MotoManMike

Let us know what you think of it. They look pretty nice. Pricy but hey, I don't know what it costs MSA to have them produced so I can't judge it.

Jack stand races are on. I plan on doing one saturday :/

Hard starting. If I keep my valves adjusted on my car its like night and day to how it starts. If I keep my valves adjusted my L24 fires right up very low crank time if any in the summer. Winter its a crank or two and it fires up but in the cold a poor valve adjustment can leave you cranking for a long time before a start has been my experience with this old motor. I rarely have to use the chokes if I keep them spot on. I've done the valve adjustments cold and hot. I have not figured out whether one is better than the other but most people and the FSM's tell you to do a warm engine adjustment.

Look to the west. Its much cheaper to pay for shipping than for body work. Thats the best advice I can give you, you seem to know where to look but even a decent resto can rust underneath the paint in a few years. Good luck.

These cars are reliable once you work out the initial neglect. It takes alot of time and patience but if you are persistant and do not give up you will be pleased. The blocks are damn near bullet proof in NA trim. They take ALOT of abuse. Keep the valves adjusted and they start very reliably also. The other gadgetry on the cars got a little more complex as time went on but mostly the issues stem from poor connections or corrosion on the plugs. Don't give up.

Getting even closer to driving. Its running again Exhaust is getting welded up today. Now just to tune and button up a few things. The pictures above show where I had buttoned up the wiring and tucked it nice. Bad mistake, I had to end up unwrapping everything to change a few things around but its back together now. Wiring is all over the place in the video.

I also have one available. It is fresh out of the box, a reman. I was going to use it in this build but went with megasquirt so I never installed it. Let me know if you still need. They aren't cheap but i'll let it go for $100. Pretty sure it was in the $250 range and are discontinued from what was stamped on the receipt.

Wait, you did the swap and I want to know, did you do anything to your existing T plug? If you did not cut off your existing T plug and wire it correctly I'm positive you have an alternator that is calling or pulling for power while the car is off. This is very common with the alternator swaps because the wiring to activate the new 60 amp alternator is different than that of the old alternator. Your wiring should be like this. Top of the T the part that runs horizontal is your "sense" wire. It you have 12 v constant. I typically cut that wire, put an eyelet on it and jump it direct to the battery stud. The bottom portion of the T plug, should be your switched power and should have a diode inline with it. If not your car will start and charge but typically that style alternator will backfeed out of that terminal and will not allow you to shut the engine off without the diode inline. Diodes are cheap, you can find them at radioshack for less than $5 a pack. Hope this helps. If its not a true "drain" on the system. Then you obviously have a bad battery. I'm going to assume you checked that first but if you have not checked that, please do as any starting or charging issues diagnosis should follow 3 rules. Suspect in order. Battery, cables, components in system. ALWAYS in that order. You don't know how many times a week I see someone griping about how their car won't start or won't charge and they SWEAR that battery is good/new, or those cables are good and I find otherwise. Good luck.

I feel in a restore, its best to keep the original color and would fetch the most money at a sale. I have 2 orange Z's, I think they look great in orange. I think the Z looks good in pretty much any color though, whether it be primer gray or restored shiny. I have 2 73's, and they both look orange but one is the "red" everyone refers too and is more of a brick orange than red, and the other 73 is orange a lighter orange, I like the red much better.

I'm pretty sure the P terminal is a tach output. Some alternators have an output for an electronic tach that puts out about half the charging voltage or so. You definitely have the 10mm bolt hole version.

There are Two Versions Here - The Standard Stator (204-130) With a "Step" on the Rear Housing Just Above the Mounting Hole, and the Wider Stator (204-130A) With No Short Note NISSAN MAXIMA 1981-84 1-V PULLEY, 74MM OD, 17MM ID NOTE: RAISED REAR HOUSING SEE: 204-130A (SAME) "Step" on the Rear. This Unit Has Special "P"-Terminal On the Rear of the Alternator. Use 14185 If No "P"-Terminal is Needed. A 14303 (With the Large 139mm Diameter Stator Stack) Looks Very Similar to This, Except the Bottom Mounting Holes are 10mm (14303) Instead of 8mm (14592), and the 14303 Has No "P" Terminal. It would appear you have the 14303 with the 10mm mounting holes. This info is from our internal alternator and starter cross reference database at work. NISSAN Car & Lt Trk 280Z, 280ZX 2.8L 1981-1983 MAXIMA 2.4L 1981-1984

Thats a good price for that car. Its a solid foundation, very minimal issues to start with. You are lucky to have found one in such shape. Glad it found another owner who will take great care of it. Congratulations. You picked the best color too IMO!! As for the intake manifold, It looks like the smog system has been deleted already. To clean it up further you could get a header or try to remove the header that is on it and remove the tubes on each pipe but most of the time they are so seized with rust its a real fight. Somone has already put the earlier SU carbs on it for you and they appear to be pretty fresh from looking from the outside. They perform WAY better than the original 73 carbs. Depending on how much you want to keep it original many of the things i've said stray farther from it. I really like the way these carbs look with the what I call "euro" style pod filers on them removing the big bulky air cleaner box. Black dragon auto has them. I've got them on my L24 powered Z and noticed a little performance gain with them. Not much I will say but noticeable enough for me to not go back. Have you popped the distributor cap off yet to see if it is still points ignition?

At this point, i'd race a kid on a tri-cycle if I could. I want to get this car going, its been way too long for me.

