Now THIS is annoying!

[ALConfederate]

This is on my '78 280Z. I suppose I need to post the car's saga on an intro thread some day soon; it's very...interesting. The wiring is FUBAR thanks to the PO...a cut-and-splice job from Hell. There's wire nuts in place of the fusible links. Anybody ever wanted to track down a PO and choke the living &^%# out of him while screaming, "What were you THINKING, man?" That's about the way I feel right now.

Last week, I was working on the car and discovered there was no fire going to the injectors. "Fixed" that problem by jumpering across the plug for the EFI main relay. Fired right up after I did that and ran like a champ.

Today I go to play with her and...nothing. So I start digging. Gas...check. Fire to injectors...check. Fire to plugs...ah hah! Nothing there.

Set up a plug wire with a screwdriver about 4mm from a ground. Nothing. Did the same thing with the coil wire. Nothing. Checked the coil...primary windings have a resistance of about 2.2 ohms. IIRC, that's about where a coil should be. Put the key on RUN...I have 12V at both terminals on the coil. Is that right? I seem to recall from my younger days working on this type of ignition you should only have 12V on the + side; if you see it on the - side you've got a bad coil.

Either that or my jumpering the EFI main burned something out. Anybody have any thoughts on the matter?

Dave M.

[ALConfederate]

What is it, fellas? Have I violated some unspoken taboo on the Classic Z site? I see almost eighty views and yet no answers, not even so much as a "kiss my foot, you lame poser".

But here's an update...it turned out grease & dirt were apparently shorting out the coil with a little bit of voltage leakage, and damaged the coil. From what I was able to find on the intarnet, that primary-side resistance should have been no more than 1.02 ohms and the secondary side should have been somewhere between 8K and 11K ohms. That reading was...over 80K! So I went and put in a Blaster2 coil -- that was the only thing I could find locally that would work -- and zap! We have spark!

Gentlebeings, it was never my intention to upset or offend anybody; please accept my apologies if I did either, in any way.

ALC

[EScanlon]

Dave:

I read your post, and it seemed as though you were just ranting.

Then again, with all the wiring being "FUBAR'ed" and your addition of even more shunts....heck you're right... "kiss our foot, you lame poser" . What were you expecting?

You were spouting technical jargon of a pretty specialized nature (primary winding resistance), and then (it seems) asking a pretty basic question "Is that right?" ... Heck yeah!! Kiss our foot, you lame poser!

It seemed as though you knew what you were doing. Did you really expect someone to look over your shoulder and ask you to move over a bit so they could detect if the secondary windings of the flux capacitator were properly degaussed before the primary field collapsed around the ferricambulator? Or is it that the magnetic envelope must invert at the proper sequential increment of defluxing of the potential field perniculator?

Most of us try to answer ... when we know or are pretty sure of the diagnosis, based on the description given by the person asking the question. But in this case? Kiss our foot, you lame poser!

So, hopefully you take this in jest and in stride, you probably got too deep too quickly for anyone to catch what the question was and provide you with our magical immediate reply. So, for future reference: pucker up and kiss our foot, you lame poser!

FWIW and J/K

E

[ALConfederate]

Thanks, man. Appreciate that. Didn't mean to get too deep for y'all. In the future I'll try and keep it simple. "Z won't go. Help me make it go."

It's just been a while since I've actually worked on cars beyond things like tune-ups and oil changes. Back when I was a young'un I worked on a lot of Mustangs and similar Ford products -- some of what I remember will transfer, some won't, and some of what I remember I just remember incorrectly. I was just hoping someone would backstop me and confirm if what I was thinking was right or if I was just being a lame poser with delusions of adequacy. My fault for not being clear and remembering that no one here knows me from Schrodinger's cat.

But I do appreciate knowing I hadn't offended anybody somehow. That is good to know.

[RayG1988]

Oh man, I know exactly what you mean with old owners and crappy wiring. Trace every single one and make sure none of them are burned, if possible replace those retarded bolts with actual fusible links or upgrade to maxifuse like I did.

Hope you can get your car working.

[ALConfederate]

I like the maxifuse option. I just need to find out where the PO hid the other pair of fusible link wires.

Well, I'm making progress. Last week I had her running, then had the problem with the coil. Got that fixed, then discovered it wouldn't rev much past 3000 without spitting and sputtering. A pressure check on the fuel pump seems to have found that problem -- about 16 PSI at the pump. I don't know if I want to spend the $250 a "new" unit's going to cost, so I'm eyeballing the MSD 2225 electric pump, which is IIRC a 38-40 PSI unit.

Y'all tell me not to sell this car. I told a gentleman a month ago (before I really started working on it) that I would consider selling it. Now, I'm finding the more I work on it and the more I get done, the less I want to sell her. All I want to do now is get her back on the road and go on a ricer hunt.