Zed Head

Turbos weren't introduced until 1981 so 1978 would have to be a modification or engine transplant. The VINs on these cars don't seem to fit any of the common VIN databases so there's no source of information readily available. And by 1978 Nissan stopped putting the engine serial number on the car's ID plate so there's no way to connect the engine serial number to the car. There's only one good way to get information. Go look. Good luck. Pictures though, would be happily viewed and commented on if you have them.

Here's something that I've seen on my car. I don't completely understand why but I've seen it on two cars and verified it on my 76 (the other was 78 so you're bracketed). If the tachometer is disconnected the ECU won't ground the injectors correctly. The circuit from the negative post is branched, so you'll still see continuity but it just won't work. I assume that the ECU sees two much current or voltage without the tachometer drawing things down. For anyone that wants to verify it, easily, find the lump in the wiring harness under the dash over by the fuse box. That is the resistor that is in-line with the tachometer. Unpeel the tape, remove it, and try to start the engine. I actually knocked mine partially loose while installing a relay, drove in to town, parked for a while and had a no-start when I came back. I remembered that I had just worked in that area, looked on the passenger side floor and the resistor was laying there. Put it back in and it started right up.

You can lead a guy to the FSM, but you can't make him open it. Har har hardy har. It's a bread crumb. It's from the Engine Fuel chapter of the 1978 Factory Service Manual (FSM). That thing that we keep mentioning. From XenonsS30. It has smaller, specific wiring diagrams in it also, easier to work with than the the big one, although the big one is worth having also. Not kidding! It will help you out.

Yes, I meant turn it backwards. I didn't know you were using a remote starter. Doubtful that you'll get it to stop on the spot with that. 12 o'clock is pretty good. I think that the damper bolt is 27 mm. It's difficult to get to though, at least on my car, from the top. Another way to do it is to put the transmission in 5th gear, then nudge the car forward or backward while watching the mark. Probably easiest with the plugs out. You can fine tune the movement by grabbing a tire and turning it. You might have to go forward and backward a few times to get it on the spot since it's easy to go too far.

Here's a start.

You're looking in the right spot but it looks like you might have turned things too far. You should set the notch on your damper pulley to zero (where you look to set your ignition timing) to be at TDC. The cam lobes will be up if you're on the compression stroke. Sounds like you're almost there. Back the pulley notch through zero, and down to about the first or second mark (5 or 10 degrees) on the timing marker. Then reverse rotation and move the pulley notch back slowly through 10 and 5 degrees to zero and stop. If you accidentally go past, try again. This will stretch the chain in the direction of rotation, as it would be in operation. The groove should be visible then, close to the V notch in your pictures.

Taking the problem to what we called when I was getting educated, "first principles", the slave cylinder should only get pushed all the way out if it is starting from a point close to the end of its cylinder, since it is designed to work with the stroke of the master cylinder. If the slave piston starts from the right spot, the master cylinder can't push it out because it doesn't have the volume (you didn't install a bigger bore master cylinder, did you?). So, for whatever reason, your slave cylinder piston is farther down its bore than it should be. Assuming that nothing is cracking, bent, broken or wearing out, like the clutch fork or collar or pressure plate fingers, then the fix is a longer rod. That will push the slave cylinder piston back up the bore to a new starting spot so that it can get its job done before it pops out. I believe that the only thing determines the piston's resting point, is the tip of the clutch fork, which is determined by the pressure plate fingers pushing back on the collar, pushing on the fork. Can't say what was happening before, but that seems like the best fix. Worst case, you cause some funky wear on the pressure plate and/or collar but you're thinking of replacing them anyway. It's a "can't lose for trying" effort, I think.

Just noticed the "new RX7 fuel pump". Maybe you're getting too much fuel pressure to the carbs. I don't know anything about SK/OER carbs. Maybe a defective/sunk float or bad needle valve. Most of your signs point to flooding.

What was on the car before and how well did it work? Hard to tell if you've accidentally created a new problem or if you were trying to fix an old one. If it worked before, then something's changed, if not, maybe it was never right.

Marty Rogan's post on the racer's trick reminded me that, where air bubbles are concerned, you might be missing something. Others have found that, although the bleed points looked like they were correct, they weren't actually at the very top of the cylinder, where the air bubble is. You might have two choices of up or down, but the "up" is not the "top" where it has to be. Some people have removed the calipers and repositioned them so that the bleed point was definitely at the top, then bled them with the calipers unbolted. You just have to make sure they squeeze on the rotor, or insert a block of wood in to the space. The racer's trick probably works because it squeezes almost all of the fluid out of the cylinder so the bubble gets pressed out even if it's not at the top.

#3 looks so dry and clean that the injector might not be opening at all. Might be worthwhile to put it back together, start it up, and remove the injector connectors one at a time. Each one should cause a drop in RPM when it's removed. If #3 is "dead" there won't be any change. Then, if you find no change with #3, swap 3 and 4 or 3 and 2 and do the test again. See if the problem stays on injector #3 or follows connector #3. It will tell you if it's the injector or cylinder, versus just the injector connection. If it stays with cylinder #3, and the spark plug has stayed dry, the odds are good that it's an injector problem. If the spark plug comes out wet, it's probably a spark problem.

