rcb280z

It does bled off. As a matter of fact it bleeds down to "0" in about 3 hours. Keep in mind I have an aftermarket fuel pump and no I don't remember witch one. Installed it about 18 years ago. But its bled off for several years now. It's been doing this for a little while now (a year?) and I've now decided I want to fix it. There are times it fires right up and others not. The fuel pressure gauge pressurizes in about a second so I know fuel is getting there quick. So when it does start the way its supposed to in the morning I'm guessing there is maybe residual fuel in the cold start injector, just enough to start the engine and at that moment the fuel rail has pressurized enough to keep the engine going, maybe? Today is one of those days that it worked perfect. I heard the cold start injector fire, click sound, and within a split second the engine was purring away. There is another member that suggested I look into the ignition switch. Guess I can do that next. Just hope I stay motivated to keep plugging away at fixing it. I'm curious as to what it could be. All the resistance readings are good, as you verified as well. So I'm baffled.

Oh yeah that's right! Thanks ZH for clarifying.

Let me try and rephrase. Will the injectors fire fuel in either of the 2 instances, 1- disconnecting starter solenoid wire and turning key to start position. 2-manipulating afm flap with key in on position. Sorry I didn't make myself clear the first time. Or does it just pressurize the fuel rail?

Wont that fire the injectors if I do it that way? Or does manipulating the afm flap do the same? I thought the afm flap only pressurized the fuel rail. Why am I confused about this right now.

Have done all that. I do have a fuel pressure gauge installed. I have an aftermarket fuel pump installed. Not sure there is a check valve like the OE pump has. I usually power the pump thru the afm, the cover is held in place with zip ties. It always pressurizes the system right away so I know flow is good. I'm just being anal about it probably. It used to work so I feel it should still work and that there is probably something wrong if it isn't. Know what I mean?

Cool. I'm running with that. So now that I know my "cold" start system is right it's on to figuring out why I have a difficult starting problem on warmer mornings after it has sat overnight, having to crank it a few time before it starts. Kinda like a cold carb with no choke. Will start a new thread after searching this forum first. Thanks to all for the help.

Yeah I've been wanting to do the same thing.

Its from the bullet connectors of the harness leading back to the ECU. Not sure I did that right though. I was reading both wires at the same time, if that makes sense. I shouldn't of had any reading right? So is that resistance reading at the ECU? And yes it was 60F in my garage this morning.

Yeah its a learning experience and me likes that . Cliff I think you are talking about the AFR gauge etc. setup right?

Oh okay, I understand. I did get it to smooth out the idle some though. Wow 27%? That's a lot.

Went for a drive. I guess my expectations were a little too high, maybe? It's not a considerable amount but maybe a slight measurable increase in performance. I don't expect turbo power here. Just something more than I did feel. What kind of increase in performance has everyone noticed, or did you?

Yeah I can smooth out the idle for sure so I expect my drive will be fun. Going for a drive soon. Will report back. So the plan is to set her up to pass emissions testing standards (when its time) and dial her in to run good the rest of the time.

UPDATE So, I connected the "pot / rheostat" again and this time I got different results. So my hunch, at 2 a.m., was correct. Guess "maybe" the connector without the "pot" was not connected. It's the only reason I can come up with as to why things happened the way they did. Took some measurements today, they are as follows. Pot in closed position fully open position CTS cold reading CTS ECU harness CTS warm reading And I also measured 1.82 across the CTS ECU harness after warm.

And at that price I would expect the dash to be "restored" and not have a half dash cap on it!

This is true. No I did not. Started to panic, thought I screwed something up, so I put everything back to the way it was. Now that I've had time to think about it I think I know what may have happened and will test it again. It came to me in the middle of the night, woke up thinking about it. Maybe the other connector was not connected properly, really didn't have to be unplugged, but possible. For some reason it woke me up so there may be something there to investigate.

I don't understand the "Made no difference" after he installed the potentiometer. Should have made a noticeable difference right? Read my Potentiometer thread. I definitely noticed a big difference.

Yeah it's not a big deal. It answered some questions, so not a loss. Now where do you think his nose has been? Just one! Light weight

Have you tried cleaning the glass. Maybe the roller is picking up or smudging a film that is already on the glass. It's hard to keep the glass clean here. Takes a lot of scrubbing to get rid of the film on the inside of my windows.

So just for SAG's I decided to install the "pot" everyone's talking about. I ordered one thru zcardepot for 4 bucks. Wired it up. Simple, took maybe 20 minutes. Half of that was setting up soldering iron, etc. Installed it in the CTS harness, again, simple. Started it up and almost immediately it started to stumble. I figured I had set it wrong and turned the knob on the pot the opposite way. It got worse. Had to throttle it to keep it running. I turned the knob back and forth a couple of times with the same results. I disconnected it from the CTS harness, reconnected the original harness, started it and it ran fine. The reason I installed it, outside of curiosity, was to see if it would help with the start up on warmer days. Cold days are perfect, fires right up. But after sitting over night, then trying to start it first thing in the morning it's "harder" to get started. 2 to 3 tries. The pot did help with that warm morning start up though. It started almost immediately. So now I know I don't have that "lean" running condition that I've read a lot about. And that's why I have to play around with FI before emissions testing every time I have to smog it. So I'm surprised that there was no effect for DC871F when he installed it on his ZX. Should have shown something. Anyway, here's a pic of the pot from zcardepot. Oh forgot to mention, It was getting too much fuel. Thats why the stumble. You could smell it running real rich.

He needs the later one. 12-92. I have that graph also, just forgot I did.

Just in case a "3rd" try doesn't work, Rockauto has them. And I guess there is a difference between the 79-80 and 81-83 n/a model distributor so beware. Not sure what the diff is but...... A-1 CARDONE 31619 {#D6K8003, D6K803, D6K822, D6K826, D6K901, D6K908, D6K909, D6K914} Reman. Distributor (Electronic) (Sweepstakes Entry!) Info $88.99 $20.00 $108.99 A A-1 CARDONE 311002 {#22100P9100, 22100W3100, 22100W4800, 22100W4801, D6K8101, D6K811, D6K8202, D6K901} Reman. Distributor (Electronic) (Sweepstakes Entry!) Info $144.79 $25.00 $169.79 Hope this helps.

It has an egr, and if it has a catalytic converter they will run the emissions as a CA car IIRC. Mine is a CA car and its a PITA to pass emissions

Maybe posting a pic of it running might help to sell it. The last pic makes me doubt it runs because of the mess of brackets and what not in front of the battery. Looks like a lot of disconnected relays etc,

Makes sense. This is a weird one for sure.

Would the potentiometer make up for that dead spot?