crazyoctopus

yes i have made sure the nozzles are up all the way every time i make an adjustment to the nut. they occasionally stick, but it doesnt seem like it'll be an issue since i no longer have the cables. I am running points; 3 week old cap, plugs, wires, and points. point gap set to .020, spark plug gap set to .035. I cleaned and made sure that both of the floats were at 24mm through the blow through method; blow through the inlet tube and once it stops the air that is where it'll sit, measured twice with calipers. the float needle, or whatever it is called, is the one from thezstore and stamped with 1.7, the older ones that i has were both 2.0; dont know if that could help. After i did this it seems that the car is running worse... i re-synced the carbs, adjusted richness on both carbs, and the rear is still much lower (near complete bottom) than the front. also noticed that i am spitting some white smoke out of the back of the car, so I am sure that i am running rich somewhere. tried to find if there was a vacuum leak, but the car never raised rpm wherever i squirted carb cleaner or brake cleaner. also noticed that the engine slows down its RPM whenever i turn on the e-fan, would this also mean that the spark plugs are getting less juice, and therefore not getting enough to explode all of the gas in the chamber? I have been planning on the GM alternator as well as the 280z HEI mod, but was kinda waiting to get this problem sorted out before i went crazy with that stuff.

okay so I replaced the fuel filter with a clear one, re-cleaned my needles, piston, and nozzle; set my timing to 12 not 8, the richness to 2.5 turns down; then tried to start her up again. with the lack of every bit of emmisions it takes a bit of work to get her running, but once she does start she is quick to turn over. once i got her running she was lean poping here and there so i made adjustments to both of the carbs and within about 5 min she was running normally. I checked to make sure that the carbs were synced, and there were a hair off so I made the adjustment. checked the richness of the carbs by the method decribed in classiczcar, and then sat in the car and this is what is going on. this is probably one of the best examples of what happens. I am making a run to the parts sotre and picking up some brake cleaner to see if there are any vaccum leaks after i post this, and then check the float level (forgot to check while i was cleaning). I am almost damn positive that it is a fuel at this point, and I am pretty sure it has to do with the rear carb. The reasons why I am moderatly sure that it is the rear is due to it needing a ton more richness. then again, it could be that vaccum leak and it needs a crazy amount of richness just to get the right mixture. On a related note, I think, I am occationally hearing rod knock sound coming from the rear of the engine, cyl 5 & 6ish. This is my first pistoned car and am not really used to sounds like this, but from what I have gathered does this mean that the rear is running lean? it doesnt happen all the time, and I have yet to really pinpoint when it exactly does. hopefully this will bring more light, and spark more ideas in your heads to help me figure out this issue.

Good idea; I'll check for it once I get everything back in place.

fuel filter is about a week old, but i'll be replacing it today with a clear one so that i can see when it gets dirty. i'll also be pulling the pistons, and nozzles out of the carbs to get another bit of cleaning on em. pull the mech fuel pump off and see if there needs to be any cleaning done there. going to re-set the timing to 12 deg, not 8ish. i'll let you know how it goes after the morning's coffee