Sooooo its been a few weeks since i've posted much of anything on the 240z #2 i've aquired. So here we go. Suspension up front is complete. Eibach springs and KYB's for now. If I don't like them i'll put them on the other car. 280z fuel tank installed New fuel lines ran New pump installed GLS392 Walbro L28 turbo clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel installed L28ET is in Megasquirt relay board is wired. 240sx TPS installed Innovate LC-1 installed and hodge podge A-pillar mount installed MSA downpipe installed. I'm waiting on my Megasquirt II to get back to me. I had an issue with it initially and the injector bank 1 was constantly grounded. I got an email today that said it will be on its way to me tomorrow so maybe i'll see it by Saturday if i'm really lucky but looks more like Monday. Either way Matt has been very good about everything and appears it was covered by warranty so i'm very thankful for that because this build has gone WAAAY over budget as usual. Things left to do Finish exhaust Do something with the really worn looking valve cover tuck and loom wiring(waiting until I have my car started and idling on MS) Figure out my fuel tank filler neck lenght/fitment issue plug the EGR bottom tube I'm sure i forgot 3 things Pics to come shortly. I'm working on shrinking them.

Really nice Z. Even better Username . Ninjazombiemaster, thats just awesome.

i could have my own game show with my phantom wire assortment at the moment. AFM for sure.

Just curious how high does your engine idle?

That should weld up just fine as long as they clean the area really well before starting. Put it this way, if welded right, it won't break at the weld again but might another spot.

Did you ever make any progress with this? I'm went for a megasquirt II, i'm like a kid waiting for christmas waiting for it to get here. Everything else on my swap is complete it will start but the old ECU is fried. I can't wait to get this wired up and fired up!!!

Drove the crap out of my 240Z today and loved every minute of it I also orderd megasquirt II and got an LC-1 wideband for my turbo car. Guy at the swap meet here had the LC1 from an abandoned project new in box with the gauge. I can't wait until the megasquirt gets here.

This thread is a little old but I wanted to express my agreement with you Jimbob. I emailed Billy, hopefully I will get a good reply. I've got 2 Z's ones the old faithfull carbed L24. The other is undergoing the L28ET swap. The swap is done, motor will start and idle, but the lean condition is also an issue of mine. It pops and backfires as soon as throttle is applied. All new fuel system, all new lines, pump, injectors, regulator, etc etc. The gremlins are in the wiring. I've ordered all the plugs I can source to re do them. If that doesn't fix my lean condition instead of dropping anymore money in this crap stock set up i will probably go MS. I'll spend as much time doing that set up as I have troubleshooting this one, maybe less. It seems intimidating to me but support seems good. I couldn't even begin to know where to start ordering something from them there are so many components. One note, I see when guys have ordered these units they have to solder jumpers on the circuit boards and jump pins, that seems a little more than most want to do, I solder alot, I've soldered alot of gauge pods for people in old trucks and busses but that percentage of failure just has me worried If i do have to go with a MS. I wouldn't want to ruin a brand new $350 board.

Maybe its for his ooing and aahing baaahahahahahah

If you are certain your cooling system is up to par, your fan is good, oil flow is good through the motor. I suspect and intake leak causing a lean condition. Its a thought worth investigating. I know you said you have a holley on it, that doesn't mean its flowing the right amount of fuel. Lots of thoughts I would spout off have been mentioned above but reading all the posts this is what comes to mind. On another thought, how do you "know" the gauge is good, have you used a infared temperature meter on the engine? Those little tools are handy for just this purpose of testing heat.

The alternator will cause a draw if the alternator has been changed to an internally regulated one and the pin configuration not changed properly to coorelate with the new regulator T plug configuration on the back of the alternator, my car did it when I first did my alternator swap because I had my constant hot to the wrong pin. Batteries will lose 1 percent of their charge on average a day once they have been put into cycle. I love drains, its what I diagnose weekly. Most DC electrical specialist can figure it out in an hour. Find an alternator starter shop, they usually can find them pretty quick, sometimes easier than trying yourself. You are replacing alternators because everytime you drive they are trying to charge a severely discharged battery which they are not meant to do. Good luck, I suspect like they have said alternator or stereo although I have seen relays "stick" because the voltage dropped so low and welded itself inside. Just for giggles unplug the T plug to your alternator and see if that makes a change, if you can see it on the ammeter its a decent size draw. Mine had an amp and a half draw when my alternator was not wired right, it would kill it stone dead in a day.

Good luck, I can see why you'd jump. The BRZ is a nicely thought out build. I had a 240sx years ago(reminds me of what they are tying to market now with the BRZ, RWD affordable sporty car) I logged 100k miles in that car, swore i'd never sell it but when the drift scene got big, the cops got noticeably more in tune with what it was , it was pretty much a sleeper car down the stock alloy mags but it was packing all the right stuff underneath, RB20, teins etc etc, keep in mind this was when hardly any of the population here even knew what the hell drifting was or what an RB motor was and motor swaps were way exotic. I paid $450 for that RB package with the harness and trans, I didn't have to source a single running component for that motor set. However I couldn't deal with fuzz it drew after all the people went crazy over drifting I had to get out the S13 was a marked car. I hope that isn't how it ends up with these cars because they are very well suited for drifting and i'm sure there will be plenty who back them into a ditch trying. I like them, I'm 32 and it does appeal to me very much. I came really close to signing the paper on one but I like my old Z' too much to let one go. Let us know how you end up making out with the sale, thats a really nice Z.