=Enigma=

M8 sounds a bit small for a part taking on so much stress unless you have 4 per side. Just to be clear, my bolts are M12(head) x 1.25(thread pitch) x 20mm (length) CL8(strength) Hex Bolt and there are two per side. VicBrit show the same part for 240, 260 & 280Z's. Sounds like yours may have been replaced at some point. Hopefully the thread or shaft diameter is the same as normal M12 or this may be your problem. It's even possible someone replaced them with non-metric parts or had to re-thread the hole. Many sway bar mounting brackets come with 1/2" bolts. I found a 1/2" bolt used for one of my motor mounts rather than the usual M12 x 1.25 x 25mm(I think). Check if the other working bolts fit properly in the problem mounting point. If so just pick up a matching one at the HW store. If not, you may need to clean up the threads with a an appropriate tap. Sorry, you;re simply gonna have to get under the car

The bolts that mount the front sway bar to the body of the car on my 73' are M12 x 1.25 x 20mm hex bolts. Hope that helps.

As I understood it, the job of the ballast resistor is to reduce(roughly half) the the voltage leading to the points to prevent them from geting fryed. 12volts / 2 = 6 volts. Minus a little voltage loss somewhere in the wires leading to the ballast resistor would put you in that 5 volt range you're seeing. If you're not using a points based dizzy, I'd simply bypass or remove the ballast resistor. Otherwise, check the voltage at both sides of the resistor with the key in the ON position. This should tell you how much voltage is making it to the resistor and how much is being let through. If it's less than your required 8 volts, and I would think it would be, you'll need to bypass the resistor.

Could be as simple as a bad cap, rotor, corroded connections at the cap, or bad plug wires? My old plug wires were leaking all over the place and the car wouldn't rev past a certain RPM. New plug wires fixed that problem. However, these sorts of problems normally don't exhibit at low RPMs, or under no load conditions. As for the dizzy cap, check if you can see any noticable carbon tracking in the inside of the cap. Ionized particles carbon will build up inside the cap and create a track for electricity to follow. The track can lead from one secondary terminal to another or to the body of the dizzy and ground. This occurs more frequently where there is crack in the cap but if there is enough carbon build up a crack is not needed.

Actually I did use the image from the image from the tech articles as a reference. However, it didn't work for me. I had to splice the RED wire from the tach adapter between the MSD unit and the dizzy, and not between the IGN SW and the dizzy. The tach won't work without the MSD Tach Adapter. The part # is 8910, not 8610. You will need this to get it working. Note: I already had a 280ZX dizzy installed on my 73' so your experience may differ unless you have one as well. The MSD 6AL has 6 wires as follows: Heavy RED - (+) battery terminal Heavy BLACK - (-) battery terminal RED - IGN SW (+) WHITE - Trigger wire from dizzy ORANGE - (+) Coil BLACK - (-) Coil Mounting I fabbed a mounting bracket for the 6AL and mounted it near the battery, along with the tach adapter. Wire Routing I routed the 4 18ga wires(O, B, R, W), along the wire loom that makes its way out to the front of the car on the right side, and across to the other side along the front crossmember, where it makes it's way back into the engine compartment and terminates by the coil. The 12ga power wires (R, went directly to the battery. I bought a used unit so I had to lengthen all the wires. I'm not sure how long the new ones are. If you need to lengthen your wires, follow the instructions in the manual and go up one wire size for the extensions. 12ga > 10ga, 18ga > 16ga. Conections: All connections were soldered and shrink wraped. All wires were routed inside a plastic wire loom which was wrapped with tape to seal out dirt and moisture. Power - 12ga RED (+) and BLACK (-) wires to the appropriate battery terminals. Coil - ORANGE wire to the (+) side of the coil, and the BLACK wire to the (-) side of the coil. Electronic Distributor(280ZX version) - The WHITE wire goes to the "C" terminal of the IGN Module or the . The RED wire connects with the BW wire from the IGN SW(original coil (+) wire) and the wire leading to the "B" terminal of the ignition module. I spliced these all together near the coil. Tach Adapter - Splice the WHITE wire from the tach adapter into the WHITE wire from the MSD box. Splice the RED wire from the tach adapter into the RED wire from the MSD unit. The last step was to tidy things up a bit by doing a final tape wrap and to zip tie it all up nice and neat. I'll get some pictures tomorrow if I have time and post them here. Adam

Well Steven you were bang-on. What you described is exactly what I was doing. Everything is working now including the tach which required some experimentation with wiring paths. Thanks for the help.

