably be a good idea. I found a complete O-ring kit on ebay for maybe $9 at the time.

I think my blocks were cracked when I replaced them, and they didn't leak. There's an O-ring that seals the tip of the injector in the manifold's hole. Assuming you're not running a turbo or supercharger, there will always be a vacuum inside the manifold, so IF there is any leakage of any sort, it will be from the outside to the inside. Thus any stray fuel would be kept inside the intake manifold. So in my non-expert estimation, there is nothing unsafe about your cracked insulators.

Hmmmm... Very odd... So I'm trying to think of what parts of the engine have either ball bearings or gears. I'm coming up with the timing chain assembly, the oil pump, and the distributor... and not much else. Maybe touch your stethoscope to the oil pump? Or perhaps your water pump (yes, I know, front of engine) has some bent or broken vanes.

Swede, I discovered the issue when I used this utility to test the site: https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ In the beginning this utility was actually able to exploit Heartbleed on the classiczcars.com site. (It tests by confirming the exploit works.) When I test now, I get a much less conclusive result. I don't know why or how, but until we hear the site has been fixed, I think it's best to assume it hasn't.

Is it a whining noise? If so, it could be your water pump bearing. It sounds like your car might have been sitting for quite some time, so rusty bearings are always a possibility. Your water pump bearing might be whining because you have a different belt tension, and the noise might go away on its own. But it could be a forewarning of a water pump failure sometime down the road. Or you could have a bad alternator bearing, depending on the quality of the rebuild. FAIW, you can buy a mechanic's stethoscope from your local Harbor Freight for a few bucks. You might even find one at your local auto parts store. You can use it to probe around your engine to find the source of the noise. Please DO NOT use the lauded "long screwdriver to your ear trick" when working around spinning pulleys and fan belts! And be careful when probing those areas even with a stethoscope.

When I re-did my locks, my best option seemed to be to buy the OEM hatch lock (NOS), buy the overseas reproduction door locks, remove my ignition lock, and take the pile of parts to a locksmith to have the ignition cylinder (internal part that turns, not the whole assembly) replaced with a Taiwanese cylinder (which they all are), and everything re-keyed to the hatch lock. There were two different key blank styles, and he had to make them all agree. (I think he might have replaced the hatch lock cylinder, but I can't remember.) FAIW, the Taiwanese parts have been OK. They needed a bit of fine oil lube in the beginning.

I hope you didn't misunderstand my point. I didn't wish to imply that you don't know what you're doing -- or even really raise that question. Rather, I meant to point out that even if you DO know what you're doing, and even if you can make functional improvements to the braking system (e.g. with the 4-disc upgrade with double calipers), any attorney will use your modifications, good or bad, to destroy you. With regard to the brake light: If your son should have a brake failure that the light might have forewarned him about, then that's a safety issue both for him and for others. Same issue. The brake failure light is not an idiot light. An idiot light is a light that is substituted for a more meaningful gauge, like an oil pressure light that comes on to let you know you've been running a dry engine for the last 5 min. But there's no better indicator of brake failure than a light. I remember once ripping a brake line, and my light was flashing at me about 2 brake presses before I would have lost all my fluid. I believe my stepson had a brake light that had been coming on for a very long time. (He's the mechanical engineer of the family, so of course he ignored it.) He was slowly losing fluid, due to a rusty caliper. His brakes did need attention. Personally I'm thankful for any fault indicator in the instrument panel. That applies doubly with my kids and stepkids. I tell them very emphatically that if there's a light, THERE'S A PROBLEM. They've brought me cars with glowing lights, insisting that "the light just does that for no reason" because that's what some lazy mechanic told them. And then I find the problem and make the light go out. After doing this a few times, I think I've impressed on them that lights and gauges really do mean something. Anyway, for my car, I want the brake light. For my kids' cars, I ESPECIALLY want the brake light, because they don't notice anything unless it's glaring at them on the dashboard, and really not even then. You should want a working light in your son's dash too. Surely there's a way to neaten up the wiring to the reservoir lids. Is there any wiring to the proportioning valve? (Some PVs have fault switches too.) One trick for neatening wiring is to wrap a solid piece of copper wire (12 ga would do for the brake wiring) together with the stranded wires with loom tape. That will stiffen the wire bundle, so that you can bend and form it neatly. One final note: If you're worried that your son might be driving too fast and taking too many chances, there are much safer cars than the Z. You don't have to put him into a Volvo to keep him safe. There are even SOME modern cars that can be worked on. A rear-wheel-drive car with a 4-banger is generally roomy enough for any novice mechanic. I would put my own son in a Miata with a removable hardtop sooner than I'd put him in a Z. And FAIW, I also love my '92 Saturn SL2, which was the "family car" when my kids were growing up. There's a sports coupe version of the same car (Saturn SC) that I would highly recommend. It uses space frame construction and is tougher than most people would think. Mine has airbags and ABS, which were new options in '92. Anyway, there's space under the hood, even though it's front wheel drive. It's worth mentioning that I've driven stick my entire life, and I've not come across a better, more intuitive stick than is in that Saturn.

