Classic83owner

Hey, I do understand. But I know someone has tried this. I guess I should take this as not much luck with seal kits. I don't like talking about my failures either, .

Yea I do got a miss at normal temp that seems related to the other problem. At idle it will sometimes drop RPM and almost stall with an erratic miss. I can give it some gas and it runs fine until I hit about 3200 RPM where it stumbles and falls on it's face. Doesn't matter if it's under load or not. It doesnt do either when it's under about 170 degrees. This saturday I'm installing a new o2 sensor and moving it's location closer to the head. I'm running a 6-2-1 header and I currently have it at the collector. Previous thinking was that I would get better readings using gases mixed from more cylinders. Now I realize that it's not getting hot enough to read right when the other sensors tell the ECU it's running at normal temp. Did you see my o2 sensor testing post that I found on ALLDATA? This is word for word courtesy of ALLDATA: 1) Disconnect the oxygen sensor pigtail and connect a high-impedance VOM with the positive lead on the pigtail and the negative lead to a good ground. 2) Start the engine and let it warm up, if equipped with an air injection system, disable the system so as not to get false tailpipe readings. 3) Grab the disconnected wire that goes from the oxygen sensor to the ECU with one hand. With the other hand touch the negative battery post or a good ground. The readings should increase on the VOM up to approx. 1 volt and there should be an increase in tailpipe CO. 4) Move your hand from the ground side to the positive post of the battery. Your body will act as a proper resistor and allow a small voltage to the ECU. The VOM reading should fall to almost 0 volts and the CO reading at the tailpipe should go down. 5) If the tailpipe readings acted accordingly but the VOM readings from the oxygen sensor did not go up and down, the sensor is defective. I didn't have a gas analyzer to use but I could tell by the way it ran during this test that it was running rich and lean when it should... but my voltage readings never went above .675 and the drop was slooooow to about .375 after 90 seconds or so and slowly ticking down. Gotta be it's location. If I move it I might as well use a new one right? I'll check back tonight or early tomorrow for your results. Thanks for your help!!!

I did compare the two and they were the same, but I don't have the distributor mount anymore that was on it and never compared the length of those two. The timing set screw was positioned different and the plate on the bottom of the distributor was different as well so I just swaped the mount with the PO who still has the original block. Pointer wasn't there at all. Thanks for the info on a new pointer. Also, I've noticed another thing that worries me that may be related. After the car has warmed up I get a weird fluctuation on the tach on decelerarion. I got the digital dash and when I let off the gas and during shifts the tach will flutter upwards maybe 500 RPM, real erratic like and bouncing all around. Again thank you for the reply and I'll check eBay for the pointer.

I thought that was the reason for seperate forums for S30's and S130's, so you could ask people who have been there and done that on either the first or the second gen Z/ZX's. After all, there were plenty of views, just nobody was kind enough to reply. Or maybe everyone else would rather just buy a new rack and be done with it. I just thought someone might have tried a seal kit and would share their experience with doing so. Excuse me for my assumption.

Since nobody was kind enough to give advise I said screw it and dumped in a bottle of Lucas. Slowed it down to a minor drip. Maybe a seal kit when it gets worse.

Wade, you probably have crappy injectors. Disconnect as Zed said and do a pressure drop test. My experience has taught me to always buy quality injectors. I got some spare ones I can send you. Just give me a call if you need a few. By the way, how's the tranny working for you?

Does anyone know if someone makes frame rail kits for a ZX like the ones Bad Dog Parts makes for the early Z's ? Mine are showing a speed bump or two and I'd like to fix them before painting the car.

Details please. Year mostly. I just installed a Pioneer in my 83 2+2. My factory digital unit had one connector for battery power, ign. power, ground, and antenna signal. AND it had a second connector for speaker output. I just probed the wires in the first with a 12 V test light with the key on and off to determine which were which. Of course the black is the ground, cant remember the colors of the power wires, but I can tell you that the factory stereo had a green wire (12 V output) that goes to the antenna timer. That is the one you would connect to the blue wire of your new head unit for the power antenna. I also mounted the factory mid/long range antenna switch in the factory location to retain the factory function of the antenna.