Alrighty lets get to it. car: 10/1972 240z with an L24 and an E88. completely stock engine. I have recently been able to get my car to move under its own power, but it seems that problems keep coming about. Yesterday while taking her out for another test drive she drove fine for about 1/8th of a mile then she started to sputter, i gunned it and once i got past 3kish rpms the car pulled like I was hoping this car would be capable of. but as i started a to do some normal driving, 2k rpm cruising and 3krpm shifting the car started to sputter, lean pop, and backfire again and again. brought her back into the drive way and started testing there. she revved fine and it seems that whatever the problem was it was gone. and then after i let it idle for awhile it came back. so i came back here and started looking at what to do. This is what I have done in hopes to stop the problem. cleaned both of the carbs, replaced gaskets where needed checked float - 10.31mm checked timing - 0deg set valve clearance - with engine warm .012 exhaust .010 intake checked carb air balance - unisyn at idle checked carb fuel - tried colortune on cyl. 1 and 5, but it kept acting up and resorted to the SU carb tuning tech on classiczcar checked timing again - 0deg, and jumps to 20+ when at high rev. then I let the car sit for a night because it was getting cold and damp. double checked all of my info and found that: the timing should be at 7-10 deg not 0, i should balance the carbs at 3k rpm not idle, and colortune at 3k rpm on cyl 2 and 5. started the car up this morning, in hopes that it would all be sorted out with the inproper set up, but it obviously wasn't. here is a vid of the first start up that pop at the end is both backfire and a lean pop. awesome. So I started to re-tune everything. timing now set to 8ish deg synced the carbs with unisyn, backed down all of the screws equally and set idle to 650-700 rpm. turned off the car, and then pulled the #2 plug looks normal, and they are less than 20 miles old. stuck the colour tune on and here is what it is at idle and then i set the idle to 3k and tuned it. movie doesnt show it well, but color that I achieved, bunsen blue with hints of orange. turned off the car and pulled #5 plug tuned the rear carb at the same rpm and finally got the same color that I got in the front. then I checked to see if my needles and nozzles were binding. the rear piston is a bit harder to pull up than the front, so I am planning on dunmping the ATF and using some 10w30. To see how the carbs were actually balanced I used the lifting pin to see how the engine ran on only 1 carb. from what I have read about the pins, the carbs look to be too rich, but according to the colourtune they are at their best. So meh. Then I checked to see how the car revved through the power band. All of the jumping around is me playing with the throttle. It seems that all of my problems were solved! So I took a photo of my temp gauge to show you all what "normal temp" is on the car, to see if that is what everyone else sees. and while i was doing that the car started to act up again. so i checked to see if both carbs were actually working, twice. and showed you the difference in nozzle richness. So yeah... I have no idea what is wrong. please someone give me some advice. The only thing that I think it could be are the needles and/or nozzles, but why would it only happen after the car was warmed up, or under load?

favorite little memory device about spark plug order 15 is too young 36 is too old 24 is just right makes you laugh and set correct spark wire order!

this may be way too late, but why not put it in the rear seat bin like this... i haven't taken pictures of it with it all connected, but it fits perfectly. and with some rubber sheets to protect it from metal contact you are more than safe

i pulled all the plugs and put a piece of paper towel on the open holes (masking tape to hold it in place), let it crank for a few rounds and checked to see fi there was water on the paper towel. Nope! i moved the heat shield so that i could look at the bottom of the intake manifold, and the smog bung on the exhaust manifold waited to see where the vapor was coming from so then i plugged it all back in and let it run for a bit to see what would happen. after letting it warm up for a bit the vapor was gone! turns out it was just water that was sitting on the engine. she is purring like a kitten now and in a few hours or so i am goign to install a new temp sensor so I can see hot hot she is!

thanks again curtis!

it is the white smoke that dissipates so it is water. it could very well be just water vapor since it was sitting for a year in a garage, and outside these last 10 days. It would be great if it was just that, but knowing my luck it is a head gasket. it was only coming out of the drivers side, and it seemed like it was coming out from underneath the intake manifold so that is why i am thinking just a head gasket. I am going to try to find its exact location tomorrow when it is light out. if it was a blown head gasket, is there any harm in running it for a bit until I locate the point of vapor?

