Av8ferg

So, I always wondered about this ZDDP oil additive and how it worked and why it’s difficult to find. This morning I stumbled on this video that was really informative. Thought I’d share it.

What does RNM mean? Never mind: Reserve Not Met

This 1977 280Z brought in 50k on BaT today. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1977-datsun-280z-82/

Wanted to share my experience with getting my front end aligned. So I took the car to a local shop with a great reputation, had them do other work before on my other vehicles. Anyway dropped it off yesterday morning and it sat there all day and they didn’t finish it until this morning (had a sick mechanic). I really wanted it done yesterday because the East coast got hammered today with a big storm today and I didn’t want to drive in the pouring rain. Once they finished the work they parked it outside in the downpour.😞 So the alignment was was out of whack, which I expected since I rebuilt the entire front end and reconditioned the steering rack. Here are the before and after, you can see the camber numbers.. Of note for those using lowering springs that your camber will be off. He said I was in the limit but said it would be fine. Attributed it to my lowered springs. Drove it home in the rain like so stole it. Driving so nicely, but nos she’s all dirty. 😩

Dave, first glad your we not injured., second It made me laugh because you even warned us fuel was going to shoot out. I’ve injured myself too many time in the garage. Now now matter what I’m doing out the the first thing I do it put on my safety glasses. Without my eyes I’m out of a job. The guy I flew with this week recently became trapped under his car changing the brakes on his Acura MDX. His foot was jammed under the brake rotor and he screamed for his son who was in the house to jack the car back up. He forgot put a block on the back tire and because he was rushing and the car rolled back. Anyways glad you were not hurt.

Gents, I’ve been off the net that past month or so. Life, family, work and other issues have kept me away from my time in the garage with the Z. Currently sitting in the Paris airport waiting to return to the US. It’s been an 11 day trip and I’m ready to be home with the family and back to work in the garage. Here’s where I left off last time with the car. Working on the stereo speaker install, the work it a bit tedious because of my OCD. I bought some 6x9 speakers to build a box below the deck to improve the sound quality. I have a couple more days of work to do there. This is my extra deck, so I can always go back to OE look. My headers came in about a month ago from ZStory. They look great, very happy with the stuff he puts out. I had been waiting a long time for this last part of his system so that’s in the works too. Im taking it this week to get ceramic coated, for heat transfer mitigation. The car has been driving great, the more miles I put on it the more the kinks seems to be getting worked out. I have a couple issues to address. I also finished the from carbon fiber lip install. I like this much better that the xenon valance. I’ll post a few pics. 1. High Idle - car idles fine on start but after driving it around and coming to a stop the idle will hover around 1000-1100 RPM. In order to get it back down I have to pump the accelerator one time and then it returns to 800. Let me know if anyone has a clue why it does this but it’s pretty consistent. 2. I have a rattle on my right rear strut. I think I have the spacer loose from the shocks bouncing around there.. I’m not motivated right not to pull it out .and address it. 3. A small oil leak. Getting about 10 ml of fluid that appears to come from near the passenger side closer to transmission. I think it’s coming from the reverse switch but haven’t confirmed it. Got a new gaskets waiting to be installed.

Dave the sending unit is a single female type bullet connector. Is this the one you’re talking about?

Well when typing in a small phone with big fingers and “auto correct” turned on mistakes are made. I🤓

Okay, I get what you’re saying and yes it appears the timing has changed with the HEI on. Warmed it up and put my timing light on and it was off about 3-4 degrees (retarded) at 800 rpm. I reset it to 10 deg and she’s now even running smoother, I took it out for a 30 miles drive and had no issues. Well, I thought I had one but I’m coming to believe my temp guage or sender it’s very accurate. I bought a radiator cap with a thermometer in it as a back up and it was showing much cooler than the temp guage. Took my son through a drive through for lunch and them temp gauge really creeped past mid range. I pulled over and the cap on the radiator was reading about 180 ish. So I’m missing the lower half of a fan shroud and don’t currently have the lower skid plate installed, not sure if that’s a factor. I’ve kept it off until I take the car to a shop to make sure the alignment is good. I did it the good of’ boy method. Eye ball it while drinking a beer, but she tracking perfectly. Maybe I should drink beer more when working on the car. It got even higher than this pic my son took.

