Zed Head

Did you even try the double-nut method? If not, why not? Just wondering...

The harness has several connections under the carpet next to the right side of the passenger seat, the fuel pump power runs through them. Easy to get to and one possible spot for a "hack" or even a short. According to the wiring diagrams, the only power supply to the fuel pump wire runs through the combined EFI and Fuel Pump relay. All you can do is try to trace it out. The 76 diagram shows a green wire with blue stripe all the way from the pump to the plug you disconnected, through the C8 and C3 connectors.

If you'll be taking a lot of curves I'd go for the parabolic formula.

Did things work right before and why did you do the alternator swap? Which swap method did you use? The last time I had a faintly glowing Charge light, my alternator was dying and took my ignition module with it.

Great suggestion. I think the hole is on the bottom side of the lobe though, not the tip. Probably the leading face, to get the oil on the lobe before it starts working. For future oil fill hole peekers...

Since you're thinking about - these two mounting points are supposed to be somewhat self-adjusting when the weight of the car is on the suspension. The mounts are left loose, the car is settled on to the suspension and rolled around a bit to get everything in its proper position, then the eight bolts are torqued down. You can reach the bolts when the car is on the ground, if your exhaust pipe is not in the way. Might be worth some time to reach up under there, loosen them up and see if you can get things settled right. It won't hurt anything and you might get an easy adjustment.

I like the "vaporizing inside the injector" theory also. I'm just throwing out other possibilities. I've not seen the inside of an injector or studied any diagrams closely so don't know if anything could bind when hot or not. I was thinking more of the metal piston inside the electrical windings though, the solenoid, not the fuel valve components. It has more mass and might explain why it takes so long for the problem to go away once it occurs. Who knows, maybe there's an area of the electrical contacts that can open under expansion. I have a bunch of old injectors, I'm surprised I haven't cut one or two open yet.

I don't know about the R180s but the R200s tend to be loud in general. The noise can be transmitted in to the cabin through worn rubber mounts allowing metal mount parts to contact, through stiffer urethane bushings, a lack of insulation or carpet on the rear deck, etc. It may be that your R180 is not worn out, and that you can reduce the noise through other means. If you're just trying to reduce the noise, an R200 might not get you anywhere. You might consider new mounts and/or carpet and insulation in the cabin. An alternative.

So you're offering $1700 for two parts cars? For all of the little parts. Asking because if you read through the thread the conclusion seems to be that the first car would be the driver (it ran [drove I assume] in 2008) and the second car would be the parts supplier (it's totaled). What year is the 280Z that you currently have? Some major items changed in 1978 so they might not swap over to your current car.

Seems like a fair trade. Gotta have a little fun now and then...

The black box on the side of the 81 distributor is the new ignition module. Your original ignition module is close to the fuse box in the passenger foot well. If you just stuck the 81 distributor in and connected wires to it, then your old one is still there, but useless. I really don't know if it would affect the tach or not, even though it is still a branch on the blue wire circuit. You can't disconnect the blue wire in the engine bay because it feeds the tach and the ECU. It wouldn't hurt to crawl up under there and disconnect it to see what happens. If you still have the problem, a small capacitor, like the one off the alternator, is worth a try. It will absorb some electrical noise that the new coil might be producing. Also, you might have disconnected the original one when you made the swap.

Here's a followup to my last post. I still have the hot start problem, even with an FPR that holds pressure over time. It seems to be holding close to full pressure also, because the engine starts right up over night and after sitting a few days, just like a modern car. But even with a rail full of fuel, if I get the engine nice and warn, then let it sit for about 20 - 30 minutes, I get a nasty thirty seconds to one minute of stumbling, low idle poor running. I'm wondering now if the problem might be an overheated solenoid, sticking and causing the injector to stay closed. Just another way to get to a lean condition, which is what my hot start problem is like. It seems to be isolated to one or two cylinders, based on the way it runs. Just wanted to followup. On the plus side, a system that holds pressure is nice for restarting in general.

You'll save yourself a lot of time, money and aggravation, in both the short and long run, if you download the Factory Service Manual, and read the Engine Fuel chapter, and do some testing. It's free - http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html If "bit" means "not" then it's unlimely the dropping resistors are bad because they have nothing to do with power to the fuel pump. Blown fusible links or bad connections are a more limely cause. Good luck.

They don't really do much work besides convert a small amount of electricity to heat. I don't think that they go bad very often. Have you measured resistance and continuity? The test is described in the FSM Engine Fuel chapter.