CURTIS YOU ARE MY SAVIOR! the brass connection on the distributor wasn't conducive, so i replaced it with one that i made and BOOM it ran. http://img19.yfrog.com/i/151.mp4/ there is some smoke coming out, of what i think, is the head and block. which means that i need to probably replace the head gasket, but that shouldnt be too much of a hastle! thank you again curtis, that explanation of how the connections worked solved everything. when you are in southern california, let me know and your drinks are on me!

yellow wire is going to the oil pressure sensor, or a sensor of some type at the front of the engine. Now it makes all the sense in the world about that short black wire. right now it is not connected to anything then, and therefore not be giving me a ground. the brown wire heading toward the engine is connected to the dizzy condenser. so if i remove the short black wire from the (-) side of the coil and the hard line ground to the strut tower, but keep the brown wire heading to the dizzy condenser i should be getting spark! sweet, i'll get that done first thing in the morn and let you know the details. Thanks Curtis for the explanation!

ooOOOoo, so the black wire (#3 in first post) that is connected to the negative side of the coil currently is not supposed to be there. weird. from all of the posts that i have read there has always been a discussion about having that one attached (BW & GW to + of coil, and B to -). where does that black wire go then?

Alright I'll try it In the morning; but I can't remember the coil getting any power through it without the ground hardlined. I'll let you all know what happens when I get it back up to the cables

i actually have both now. i have a hard wire to ground, as well as a wire to the points. the only way that i was able to get any power running through the coil was if i hard lined a ground on the negative side of the coil. here is a photo of what the current set up is... -escanlon i have a new coil, dist cap, points, rotor, spark plug wires, spark plugs, and dist. condensor. i am picking up a new coil resistor, and radio interference condenser tomorrow

alright, so i checked the wire to the back of the tach, and that was fine, all of the wires were solid. i took out my volt meter and found that i was getting 13V from the BW wire on the resistor to the GW wire on the reisistor. when i tested the power from the + side of hte coil to the - side of the coil it read 0V. started looking at the connections, recleaned them, replaced the plugs and tried again. same results. since we were getting power to the resistor but not through the coil i figured that it might be a bad ground (B wire on - side of coil). so i added a ground wire to it, and FINALLY got voltage running through the coil. while key is in the "ON" position and resistor connected i was getting... +/- on coil is 6V +/- on resistor is 6V High tension (nipple from coil to distributor) to (-) on coil is 6v while cranking the car +/- on coil is 7.75V +/- on resistor is 0V High tension (nipple from coil to distributor) to (-) on coil is 8v this is where it gets weird. when i connect the voltmeter to the the distributor cable it shows no volts running through it. when i take off a spark plug wire at any cylinder there is no spark running through it. so i dunno, the coil now has power going through it. but whenever itwants to transfer to the distributor it shows no voltage, and i would think that there would be. so what is the next plan of attack? is it in the distributor? i replaced the points, rotor, condensor, and cap.

kk will do, and thanks for the link. the car was made in 10/72, so that makes it a series 3, and closer to a 73; but every now and then the wiring seems closer to a 72, than a 73.

alrighty, so i recently bought a 73 240z project car and i am stuck. the problem started with no fuel, but the fuel pump was bad, so i swapped in a new one and other than the lines being clogged, that issue is resolved. then i checked to see if i was getting spark, and i was not. so i replaced the distributor cap, points, rotor (the guy that spins in the distributor), coil, spark plugs, and plug wires (installed correctly checked twice). still no spark. so i started to forum search to try to diagnose the problem. ==to check if i got spark or not i removed the plug wire from the #1 spark plug and put it close to the block, head, and spark lug to see if it arced. -I checked to see if the coil was getting power by removing the ground wire, attaching a new one, and seeing if there was spark whever i touched it to brae metal. -hard lined positive end of the coil to the positive terminal on the battery, hard lined a new ground to the negative side of the terminal, checked to see if i got spark, nope. there are a few things attached to the coil and distributor that i am not really sure if i need them/ what they attach to, and they might be what is causing the no spark. here is the coil 1. is a coil condenser? i think. this came with the car and the wire was borken so i spliced it back together 2. BY wire, is a wire that goes to, i think, the ignition. 3. is possibly a ground but i have no idea where it grounds out 4. i have no idea what relay it is 5. i have no idea what this is here is the distributor here is a condenser that i replaced, and there is a prong sitting at teh top of it that apparently goes to the coil negative side, but where would i connect it.