280zgod

well texas that was my compression about 6 month ago haha but with how i drive (frequently at 7k) i dont doubt its lower now. but yeah shes still pretty quick. these things have a knack for running strong on 5-6 cylinders. my friend with an auto is running on 5 cylinders right now and that thing still hauls on the high end not so much before 40 tho but anyway cool stuff. Gav, kmack- so for now you think it would be best to do the head work and just get new rings for the pistons until i can afford to do the stroker all at once? if thats the case i guess that would be cheaper right now and more helpful in the long run cuz i have a month time limit for the rebuild til college starts up again and at the moment this is my only running car (mostly cuz im too lazy to fix my 720 cuz i dont know jack $H!T about carbs). anywho so it looks like ill do that for now rebuild the head do those lil mods to it and leave it a 2.8L for a while. Thanks guys youve helped alot. Any other suggestions about gearing or anything i might want to consider?

i could wait a lil longer and get the stroker and do that if everyone thinks it would be a better idea then a high end power l28...well which would be better in the long run and for my purpose as stated in the reply to phred thanks.

thanks for the input: Phred- yes i actually have an f54 block but its missing bearings and bearing caps but i think the n42 caps would work and the bearings as well i hope or i can go get an f54 for 50 bucks at the picknpull, but anyway yeah i know the diesel crank would give me more power but i dont have enough money to get a diesel crank and have all that engine work done cuz from what ive heard thats pretty expensive and just boring out a block without putting in the crank still gives some power but its alot cheaper especially in my case where i need a rebuild badly and have a somewhat tight budget, but thank you for the input... i had considered it but not possible at the moment...but would the setup im suggesting work good? in my car i am going to do mostly freeway driving and drag on the weekends at the local track so would my setup work good for that in your opinion? thanks again for the input texasz- thanks ill check the site out and see cuz im really interested in boring my engine out for a lil extra power since i need a rebuild cuz my engine aint gonna last much longer thanks alot. yeah by the way my compression is 80/120/120/120/120/100 so thats what condition my engine is in right now also just wondering if having short gears like 4.11 in the differential actually makes your car run a faster quarter mile cuz i mean i have long gear and my car does the quarter in 3 gears and my friend who im possibly getting the longer gears from can do it in 2 gears which is ridiculous and im thinking all that shifting would slow down your time so just curious as to the science or math of it thanks again bye bye

Ok guys, I have a 75 280z with FI and my engine is dying so over Christmas break i'm going to rebuild or have a shop rebuild my engine and head along with doing some mods to the head. This is my plan (tell me if you think its a good one): Bore out the block to 3.0L put in the flattop ka24 pistons, completely redo my N42 head, port and polish it, and install a stage 3 cam in it whose specs are lift .460/.460 and duration 270/280. heh i like high end power. also im looking to take my friends differential out of his automatic Z because the gears are supposedly longer then my own and i like long gears so ill be switching to his 3.36 differential from my 3.54 differential. Correct me if im wrong on the 3.0L stuff i thought it was ka24 flattops but now im not sure thats right. Oh well you get the jist of it so tell me what you think. Thanks! Oh yeah any other recommendations you all have on a good setup would be much appreciated i.e. shorter gears, different size tires, lsd, etc. Thanks again.

well im stoked cuz i went searching last night and found that we can convert turbo AFM's (which are approxiamately 33% larger air flow) to work on lour car and its super easy so for now im going to do that this weekend and see what kinda of a difference it makes. but yes do tell of the MAP system once you get it running exquisite. Later all

will if i knew what that was or how to do it buddy id be doing the same my afm is all screwed up anyway and i finally found out how to fix it today so thats gonna be my next project tuning it for max power til i find an alternative... you makin your own custom sensor setup or is there one already for the z that one could purchase and install?

Hey fellow FI peeps just wondering if anyone knew of a performance AFM upgrade for the 280. I took my 280 to get its brakes checked and my mechanic saw my pressure regulator and said that i should also get a performance AFM unit cuz it will really boost the power on these things... he used to own one so i guess he knows. Im gonna ask him more in depth about it next time i go in but i was just wondering if any of you guys knew of one thanks.

Anyone ever bought, installed, tuned the rising rate fuel pressure regulator from MSA. I got it and installed it but im a little clueless to what the max psi output of the stock fuel pump is and stuff anyone know that off the top of their head...i know each pump will be a little different but just a general number. thanks.

well chris im no electrician and the guy who owned it before me thought he was... this car has wiring screwed up all over the place but my nissan dealer said it was safe to drive it and that i should think about rewiring it stock. the radio before was a piece of crap self installed wrong by the previous owner. I almost cried when i pullled it out and saw that speaker wires were connected to power and so on and so forth. but as soon as i pulled the stereo out and put mine in no more problems except the dashlights. there are three wires. from the car that are supposed to connect to the stereo. A blue one, a red and blue one, and a green and white one i believe. These all (to my knowledge of the diagram provided by wal) connect between the dashlight system to power it. so im guessing this orange illumination wire connects to one or three of those to make my dashlights work again cuz i need em. driving at night withought any guages is getting old. i like that eerie green glow :-) does any of my speculating sound correct to any of you? you all think orange to those three wires? or am i way off? thanks again for the input everyone.

