Arne

What year car are we talking about? There are considerable differences in the brakes over the years.

Walter describes the reverse issue from the one I was thinking about. A later door on early (Series 1) hinges is succked in at the bottom. The other way around (later hinges on an early door) can cause the problem you are seeing. Obviously, if the door shell is truly original, this issue is not the cause. This could only happen if an earlier door sholl was substituted on your car at some time in the past.

I suppose that is possible, but remember that the Magnaflow I selected (solely on account of the suitability of the dual outlets) is a much smaller muffler in volume than the Dynomax, or than the typical single in & out Magnaflow. The muffler case is 14" long (about the same as the Dynomax), but is only 3.5"x7" in cross section. Considering how small it is, it should be no surprise that it is a bit loud.

My wife and I went for a short drive up the river this afternoon. Verdict - too loud for our purposes. Will be looking into a center muffler later this week.

There is another possibility, if any of the parts (body, hinges or door shell) are early 240Z parts. There have been reports from others that Some Series 1 240Z doors and hinges are different. The alignment issues you describe sound exactly like others I've heard from this problem. What year is your car and the associated parts?

Ugh! Bosch Platinums. I'm not a fan of those on older cars like this. I strongly prefer standard NGK BP6ES. I have not had good luck with Platinums in most older cars.

Yes, indeed. Sigh....Yes, everything you posted is true. But it is also true that many members here don't drive their cars hard enough to need the benefits of EI. For those people, (and even though I do now have EI, I am one of them), points are GOOD ENOUGH. So I still stand by my statements. Yes, EI has benefits. But all of us need to use what we are comfortable with, and we all need to accept that not everyone cares about having the best. And we need to be tolerant of that fact. After all - the big thing is keeping these classics on the road. How their spark is generated is a minor part of that.

Re: fuel pump - Rebuild parts for the original pumps are difficult to find these days. But more importantly, I think throwing more parts and money at it is a bad idea. You need to determine whether the issue is fuel or ignition fist. How about this - drive until it gets warm and starts running poorly. Then get out and check the fuel level in one of the float bowls. Oh, wait. Your car is a '73. Does it still have the original flat-top carbs?

No. I bought replacement o-rings, but didn't use them. Decided it wasn't worth the effort since the originals weren't leaking. I have not regretted that decision yet, it's been almost 4 years now.

I'll edit the title for you. I'm OK with staying with the original monkey-motion. After all, I rebuilt mine rather than swap to something non-original.

That's good to know. We'll see how it goes this week. I'm taking the car to Portland to watch vintage racing next Saturday, and will drive the car to work a couple of times this coming week. If I/we decide it's too loud, I may have something done on Friday before the road trip.

But a 1.5Ω coil with the original resistor still in place is effectively the same as a 3.0Ω coil. Should work fine that way. That's what I'm running in mine now.

Phillip, this is a 4 speed you are working on, not a 5 speed as the title suggests? If so, I don't have a spare selector shaft, but I do have a complete spare early 4 speed transmission. I know it's reasonably good, as I had it in my car for several weeks while I rebuilt the original. Shipping it to NJ might be expensive, though...

Here's a question - are you certain the problem is ignition? Not fuel? Insufficient fuel when hot can be a sign of a failing fuel pump... Argh! I really need to post an update, haven't done much on the webpage in a long time. But when the car is fairly well sorted, frequent updates can be boring. ("Today I washed the car...")

OK, that coil should be fine with the resistor. Try it w/o the condenser, then report back.

Try disconnecting the condenser at the coil.Also, what brand/model is the new coil?

Yes, it was, and I do. But that's just my style. I carried a spare E12-80 module when I ran the ZX dizzy. You may be interested to note that I also carried a spare set of points in the car while I still ran points. Didn't trust them, either. And obviously, while Cessna prefers mechanical points over electronics, they don't trust them either, hence the redundant set.I'm not saying that points are worthless and electronic is the answer. Nor vice versa. The fact is—in my opinion—there's no single over-riding reason to consider either option as the end-all and be-all. Both have their supporters, benefits and flaws. Neither is perfect. When they are working, either will do the job. Failure of either can strand you somewhere inconvenient. All of us use our cars differently, and we all have different priorities and levels of risk-tolerance. We need to select the option that meets our personal needs and that we are most comfortable with, and acknowledge that our choice may not be the best option for everyone. There's room for both.

