JRSGTS

Couldn't wait...Ran out and switched the ground. Suddenly I have FP when I test in run position, I can fire it with the AFM flap, I even have inj. pulse!!! Bad news is it won't even try to start...Think I have wasted plugs, I know I still need one of the temp. switches. I thought it would try harder... I'll have more time later to mess with it, but you have definitely fixed my big issue!! Thank you, Thank you thank you!!

THAT"S IT LENNY!!!!! Has to be! Brilliant! I hadn't got a good look at the wiring diagram yet because I couldn't print it. Even at my inlaws on there PC, I could only print small hard to read pieces...OK my only question now is Which 8awg. wire is it? I have 2, both run to the Battery+ One still is in a big stock spade connector. The other has been spliced to the lead on a replacement battery cable. The wire must change colors before the ECU because there is no red wire there. Definitely the problem. NONE of the grounds you or Sarah listed are grounds right now. I hope no ECU damage has been done. Oh yeah, P1 does have cont. to -coil. Funny how the owner says it just wouldn't start one day...Someone had to mess with the battery leads first... That's why I take customers descriptions of problems with a grain of salt. Going out to see if I can figure which wire..I'll report back soon. THANK YOU!!!

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/p480x480/524047_691384690881200_1355525336_n.jpg Here is the little gem...Hope this works...Not very Forum tech savvy

I get it. I respect the purist mentality completely. I ALSO love the dare to be different, and the right of choice with customizers. Lots of Ford people hate seeing Chevy's in Hot Rods. I say if it works for them, go for it. Besides, the LS1 is an amazing engine! Bet that car is way cool and makes more HP than that Z ever imagined. Of course it opens a whole can of worms for other issues. Congrats to him on his bravery!

NICE!!! Good to know... Here's the latest..Fighting a lingering tryptofan (sic) hangover. I went to the shop..12 degrees here, Toasty in the shop. Just another excuse to be lazy. I saw the starter was dropped off so I had to go to work.. Installed the starter, YAY cranks normally now! Even acts like if it had fuel it would run. Sputters a little and smells like the plugs are burning whatever they can find. Lenny I did your tests. It failed the first one. went to ground P72, started letting the smoke out of my jumper wire! There is Battery voltage there...That's not right. Moved on to your backwards trouble shooting. 12V to P74=got pump.but, 12V to p36=no pump. and 12V to p39and move AFM flap+ still no pump. I also rechecked again for inj. pulse now that I have normal cranking= Nothing. tried to start it while p72 was grounded and pump running, Nope. didn't expect it to, had to try it. Obviously 12V at 72 is a problem,Hopefully you can give me a direction. If it's not wiring I'm still leaning towards the ECU because of the no INJ. fire. The owner tells me it was running fine, drove into his drive way, and it never started again. I've got to go to the neighbors for their printer to get the Schematic printed. My printer is still on holiday. BTW, I posted some pics of my shop on my profile if you want to see some of my work.

Zed's Right. Pertronics makes a good product, I've installed them on many cars. I've also had MANY pick up failures. To the point where when I do a conversion, I always recommend keeping a spare pick up in the glove box. Just try the points again, remove the variable. With either set up, make sure you are properly at TDC #1 for your starting point. Your timing figures do sound off.

You are quite right Sarah! Though I would likely drop a small block chevy in it An early 240 with about 350 Hp could be one helluva ride! Sorry I couldn't give an update today... Between getting the step daughter to emergency dentist appt. and all the other things to do, I got about a 1/2 to look at the car... I had a used starter to try for the fun of it to see if it changed my cranking problem...Yah..fun..easy swap. just had to try it. I'll have a new one tomorrow. Did a real quick run on your tests Lenny. Post results tomorrow...Yup something's real wrong...I'll be in touch.. JR.

Wow!! Thanks so much Lenny And Sarah!(I checked your profile so I didn't keep calling you Fast:) Some really great info, and lots more tests to run! I'll dive in fresh and well fed fri. AM. If I'm still head scratching Lenny I'll PM you. I'm wishing you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving!