hey wal where can i get the color diagram that would be awesome? thanks

I know how to install a stereo but it has another wire i wasnt sure what to do with. Its Orange and is called the illumination wire... and i have these wires on the car that werent used that go between all the dashlights(to my recent discovery). So i figure that one or all of them must hook up to the orange wire. the stereo works great. It always keeps its memory and works fine, just those extra wires were puzzling to me because at first i thought maye the orange one does what i think it implies... but then i didnt know what those wires went to since i didnt have a diagram and i had disconnected the previous stereo in the car a long time ago since it was making my whole car malfunction( i.e. dashlights would flicker on and off for periods of time, stereo would turn on and off as it wanted to, also it would never decrease volume, or shut off by hitting the power button). but i wired my new one right and it works great, just wondering how to get my dashlights back and im gonna try something tomorrow since i dont feel up to it today and would probably leave the console off... i hate putting the console back on, nothing fits right etc. etc. Anyway good suggestion tomo but i already have that covered.

thank you thank you that will be very useful just have to figure out how to hook those two wires up to the one wire on the stereo.

hi everyone. I bought this 280z about a year ago and the dashlights never quiteworked right because the stereo in the car was hooked up wrong... so i put a new stereo in and now they dont work at all. does anyone know the color of the wire that i need to hookup to the stereo for my dashlights to work or am i speaking gibberish to yall? thanks

Hi i was just wondering if anyone has dynoed their 3.1 stroker because i want to see what kinda power i can expect to be pumping out if i do that modification to my z. Thanks.

well Miles, i actually had the entire system replaced not just the valves. I got new rotors calipers pads shoes wheel cylinders pv's and a master cylinder. My brakes have improved drastically. In the year that I've owned the car it has never stopped so well and so fast and smooth. But i would have to say that the pv made the most difference because my old one was so bad that my back brakes didnt even work at all i was stopping with one front disc for about a month. But yeah pvs help. If you dont get a new one just replace the seals to it and clean it out and it will work ten times better at least thats how it was for mine. hope that helps Miles. Late.

yeah just curious to know if anyone had a good guess on hp loss on a 280z with 90,130,130,130,130,105 compression? and also does bad compression cause worse gas mileage?

yeah walt after i was told that i couldne get the part anymore i went to numerous pick-n-pulls and started taking them off any z that had one. I managed to get a few that were in perfect working order and my brakes work again. if i can find what i did with some of the other working ones i could mail you one if you need it they were really cheap like 5 bucks a piece but i wont charge you. well just shipping maybe if you want one and i can find em in my piles of junk in the garage . anyway just wanted to let you know.

well the piece im talking about on the firewall is a proportioning valve that cant be denied because i called nissan up about it and they said its discontinued good luck finding one in a junkyard. And i did but ive never seen the part you guys are talking about i guess only 240z's have that one and the one im talking about is its replacement part for the 280z. i dunno just a thought. thanks for the info everyone.

just curious because i had to have my entire brake system changed out. On a 280z why is there a second brake proportioning valve on the firewall for the rear brakes when pn all other models there is only one proportioning valve? i ask this because that valve of mine was broke hence why my brakes failed and when i tried to get it from nissan they said it was discontinued but the other valve wasnt. And also 240z have the same exact srtup for brakes and they only have one proportioning valve which is the same as the first 280 valve so why the second valve?

i have that system and i had a hell of alot of problems with it too. I also have msa's header so nothing fit right... but yeah i took mine to a custom exhaust fabricator and he made it fit nicely under mine for 100$ and took him an hour. That was about 6 or 7 months ago. After that much time the exhaust sounds much different then yours. Still as loud or maybe even louder but it gets a much deeper tone going. I think it sounds really nice up at around 7000rpm and the v8 sound at idle is cool everyone gives you a second look, heh. But anyway i like the sound of yours hope you enjoy it. BTW that exhaust is not car alarm friendly so try not to wizz too many people off. later... cool ride.

cool stuff. i was kinda thinking the same thing about the drive shaft and joints afteri thought about it. so possibly throw out bearing or the other. Thanks ill check them both.

I let my friends listen to it and they say its sounds like its coming from underneath the car. When the noise does occur, which is everytime i put it in 1st gear or reverse, you can feel the shifter move with the noise. So my friends think its the U-joint that has somehow busted or lost a bolt or what not anyone ever broke their u-joint and heard a strange noise? I dont know but its freaking me out I'm not gonna drive it anymore, unless i fix it.

Hey everyone. Yesterday my 280 started making a funny noise when i put it in 1st gear or reverse. I cant really describe the noise its weird like a high pitched scraping or something its just weird. Anyway just wondering if anyone knows what i mean or has any ideas on the subject. Alos the car runs fine it hasnt affected driveability but I'm afraid it might and since I'm leaving home for college in a week I really need some input cuz my Z is my ride. Thanks guys.

Hey everyone thanks for the help with that. It was a simple install and it seems to work pretty good. It lowered my idle by 1000 rpm. Anyway, my idle is about 750 now but its a lil sporadic it jumps up and down between that and 900. Anyone else have that happen to them. I'm guessing its nothing with the MSD its probably just my poor FI slowly dying. But just wanted to know if that has happened to anyone else thanks. BTW smooth accel to 7000 is a great feeling

Alright, MSD told me exactly what you told me greyghost so I'm gonna set it up that way. I'm ordering the part tomorrow and I'm gonna give MSD a call and see if they make some plug wires or at least have wires that are compatible for a Z. Thanks alot guys.