You didn't provide the details or reason for your swap, but I had a problem with my tach after modifying the ignition system and found that an extra condenser/capacitor on the coil negative post fixed the problem. But my tach needle would just bounce and jitter at zero, it's not clear in your case what you mean by "not work". I swapped all of the 76 parts out though, so this might not help your situation. You do know that the 76 coil is a low current coil and uses a ballast resistor to drop the voltage when running, but the 81 coil has no ballast resistor and uses the full 12 volts and full current. Did you do any other modifications or just swap the coil? Edit - just saw the part about the 81 ZX distributor. So you're using the E12-80 module? Did you disconnect the 76 ignition module by the fuse box? It's not necessary any more. Maybe it's interfering. You can just disconnect each wire and cover them up to avoid shorts, since some of them are hot when the key is on.

Whoops. Here it is - http://courtesyparts.com/ Don't try to put you vehicle description into the Search box, just put the part number in the box on the right. I have ordered directly from the web site, but you can call them too. Good luck.

This mighthelp you out - http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsunS30/DatsunZIndex/PowerTrain/TransmissionGears/4Speed/tabid/1707/Default.aspx Find your part number, then go here - http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsunS30/DatsunZIndex/PowerTrain/TransmissionGears/4Speed/tabid/1707/Default.aspx and put the part number in the search box. The one I picked actually shows as available but I don't think you'll know for sure until you call or order it. Notice also that there are two 1971 4 speeds. If you have a post august 71 4 speed, it looks like any 4 speed after that might have a gear set that would swap in, based on the "superceded" comments. Probably cheaper to get a later model 4 or 5 speed and swap.

It could also be the brake pressure differential switch, either stuck or indicating low pressure in one half of the brake system. How do the brakes work on the car? Does the light go off if you pump the brakes?

Are you sure that you unplugged the right relay? Since you have the AFM switch, and the one wire oil pressure sender, the relay should be a 1x1x2" silver box, with two connectors and 11 pins.

I can't decipher your train-of-thought-dump-to-paper writing of your results and don't want to open an FSM to try and figure out what you're reporting, but you must have power to the injectors if they spray fuel when you ground the pins at the ECU. You said that you had continuity from Pin 1 at the ECU to the negative side of the coil (I think). If this is the case, and you want to test the whole circuit and the ECU, then take a jumper wire and connect it to the negative terminal of the coil, leaving the other end free but not touching anything. Turn the key on (listen for the fuel pump to be sure that you have fuel), and tap the end of the coil negative jumper to ground quickly. Every third tap, the injectors should click. If they do, that means the circuit is correct and complete and the ECU is seeing the negative side of the coil. If they don't, and you have Pin 1 connected to coil negative, then you might be missing the resistor in the tachometer wire. Or your tachometer is disconnected. The ECU needs that wire and resistor to work right.

Pretty normal for a car that's been sitting for many years, except for the moaning steering rack. If you put the old parts back in maybe they weren't so fine. The good news is that all of the other things have been covered many times on the forums. Check that you didn't put the calipers on the wrong sides with the bleeder on the bottom. you should be able to bleed them even with a whooshing booster. The whooshing probably means that you need a replacement booster.

If the cam is on the base circle (off of the ramp to the lobe) it shouldn't matter whether the chain is loose or tight. The cam's action on the rocker arm is independent of the chain. A fine point, but one less thing to worry about. I use the high gear and roll it by hand method. It's so easy that I bent my license plate on the garage recycle bin. I would rather use the crank snout bolt but I can't get a tool and my hand down there past the fan shroud.

That's why it's a "funny?" story and I'll be driving at low speeds if I ever have to put it on. It's better than a flat spare.

My spare tire has been flat for quite while, it won't hold air since the rim had rusted and pitted from sitting in the water-filled wheel well before I got the car. I was in the wrecking yard looking for a short drive shaft from an early 240Z and thought the local 1971 240Z might have one. The drive shaft was the typical 280Z length, so that was a no-go, but the spare tire in the car still had air pressure and looked in decent shape. So I bought it for $15. I just looked up Bridgestone RD-150 to see what I had and how old it might be and find that it's probably the original 1971 spare tire. 40+ years old. They sold it to me as a "space saver" mini doughnut tire so I guess I'll use it the same way and stay at low speed if I ever have to put it on.

Agree with Blue, take some good pictures of everything, including parts like the distributor advance mechanism. A video of the engine running would be even better, if you have an ECU and an AFM you can get it running on a stand. There are lots of used engines out there but most of them are mystery motors, that have been sitting for years. Somebody who needs an engine would probably pay a premium to know that it's ready to drop in and run.