Zed, I think you'll like Win7. One thing I noticed when updating from XP to 7 is that the automatic updates in 7 work very well. XP was a pain, because some of the updates would crash my computer. Some simply couldn't be installed, and that would result in others not being installable. I had to turn off the auto updates and perform them manually every week to keep my machine operational. This cycle would only be broken with the subsequent service pack. However, the Win7 updates have all worked correctly so far. Not a single complaint.

Uncomfortable questions excerpted from the court transcripts of Murphy's Law: "So, Mr. Plumbing, in what way did you feel removing the proportioning valve from the brake system of your antique vehicle would improve its braking efficiency or reliability?" "We see that Nissan's OEM braking system was designed by some of the Japanese auto industry's top mechanical engineers. What are your own engineering credentials, and what other brake systems have you designed?" "What laboratory or governmental agency certified your modified braking design safe for use on the public roadways?" "When your vehicle rear-ended my client's vehicle, rendering my client unable to work, due to excruciating neck pain, is it at all POSSIBLE that your brake modifications -- in your EXPERT opinion -- might have contributed in some way to the accident?" I'm not trying to be a smart-arse. I'm just saying that unless you're going to trailer your car everywhere, you shouldn't modify anything that could impact the safety of others, including your passenger, unless you're willing to risk this sort of questioning in court. Remember that any good ambulance chaser attorney is going to pay some guy to go over the wreckage of your car with a fine-tooth comb and note any modifications or safety problems. Hmmmm... Is it possible that you could simply relocate the proportioning valve and brake light switch, perhaps to a location underneath the body?

^^^^ Oh yeah! I wish I had those instead!

I posted an FYI to the non-Z related off-topic forum. I would hope the mods know about it. Fortunately my logon to this site already used my lowest-security tier of password. There are a few other Heartbleed-vulnerable sites that use old passwords. The danger to folks on this forum would be if the same password used on this site is also used for such things as your bank, email, or any resource you really don't want to get compromised. If hackers get your password here by exploiting the Heartbleed vulnerability, they can then potentially log on to any other account where you might use the same password. If you use the same password for your email, there's a lot of exposure to mischief, as password resets can be intercepted via your email, allowing the hackers to hijack almost anything of yours, especially those accounts that use your email address as a user ID. Anyway, if you've done like I have and changed the passwords on all of your sensitive accounts, you can PROBABLY be safe continuing to interact on this site with your old, now-insecure password. At least that's how I understand it. I think you just have to assume hackers have your classiczcars login -- including hackers from the NSA, of course. (The NSA is believed by the IT community to have introduced the bug into the OpenSSL code 10 years ago, and it appears from server logs that they have been exploiting their bug the entire time. The hacker community only discovered the exploit about 6 months ago.)

Injector Connector Kit 6pc Datsun 280z 280ZX 300zx | eBay My advice would be to buy a total of 11 connectors -- 6 for the injectors, 1 for the thermotime switch, 1 for the cold start injector, 1 for the coolant temp switch, 1 for the accessory air control heater, and 1 as a test connector you can throw in with your tools. Contact the seller to ask him to put a kit together for you. He did that for me.

Leaning up the mix a bit should clear up the afterfire.

Wow, that's a NASTY carcass of a relay, Zed! Rossiz, I'm glad you located the offending relay/connector. As far as crimping goes... well... I really, really hate crimped connections, especially in marine applications (we have boats on salt water). What I do is to crimp first and then sweeten the crimp with solder. You have to use the solder sparingly! And yes, just a little wiggle or movement can indeed kill the engine if you've got bad connections. In the future, the best thing you can do when you have an intermittent problem is to go through your wiring, wiggling connections, BEFORE you do anything else. The reason is that you might make the problem go away when you wrestle with a part or connector here or there, and you might attribute the "fix" falsely to the part you replaced, when the real culprit is a bad connection waiting to strand you on the side of the freeway a couple of weeks later. As a rule of thumb, whenever I'm working on an electrical issue, I never replace parts in any area I haven't wiggled first. Anyway, good job! (Don't forget to do the Snoopy dance around your car for good karma.)

"I miss sleep." At least that means you're helping out like a good husband! Good on you!

Interesting! Of course you and I know those are 6 resistors that serve no function, except possibly to put 12V at the injector plugs for testing. Or possibly the pull-up resistors were used for test-benching the ECUs. I suspect, and could be wrong, that this little detail harkens back to a better time when executive bean counters didn't pitch hissy fits over 10 cents extra in parts, and would condone letting their designers have the luxury of putting in an extra part here or there to shape an output however they saw fit. I suspect there is also robust input/output protection on this pair of boards, as well as reverse-polarity protection. Only a guess. Perhaps that's why these ECUs have lasted as long as they have. BUT... ROSSIZ... This would explain why you read 0 VDC across the injector plug. You really need to measure both sides against ground to draw any conclusions. Both sides should measure +12 VDC as Lenny indicates.