YES! It has to be a ground...I think.. When I ground 72 I get FP...I will make sure I get feed on 76. But I did cont. check on 20. There is no open between the relay and the ECU, so where am I losing ground? Ran a fresh ground to the pump, the engine, the ECU case ( Just in case ) As far as the Christmas bulbs go, should I be using a whole string? Cause the one little bulb blows real easy when it hits 12V! Love the colored schematic! Wish my stupid printer would communicate! It's on holiday. Guess that's what we should all do. Have a great turkey day! I'll check in with progress on Friday. Thanks again! JR.

Hi again Fast, No I didn't miss the test. Just forgot to mention that I tried it... So many words to type...a lot for 2 fingers . I definately had no flash of the Christmas bulb. Still curious as to how that works on a bulb that is not 12V. I checked with my voltmeter across the inj. connector and there is Battery voltage on both terminals...Is this normal? I am going to get a correct Noid light to confirm. However, I'm fairly sure they are not opening. No clicking from them on any attempt I've made to start this thing. There definitely is a bunch of differences between the 78 and the 76. All or most my ECU wiring is white with little tiny numbers on them. The #20 pin at my ECU definitely goes to the FP relay. Found it in the bible, and it is part of the relay testing procedure. Oddly, it says I should have continuity to ground. I do not, with either the old or the new relay installed. BUT with the old relay installed and I introduce ground to the circuit, I get full time fuel pump run. With the new relay....Nuttin...UGH! Here is what else I have done. I've been through every connector I can find and cleaned , checked and confirmed continuity through them. I pulled the whole wiring harness down on the pass. side and checked every connector, plug and relay. Even though the bible shows all fuel related components on the drivers side. Cleaned and checked wiring at the dropping resistors. Checked wiring to ignition switch. Everything has been basically clean, I am an ASE certified tech. I know all about bad connections and such. The whole car looks fairly unmolested. The real kicker now is that with the timing and dist. set right the car won't turn over more than 1 revolution without the solenoid disengaging! And yes I've jumpered the start terminal directly. The only thing I can figure is it was a weak starter and when the timing was wrong there wasn't much compression to fight against so it would crank freely. Now that it has comp. the solenoid is too weak...Good news is my local Advance auto lists one at only $29.95 my cost, bad news, won't see it till Sat.! Guess I could just walk away till after the holiday. Speaking of that...Happy Thanksgiving To you. One of the many things I'm thankful for is the nice people like you folks who have been so helpful!! JR.

No battery voltage was fine. I had the charger on it all night before., and the charger was on while cranking. Had over 13.0V during testing. The starter isn't kicking out slowly, It tries to spin the motor and instantly goes to a free spin. I get that it needs to spin to fire the injectors, but I should be able to manually run the FP. Car also has a fussy ign. switch that sometimes doesn't crank the motor. Someone installed a starter button. Same result with either starting method. I also checked power at the start terminal on the starter. Solid battery voltage with key in start position. I checked it to see if it was maintaining power and not dropping out causing my starter problem. NP here. Another thing I did was run a ground direct to the black wire on the FP to the battery negative to rule out a bad ground. Still no change. Starter problem or not, I should be able to disconnect the starter wire, the CSV, and hold the key on start to hear the pump run. Or open the AFM flap. Neither gives me a fuel pump!! Getting a bit frustrated.... Thanks for your patience! What about the fact that I have no continuity to ground on pin 20 of the ECU? as per testing the relays in the FI bible? I think I'm going to strip the wiring harness open and trace the wire...Oh yeah, before I fixed my timing issue ( when the motor cranked over like crazy) I had no injector fire then either... Sorry to run on, just thought I'd put as much info as I could out there... Thanks again for the input! At least I'm not just standing there staring at it!