That’s exactly what my research led me to believe. Without other connector attached it operates as an E12-80. I think Zed Head had a good point and I will still place a timing light on the engine today and see where it’s at. Before I did all the ignition changes it’s was spot on at 10 deg at 800 rpm and the mechanical and vacuum advance was perfect. Off the top of my 17 deg of mechanical advance with a total around 35 at 3000 rpm. Don’t quote that. I’d like to find an adjustable vacuum advance Part number 22301-7901 and replace mine. Would be fun to mess around with the advance curve and see how it effects performance.

These are challenging times for business and the economic future in the short term is not good. I have both friends and family that own small business and they all same the exact same thing. My brother built 4,000 homes this past decade and had decided to pull the plug as the housing market is set to get crushed soon. With the looming 1.0 rate hike next week next week it will only worsen. Spoke to a close friend yesterday who says he’s probably going to shut down his business and layoff all his employees because the customers are no longer there and his prices are increasing so fast he cannot stay ahead of it and customers are pissed off at him. The challenges are becoming insurmountable to many small business and there is three things I hear over and over from all of them, 1. Cannot find good workers 2. The cost of doing business has increased sharply and they have to pass those costs to the customers which is driving them away. 3. More hostile governmental policies and tax burdens 4. The cost to borrow money has increase sharply and they don’t want to take on the risk. I am seeing this where I work. We just announced we are closing 90 brick and mortar locations in the US, we have stopped hiring and profits are way off estimates. We are operating fewer flights and the stock has plunged 19%. We have seen a serious reduction is global package deliveries. This company is a bellwether for the health of the nation’s economy. All signs point to “storm clouds gathering”. I’m sad to see this vendor close. This is what comes up if you go to their website. Time to buckle up! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/15/fedex-ceo-says-he-expects-the-economy-to-enter-a-worldwide-recession.html

Okay so here are my test runs today. I swapped out the Nissan E12-92 for a different one. Second one ran worse it was also as 92 not 80, third one is an aftermarket one (92) and ran well so the tests were done with that module against the HEI. Both ran well, but the HEI idles smoother and I feel the acceleration is cleaner or smoother. See for yourself below.

I’ll just pull the electrical connection on the cold start injector and start there. The car seems to idle a little rich by the smell of the exhaust. News update: Ran the car off the E12-92 module today and wow is the difference remarkable. The car accelerates so much better on the HEI. With the Nissan module it is much slower through the RPMs. That Nissan module might not be good. I’m going to retest with one of my backups. Right now the engine is singing using the Flame Thrower HEI. Never ran better and after the Valve lash adjustment and new plugs man is the motor sweet!

Well, these injectors were sent off and refurbished so they should be good. The guy sent me a report on each on with flow rates. I sent him 10 and he picked the 6 that were the best. Now I didn’t have the cold start injector sent off and like mentioned some posts back I need to make sure this one isn’t a bad actor and possibly operating when it shouldn’t. It’s warm here so I don’t really need it.

I’m running the stock EFI. Those plugs have been exposed to all sorts of usually activity with the ignition issues and getting the timing and advance all dialed in. Hoping they look better next time.

Not a bad idea, I’ll keep the extra two wires pieces I built in the glove box and a card with the wire setup drawn out in case I’m drunk and brake down 🤣🤣 Today is test day. I’m going to run the car around and see if I can shake out any more bugs. Yesterday, I re-torqued the head bolts from the rebuild and about half of them did tighten a bit (set 60 ft lbs), adjusted the valve lash and replaced the spark plugs. About 9 valves needed to be adjusted. 7 had too much clearance and 2 not enough but all were within .001 of the cold specs. (my back hurts now from that) The old plugs were fine but my local parts store had the NGK (BPR6ES11) in stock for $3 each so I grabbed them, only needed 4 because I had two remaining when I bought the 8 pack last time. Just doing my part to help the economy.

That starter is a gear reduction starter from a ZX. It’s brand new. It does sound odd but works perfectly. Spin faster than the stock Z one. This one is made by AC Delco bought it on Rock Auto https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/nissan,1982,280zx,2.8l+l6,1209350,electrical,starter+motor,4152 I won’t forgot how to swap these modules out. It’s dummy proof.

Okay job is complete and tested. See link to the video showing both ignition modules working and how I quick swap them.