Hi everyone. Has anyone had any luck in installing a power rack and pinion seal kit? This car had sat up for two plus years and now the rack leaks from both bellows. Thinking of buying a seal kit for $62 instead of a $400+ rebuilt unit. Any advice?

Yea I'm a bit late here but, From what I'm seeing here Zed is on the right track. I would be checking electrical components such as coolant temp sensor, cold start injector, thermotime sensor, etc. Does the fuel system hold pressure when you shut off the car? Sounds a lot like leaking injectors. The only real way to test the pressure regulator is with the car running with a fuel pressure gauge attached. At idle with full vacuum applied it should read about 30 PSI and jump to about 37 when you rev it up or disconnect the vacuum line. Then you need to attach a hand held vacuum pump and test for leaking vacuum. If you don't feel too stupid doing it you can just suck on the vacuum line as hard as you can and block off the hose with your tongue. It should hold on firmly to your tongue for at least 90 seconds without loosing vacuum.

Here's a couple pics I took of the switch.

I have a 83 ZX 2+2 NA 5 speed that I put a 79 engine in. Swaped intake and a few other bolt-ons including the distributor mount because the adjusting screw was clocked different. When I dropped in the distributor I noticed that it only has about 1/8" of engagement with the drive gear/shaft, that is, it only drops down 1/8" when it lines up. Does anyone know if the drives are different. It seems to cause a bit too much free play in the distributor. The car runs pretty good but I'm still concerned that it may cause future problems. I bought the car without the engine and a pile of parts in the back. It has power steering but the 79 did not so I had to swap the drive pulley and the timing pointer for the original motor must have been eaten by the gremlins that haunt the car. With that said, I can only time it by ear and I can't put a timing light on it to look for fluctuation. I can't help but wonder if it's a real issue I need to worry about. Like I said, it seems to run good but I know it should have more power. (I'm pretty sure the lack of power is more related to my MAF than timing.) Thanks in advance for your help in answering this.

Well, through just experiencing this same thing I found there was a power feed from the stereo just like the newer aftermarket stereos have. It's the green wire in the 6 pin connector with the battery, ground, and ignition hot wires. The mid/long range switch is seperate from the stereo and you can re-mount it when you do an install and still have factory function of the power antenna. Just connect the blue wire on your new stereo to the green wire I mentioned and presto.... done deal! Mine works great with my new Pioneer stereo. Now if only Best Buy would carry 4" speakers I wouldn't have to wait to have good tunes and maybe even hear when I have a call coming in.

That is a good deal. Think I'll order some soon. I did check the part numbers on these connectors and they are all the same as you said. Weird to me as I'm used to modern cars and no two components have the same connector. Thanks for the info.

I learned a new trick yesterday thanks to ALLDATA. I had never heard of this one but it works really good and it's easier than the test procedures in the FSM. The full test requires a gas anaylizer for complete and acurate results but you can test the O2 function without it. This is word for word curtesy of ALLDATA: 1) Disconnect the oxygen sensor pigtail and connect a high-impedance VOM with the positive lead on the pigtail and the negative lead to a good ground. 2) Start the engine and let it warm up, if equipped with an air injection system, disable the system so as not to get false tailpipe readings. 3) Grab the disconnected wire that goes fron the oxygen sensor to the ECU with one hand. With the other hand touch the negative battery post or a good ground. The readings should increase on the VOM up to approx. 1 volt and there should be an increase in tailpipe CO. 4) Move your hand from the ground side to the positive post of the battery. Your body will act as a proper resistor and allow a small voltage to the ECU. The VOM reading should fall to almost 0 volts and the CO reading at the tailpipe should go down. 5) If the tailpipe readings acted accordingly but the VOM readings from the oxygen sensor did not go up and down, the sensor is defective. My car runs rich at all times so I tried this test. My test results without an anaylizer were as follows: .675 volts in step 3 with no increase in voltage when I touch ground. (Car running the same as before I disconnected the sensor.) Steady but slow drop in voltage in step 4 to about .420 volts after 90 seconds or so. Decrease in idle speed (100-200 RPM) and less rich exhaust fumes. Engine smoothed out to a purr. My conclusions are: Lazy O2 sensor due to either the sensor itself or a poor ground to the sensor. Reasons being that I never seen the rise in voltage and it did not reach "approx." 1 volt, and in step 4 it reacted slowly and would have taken 5 minutes or more to reach 0 volts if at all. I would condem the O2 sensor outright if this were not a 30+ year old vehicle and the fact that exhaust pipes rust pretty good. (Note to self, resistance test the exhaust pipe to good ground.) Could also be a small resistance between the sensor and the ECU causing the slow reaction in step 4. Lots of variables here but this trick had excellent results in determining if the O2 sensor was working at all and it tells me it's not working well.