Audio from laptop is worthless. Does not come close to being a good representation. No vids for now...

The aircraft/reliability argument is often cited in favor of points. But the aircraft world is different. What's the required maintenance schedule for the points on said Cessna? How many hours run-time before they require replacement? Different requirements, different situation. I don't consider aircraft experience to be directly comparable to our Z cars.

Well then, the only other thing I can recall in that area on a Series 1 that is not in the diagram is the radio. The antenna switch connector has three wires, all in blue. I'd need to dig out my original radio to remember for certain how it is wired. I no longer have a Series 1 car to compare directly.

Jim, I believe that connector is for the rear defroster switch in the console. Later cars with lighted switches had three wires in it, Nissan was apparently planning ahead.

Tony D makes some good points. (No pun intended.) I do see an error, in that the Pertronix Ignitor is not an optical (LED) system, it is a Hall-effect (magnetic) system. But either way, it is a simple—and in theory—more reliable way to fire the coil. But here's where Tony's arguments are not as persuasive: the available options in affordable electronic ignitions for a 240Z are not always reliable in and of themselves. The Pertronix system is prone to burn-out if you leave the ignition switch on with the engine off, and some people have experienced problems with the notorious green tape and retaining the magnets. The ZX ignitions have a relatively high failure rate of their (admittedly 30 year old) control modules. (I suspect that the Mallory Unilite—which is an optical system—is probably more reliable. But it is not as affordable. I do not know anything about the reliability of the Crane ignition, it is also optical.) Unlike points, a failed electronic ignition can rarely be repaired at roadside. All you can do is replace the failed component. When I tried the ZX ignition in my car, I carried a spare E12-80. While I never had to use it myself, it did get a fellow member's 240Z home after his module failed w/o warning in the registration line for a Datsun show. Now that I have the Pertronix in my car, I carry a set of points and the other necessary bits with me, just in case. I'm not advocating that everyone stay with—or change back to—points. Far from it. There ARE benefits to electronic ignition. But it is not a magic bullet. If your ignition is not performing correctly with points, converting will only fix the problem if the parts you replace (i.e. the points and condenser, or the distributor in the case of the ZX swap) was/were the root problem. If you are having other issues—weak coil, faulty or incorrect wiring, etc.—the problem will still exist w/o the points. And while the need for regular maintenance is greatly reduced, you can't expect 100% reliability with the currently available affordable systems.

When you installed the Pertronix, did you also replace the coil? Do you have a condenser/capacitor connected to one of the terminals on the coil? And lastly, do you still have a ballast resistor connected?

Cell phone won't do. Since I don't own a real vid-cam, I'll have to try using the webcam on my laptop. Might not be a good representation, but I'll try tomorrow.

The outlets are on 4" center spacing, too far apart for this application.*************************************************** It's done. For now, at least. A quick note on the joint where I shortened the S-pipe - I used a stainless band clamp there. I highly recommend these for this type of joint. Seals well, seems to be quite rigid. As for the rest - I gave up and took it to the pros, had them weld both ends of the reducer, as well as the muffler to the rear S-pipe. I might have been able to fiddle around and get the reducer joints to seal more-or-less, but there was just no way that was going to work on the Magnaflow. The inlet on the muffler was just far too sloppy a fit on the pipe. Way too much gap to clamp. So how is it, you ask? Not bad. I still don't think I'd do it over, nor will I recommend it to others. Too much work, too expensive. I should have bought the new downpipe from MSA separately, and had a system made locally instead. Since the local exhaust shops all charge more than I hear people talk about in other parts of the country, the overall cost would probably have been about the same, but I might be even happier with the result. The fit - now that the welding is done - is pretty good. Very solid, no rattles, leaks or interference anywhere. The tips extend about an inch farther than the previous Monza tips did. That's about as far as I'd want them to go. But on the plus side, the longer tips in combination with the welded joints seems to have eliminated the exhaust smell with the windows down. Any concerns? Yeah. It's louder than I had hoped. No drone so far, and the note is deeper and throatier than the small-tube glasspack I had before. Sounds good when you get on it, but pretty loud then. Relatively quiet at steady cruise. If it doesn't get much louder, I think I can live with it. But if the packing in the muffler settles, I'm going to have to have another muffler added in the center, which will require a bit of rework to get away from the edge of the tunnel.