You can remove the transmission without removing the engine. It's commonly done when swapping transmissions and not too difficult. Make sure that you get the car high enough to slide the transmission out from underneath before you start. It's really a pain to try to raise the car a little more when you have the back of the engine supported with blocks or a jack. I've found that the car's scissor jack is excellent for supporting the back of the engine, it allows you adjust it up or down as needed to get the proper angle. 92 mm is approximately the distance that you want from the surface that the clutch fork rides on the throwout collar to the surface of the fly wheel. Might be difficult to measure from under the car. Might be worth your time to install a new clutch set while you're there.

Not sure where intelligence comes in to play for not getting something put back together. Maybe he just found something better to do. You spent $2000 and have a car that that doesn't run! What did you spend the two grand on and what's your goal with the "project"?

The Engine Fuel chapter of the FSM (Factory Service Manual) has an excellent description of how the parts work together. The Emissions chapter describes the parts that some people like to remove. The EFI (not sure what you mean by PFI) system needs all of the pieces working correctly for the whole system to run the engine well. A typical problem that people have with the EFI system is a vacuum leak. All fresh air (as opposed to EGR gas) must pass through the Air Flow Meter (AFM) for the ECU to meter the right amount of fuel by controlling injector time. The PCV system is connected to the intake system so even a missing dipstick will affect performance. It's all in the FSM, it's a good read. XenonS30 (in SteveJ's sig also) If you come back with some specifics, someone will probably have an idea.

These could all apply to America's current business and political practices. As for the first one, I went to school with an American machinist back in the 80's and he was making injection molds on the side, of a copy of an American product, for an Asian company so that they could make rip-offs in Asia to sell to the world. He used to complain about the work going "off-shore" until the opportunity came to make money from an "off-shore" company. People, around the world, just do what makes money. Calling it a "Chinese" problem isn't keeping up with how things really work. There are probably just as many Americans, or non-Chinese, leading the effort to bring these product in to the States and other countries. The Asian workers probably have no idea where the things they make are going. They just work for contractors who produce to the specs. they're given. I agree that we all should be aware of the counterfeiting problem but labeling it as Chinese only is misleading. Thanks for the links.

What kind of struts did you install? Illuminas set on 5, HP's, KYB's? The shocks themselves can affect the harshness of the ride. And, as others have pointed out before, tire sidewall stiffness has a big effect. If you've got low profile tires, you might get a harsh ride. I have KYB's all aorund and I get very little bounce when I jump up and down on the bumpers (1976 so there's a good ledge to stand on). They just don't move very much at all. But the ride is still good, stiff but not harsh.

Weird that one side tightens up and the other doesn't. Implies that the second strut tube is longer. Or the insert/shock/strut is shorter. Or the gland nut is thinner at the load-bearing surface. Does the gland nut fit tight around the top of the shock? It should. Maybe the beat up nut you're using is the wrong one anyway. There are several varieties of gland nut out there, designed to match the shock.

If he gets power to the injectors he has power to the dropping resistors. And, the transistors used to "ground" the injectors still show 12 volts to the side of the connector that they're grounding. It's one of those confusing things with the solid state EFI system. Low current, high current. I'm no electronics whiz but I did get caught for a while on the weird injector connector measurements in the past.

I would just check power at the injector connectors and continuity to Pin 1 at the ECU. If you don't have power to the injectors, then check the circuit that supplies power through the dropping resistors. Maybe someone unplugged them for some reason. All of the other stuff seems okay. Moving the AFM flapper will power the fuel pump which could cause the FPR to make a noise. Once the fuel rail gets pressure the engine should run for at least a few seconds until pressure drops. Yours sounds like it's only running on the starter fluid fumes. But even that indicates that ignition is okay, it's fuel to the cylinders that's missing.

You might have a thin collar on a thin pressure plate. Some have just built a new longer rod and used that although that could create other problems. What kind of car and engine?

Seems like your injectors might not be firing. Have you measured voltage at the injector connectors? You need 12 volts on each pin (seems weird but it's right that way). Does the tachometer needle move when it starts on starter fluid? The blue wire from the negative terminal of the coil feeds the ignition module, the tachometer and the ECU. If you really want to confirm things are right, take the ECU connector off and measure continuity from Pin 1 to the negative side of the coil.

You might have to save for another four years. It's expensive and not easy. Here is a link to one route - Welcome to Modern Motorsports Ltd! + the cost of custom CV shafts + adapters for the CV shafts

You want to test the other side, female, on the harness side. You have your clip on the alternator side.

Your local auto parts store might have a loaner pressure tester. If you measure pressure then you'll know. Fuel pressure is key to proper EFI operation. Many have guessed their way around actually measuring and spent lots of unnecessary money. I think the full tank thing is if the pump runs completely dry, with a factory pump (maybe). I've run a 78 out of gas with an aftermarket pump and had no problems with just adding another gallon.

The fact that you can generate enough fuel pressure to start the engine by letting the pump run suggests that it might actually be a flow problem. A clogged inlet screen/sock in the tank seems like a possibility. You could check flow by removing the fuel line from before the filter and putting it in a bottle. Then move the AFM vane and see how much flow you get. You should get a pretty good stream of fuel out of the hose. The fuel pumps go bad pretty quickly though if they get rusty inside. Either way, a flow check will give a clue.