Thanks Zed. Just double triple checked those...Even checked for voltage, NP. Have voltage coming out of the AFM as soon as the door starts to open. So here's what else I've tried. Did the Christmas light test on 2 injectors. Tho I'm skeptical of not having an actual noid light, no fire...I double checked the relays under the pass. side. I believe the only one I hear clicking is the starter relay. Double checked connections at fusible links. (Links are brand new) I did find one of the temp sensors not hooked up(the one with the eyelet to ground) I know I need this to run good, but my first concern is getting it to start. I decided to go back to square one. I had done a compression test (190-195 all) but not checked firing order. I was lazy when I installed the distributor and never set for tdc. OK..thats on me... Now that that's right, I even could static time it now. The first time I hit the key it sounded like it wanted to start...But didn't. Though I didn't hear the pump, and still have no pump activation or clicking at the relay. NOW...everytime I hit the key, The starter gives half a crank and the solenoid kicks free!! I can't even get a full engine revolution out of it!!! Hair pulling time! Before I set the timing it would crank all day long...UGH...Doesn't seem logical that the solenoid just died now. Or does it?? The times that I manually powered the pump, I still had no injectors. Didn't try it yet with the timing fixed. I'll also double check the ground wire at the pump. This starter thing has me head scratching good though! Thanks for the input! I have to be missing something stupid. If I can get pump and injectors I can then go after all the driveability problems. JR.

Wow fast responses! I love it! I did replace the FI relay, but it is a 2 relay box. On the 76 they are together. The connections are correct, believe me I tried to do it other ways. Even tried connecting one plug to the old relay and one to the new. I did buy it from Z car source out west. They seemed to think I was on the right track, but they admitted limited tech help. Took me a while to learn the pump operation only when running, but I got it now. Opening the flap on the AFM gets me nothing. Going to try the home made NOID light trick now too. Didn't have enough battery last night (just got it in the shop late last night). Interesting that the ECU has nothing to do with FP operation...Seems my theory just fell to the ground... I'll go do some checks and check back later. THANKS AGAIN!!! JR.

Thanks "Fast"! You are correct, research tells me the 76 is different than all the later years. Similar in some cases to 75-77. Anyhow, yes there is FP activation through the AFM. I should be able to activate it by opening the flap...Doesn't work. The only connectors I haven't checked /cleaned are the dropout resistors. I did try a new FP relay to no avail. however, with the old relay installed I can jumper 1 pin to ground and the pump will activate. No injector fire though. With the new relay, jumping the same pin gets me nothing.. Since the ECU provides the grounds for the injectors I am suspect of that...Maybe I had a bad FI relay AND a bad ECU? Hate to buy one without being sure though. Heading to the shop to check dropping resistors and any other connection I can find. Any other help would be greatly appreciated! JR.

Hi Folks, Love the site. Great info! Did a lot of searching so not to waste anyones time...but. No luck yet. My Name's JR. I am actually working on this 1976 280Z for a customer of mine. I own a shop that does mechanical resto work on classic cars here in upstate NY. I do love the Z cars and this guy has been to 3 other shops with no help, so I volunteered..How hard could it be right? On to the problem. He had a no start, no spark condition when I got it. Figured I needed spark first. Found a bad distributor, Great! Got a new one from Z car source. Now I have great spark, Still no fuel pump. Jumpered pump, (Newer replacement) works fine. Downloaded FSM, started troubleshooting. Actually I took a stab and bought a FI relay. Didn't fix the problem:finger: I know better but fixed a lot of problems with just a relay before... Ayway, so I went to the relay testing. 3 tests in FSM. 1st one is testing pin 4 (ECU) to ground in start position. Should have Batt. voltage,Check. 3rd test is for air reg. and FP circuit. Pin 34 to ground= 85.3 Ohms, says should have continuity. Is that number high? The #2 test is for FP relay. Pin 20 to ground, should have cont. I have none with either relay. Says fault is either relay or wiring. If I provide ground to pin 20 with the original relay, I get full time FP running. With the new one nothing. So I did affect a change , just don't know what's wrong. Sorry this is so long! Starting to pull some hair out...Could it be my ECU? Or do I need to start opening wiring harnesses? Thanks in advance for any and all help! JR.