I got my HEI installed today and took the car for a drive. I rode it pretty hard and it was a hot day today. The car ran flawlessly, clean acceleration and no engine hesitation anywhere. I only pushed it to 5,000 rpm because my engine is still very new., but it was perfect up there. Overall I’m happy. I also have my Nissan E12-92 unit bolted up a few inches away from the HEI and have almost completed the full wiring setup that will allow me to swap modules very easily and rapidly using no tools. Hey I’m a pilot I like redundant systems. We have 3 of just about everything on the jet I fly for work. Here are some pics, it took some hole drilling to make all this merry up right and some special totally flat pan mounting screws for the heat sink so the module would sit flush, there wasn’t a lot of room in the heat sink so this was a must. Once I finish all the wiring clean up, like the setup coming out of the distributor I’ll test the two modules back to back and provide an honest comparison. I made a plate that mounts to the distributor that attaches using the same bolt holes the original module attached with. Then I cut out a notch on the top of that plate and set in there one half (male) of the weatherproof wire connector and then using steel stik I formed a perfect mold of the area where the wires exit the distributor and around the connector. Now it will be sealed and a clean attach point. I haven’t totally completed that so expect pics of that tomorrow,

Thank Chaz. Here’s the update. I’ve mounted and wired up the E12-80 module as depicted above. Temporarily wired it to the distributor just to test and the car started right up and ran fine. With this new location I was able to test my other modules some Nissan some aftermarket. It took no more than 1 min to conduct the swaps. I received the HEI but still waiting on the heat sink to arrive, should be her tomorrow. I took some temperature samples after letting the engine get to operating temperature. The base of the distributor was around 150 deg F and the module located next to the AFM was running about 120 deg F. Touching it felt pretty hot to the hand. I’d like to see it run cooler, if possible. I guess I could get crazy and mount a mini fan that is used to cool computer processors, would be easy to do but probably not required and a total over kill. I wanted to go back and discuss my thermostat findings. I ordered two extra thermostats and after removing my old one I tested all three in a pan of water on the stove. There brands were Stant (old one I removed from ca4), Gates (premium grade) and MotoRad (high flow). After the tests they all opened per the FSM and at 189F we’re full open (these were all 180f spec) . I’ll put pics below of each, The MotoRad look the best made, because it had a more robust construction but it also had a 5mm wider opening at full operating temp than the other two. The Stant and Gates look identical. Here it is on Rock Auto where I bought it. Car temp gauge seems to go to about the F in the middle of the temp gauge now. Before it would go past a bit. https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=4483860&cc=1209248&pt=2200&jsn=10415

Thanks for Info Gents. I built my prototype for a new mounting location for the E12-80 module. I’ve mounted a bracket to base where the AFM rests. Might need to make some changes depending on clearance issues once all wired up but I think this might work as is. Like I said earlier I’ll mount the HEI to the existing bracket where the old TIU came in. It has a small bracket there and it has two screw holes to work with.

SteveJ, that Pertronix HEI ships with a silicone tube, I guess this the material they want to put between HEI and mounting surface. Not sure if this is intended to act as a heat dissipation material like you mention and how does this impact the grounding effect. Silicone is a very poor conductor so this might impact the grounding. Here a link to the HEI I bought. You can see the silicone in one of the pics. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CCFK5Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Steve, I agree. I bought that kit and Crimper you recommended. ZedHead, great input there. Your think the mount bolted to the body would be enough, or you think I should run a dedicated ground wire too?

Okay here’s my plan. This should be fun. I’m going to mount both the HEI and the Nissan matchbox ignition modules near the coil. I’ll use the heat sink I bought for the HEI and then build a small aluminum mount/bracket to put the Nissan module on, somewhere below the coil. I’m going to run waterproof modern auto connectors to both units where is can quickly swap the ends that go to the modules from both the coil and the distributor easily. This will allow a few things. One to test the difference in both of the modules. If both function well I can keep running my Nissan matchbox ignition and if I have a problem I can swap to the HEI by just swapping one end of each connector. I’ve also got a design in mind to mount one half of the connector to where the pickup wires exit the distributor on a plate screwed to the body do the distributor that is neat and sealed up. This way I don’t have to mess around under there to swap ignition modules as the other end will connect to either module 18” downstream with the female side of the of the wire connector I build. I think getting the Nissan Module away from the heat if faces near the distributor will make it far more reliable and give me easy swap out capabilities. I’m going to mount the HEI like this other forum member did with the same heat sink, see pic. Here are the connectors I bought.

Thanks Steve, so more likely to burn up a module with a low primary resistance coil. Safer using a 1.5 coil over a lower one. The spark to the plugs would technically be lower too on a 1.5 ohm coil vs a .6 ohm coil.