Can any one tell me if fuel injectors, coolant temp sensor, etc. use the same connector. They all look the same but I haven't tried one on the other or checked part numbers on the replacements. I found I can buy new ones from O'Reilly Auto Parts for $6.99 and its' so much easier to solder in new ones than it is to pick and clean the old ones.

Thanks to everyone who's been following this thread. Although I didn't get exactly what I wanted I did get a lot of useful information. (I'd like a million dollars too but oh well). Just to answer some questions and clear up other points.... I know the CSI is good cause I tested all the injectors during the intake swap from 79 to factory 83. I've connected a DVOM to the CSI connector and get nothing during cranking or start-up. I've got a 3-2-1 header with 02 sensor mounted at the collector and no cat. I've come to the conclusion that even though I hate the idea of hit and miss diagnostics, I'm just gonna have to break out the electrical diagrams and start testing everything. On the bright side, I did find a "inspection procedure foe EFI" that I had overlooked in the FSM which should be a good place to start. Again thanks everyone. I'll keep you posted on progress when I get time to work on it.

Quite right you are about the problem. That's why I used the word "issues" as it only has problems when cold. DETAILS: 79 block and head, AFM year is unknown but it came from the same person I got the engine from but he has several Z's so who knows? It does test out good and works normal from what I can tell all else is factory equipment. Cylinder head temp sensor relocated to the thermostat housing. The only things I done away with is the EGR and I bypassed the TVV as it was broken. Neither of these should cause the problem at hand. As I said, it seems strange that it seems to run rich at all times. I forgot to mention that the "sensor" light is on which I understand to be for the 02 sensor so that could be a major factor on this car. I'm a mechanic by trade but I don't know nothing about these cars or the antique systems they use. I specialize in steering and suspension anyway. I believe I probably have some loose electrical connections, etc. I did have to fix a rats nest of wiring inside the passenger front fender where the horn relay is. I could have more issues like this else where. (Luckily the wires were chewed through away from the connectors so it was a simple fix with some wire, solder, and shring tubing.) So all said and done, I'm trying to find a flow chart for diagnosing the cold running problem and I guess I could use any advise on the "sensor" light even though I haven't even looked for information on fixing that bug yet. I really hate the idea of hit and miss diagnosis. Now days I can go on ALLDATA and find flow charts for problems like these but I guess they didn't think of that back then.

Actually this car has a four wire system. One is ground, one is down +, one is full up + and the other is half up +. You can use a 5 pin relay to adapt an aftermarket stereos antenna wire but you will only be able to use full up or half up positions, not both. Find the antenna power going to the factory stereo which I believe is green. Connect it to pin 30 of the relay and connect pin 87a to the down wire and pin 87 to the full up or half up. 83 GL's have a antenna timer which will limit the on time of the power to the antenna. Connect the blue wire from your new stereo to pin 85 and ground to pin 86. The relay will then apply the antenna power to the down circuit when the stereo is off ( pin 87a and 30 are normally closed ), and power to the up circuit when the relay is energized. The timer will do the rest.

Hi everyone, I'm new to this site and I'd like to ask if anyone has a flow chart for diagnosing a cold start problem. The FSM and Chilton's both tell you how to test the cold start injector and all that but nowhere can I find a diagnostic flow chart. I've even looked through ALLDATA at work and all it gives you is specific tests. I really hate the idea of hit-and-miss diagnostics. The car will start right up but will only idle until it warms up. You can play with the accelerator and get it to rev but it cuts out and misses really bad. What also seems strange is even though I know the cold start injector is not working, I can smell rich exhaust. Runs great when fully warmed up but you can smell it's running rich even then. I do know the cold start injector is good. I bought the car without a motor and now it's all together I.m trying to work out all the bugs. Any help ya'll can give me would be greatly appreciated.