Here's a 77 280Z for $50 in the Bay Area. If someone wants to buy this and part it out I'll take the moustache bar. http://www.craigslist.org/eby/pts/152633250.html I'd get it myself but I don't have a place to store it or a way to transport it.

Looks good man. I don't knwo why but these cars remind me of an elephant or a hippo when looking at them from this angle. No offense intended. I think they're pretty cool looking cars.

Interesting. Do either of your cars have a smog pump? This is where my car's smog pump was before it was ripped out with extreme prejudice. The AC compressor was on the passenger side but was removed long before I bought the car. I happily removed the remaining hardware.

Well that was a waste of $$$. Anyone with a leter model need a set of boots with built in bump stops? I don't think this is an issue for later models.

I'll have to check that out in the morning. Your explanation makes perfect sense. I was really tired so it is very possible. In fact, I'm almost sure that is what I did because nothing else makes any sense. Based on your explanation I was seeing roughly a .34 - .37 volt drop across the circuit. I feel like a friggin' bonehead. Thanks for the reply. Reminder to self: "Don't play with electricity when you're tired."

You defintely have an excellent starting point. And like some others said, don't let the WIAT syndrone keep you from enjoying the car. These things were meant for driving IMHO. Get out there and put some miles on it!

A while back I did a 280ZX dizzy conversion and everything works great. Bypassed the resistor, added a wire from the C terminal on the IGN module to the (-) terminal of the coil. Fantastic. Thing ran great. Still does, however.. While prepping for the addition of an MSD 6AL, I was doing some continuity and voltage tests of the two BW wires that run to the now missing ballast resistor and the (+) coil terminal, I found that both wires have 12+ volts when the IGN is in the OFF position, 12+ volts in the ACC position, <1 volt in the ON position, and <1 volt in the START position. Based on this the coil would be getting less than 1 volt when starting and when running. How can this be? I know this can't be normal but the car runs fine...... I'm so confused.....

Looks great Dreco. Nice job. I have always like the look of your car. Might even look better with a better camera.

I bought the same boots for my Tokico springs. It's a pretty tight fit. I haven't actually mounted them yet on the car yet and I'm not sure what to do with the front since it rotates and you can't clamp the bottom portion down.

Welcome to the site. Good luck with your search.

It might not be such a steal. SF is basically a penninsula in the middle of a large body of salt water. Pacific Ocean on one side and the inner bay on the other. SF is a very damp place with ocean fog a large majority of the year, including summer time. I'd take a look at it before declaring this a good deal. It may be a complete rust bucket disaster waiting to happen.

Mine never appears completely full and it runs fine. I'm sure this is probably normal. unless you;re having issue I wouldn't worry about it.

Depending on your budget, you could look for some used round top SUs, or go with a freshly rebuilt set from http://www.ztherapy.com. I see used sets on eBay all the time, and someone here might even have a set for you. You're also going to need the proper linkage parts. Not sure of the details here but someone will chime in I'm sure. I have a 73' that was already convereted when I bought it. I'm happy with it so far but have nothing to compare to.

Shocks have nothing to do with ride height. Assuming we're talking about using the stock struts, it's the springs that control the ride height, and rim/tires as well if you want to get snooty about it.

I've got an image with all the dimensions you're looking for, but it's too big to post here. PM me if you want it.

That thing is sick! I'd love to have something like that, but not $192K bad.

Here's a good place to start... http://www.teglerizer.com/sucarbs/techtip6.htm

Ok, I can see it now. Very nice job. I just had my diff cover bead blasted and put several clear coats. I'll get apicture of it tomorrow and post it to you can see what that looks like. It turned out great.

This post is worthless without pics. Perhaps it just my pda thats not showing them.....If not, where's the pics?