Zcardude

Hi everyone I'm putting a standard 240Z steering wheel that I just restored back in my car but I am missing some of the parts. I was able to buy a new horn pad and horn pad assembly, but I can't find a replacement contact ring for the back of the steering wheel, which should be part 16, which is 48495-E4100 COMP-RING CONTACT, in this picture: Does anyone know of an alternative that will fit? I also think I am missing 5 and 6, but I can't see what those would be used for and I don't appear to have any fitment issues without those.

Here's a company that makes a complete carbon fiber roof just for this: https://industrygarage.com/products/datsun-s30-carbon-fiber-roof

Might be useful to list out what kind of ECU that you're running

I've looked at XFI systems before and many of them based on my understanding are fuel-only. I think you'll be in big trouble at 18-27psi without controlling spark timing as well. You're maybe safe at 4-5psi if are running pretty rich AFRs and retard the factory distributor a bit

Thank you, that’s very helpful! I’ll definitely use this info once I figure out the overall spark triggering situation 😄

Yep, I have the distributor on my bench and it spins freely and appears to be in relatively good shape outside of the failed pickup. I was also considering a 280Z or ZX distributor for the car but those appear to not be in good supply so I figured trying out a new pickup for this one might be the best bet. Additionally I was likely going to convert the car to either use an MSD box or 4pin HEI module once I had the pickup working as I’m not sure the factory TIU is in good shape still and either of those options would supply more power to the coil.

Hi there, I recently picked up a non running 260Z. It hasn’t been driven in 27 years and I’m trying to get it back on the road. I’ve traced my issues down to a corroded and dead pickup coil in the distributor. I’ve ohmed it out and it shows that there is no connection in the pickup internally. Additionally I’ve bench tested it trying to get it to fire an MSD box to no avail I’m not able to find anywhere that I can get a new pickup coil for this distributor and don’t really want to spend $150+ and a long turnaround time having the distributor rebuilt when I know this is a part you can generally just buy for other distributors. For example I see I can get a new 280Z pickup from rock auto here: https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/nissan,1978,280z,2.8l+l6,1209260,ignition,distributor+pickup+coil,7176 But I’m not sure it would work in the 260Z dizzy as I know they are a bit different. Is there an alternative pickup coil I can install in the factory 260Z distributor? Would the 280Z one work despite being for a slightly different distributor? Is there some other pickup that I can buy at a local parts store and install? thanks for your help :)

Just checking back in to say this thing is running really good, the best it ever has since I've owned it I think, so I don't think my trigger angle is causing any issues at all. I haven't hot rodded on it yet but it drives very very good and I'm expecting it to pull good as well. I'm very confident that my mechanical timing is correct as I spent a lot of time questioning that before looking at the terrible wiring job (see my post history :D)

Thanks! That all makes sense and lined up with my thinking. Since I have the timing light matching what the spark advance in tunerstudio is stating I'm going to call things "fine" for now My biggest concern I think was that if I got too weird of a trigger angle, since I'm still using the distributor with a single coil, I could potentially end up in a situation where the rotor is not in the correct position to fire the proper plug or fire the wrong one or something along those lines.

Hi everyone, I'm running an MS2 3.57 running MS2 Extra 3.4.3 on a 1983 L28ET in a 1973 240Z. I just finished completely rewiring the engine with a new harness as the previous install was hack job by the previous owner. I recently did some work on my car, upgrading it to use a diyautotune optical trigger disc as well as eliminating an unnecessary CDI box. I have it running pretty well (just moving it around the driveway so far, haven't driven it fully yet) but had to use a strange "Tooth #1 Angle(deg BTDC)" trigger angle setting. It seems very healthy compared to the previous wiring job: it fires right up dead cold and just sits there and runs, previously it was very angry cold. I was mostly following the information on https://www.diyautotune.com/support/tech/hardware/nissan-trigger-disc/ but I did not create a second input for the cam, I am only doing crank input for now. For my new setup, I am using a "Tooth #1 Angle(deg BTDC)" trigger angle setting of 285 degrees. When I set this angle, my timing light matches up exactly with the calculated spark advance. DIYAutotune recommends 345 degrees. When I tried 345 degrees, the car would not run at all, I think that the timing was just way too far off. Before installing the DIYAutotune optical trigger disc, looking at my old tune, my "Trigger Angle/Offset(deg)" was 52.3 which I believe was also sort of a weird setting. So my question is: Is it normal to have such wildly varying trigger angles from what lots of other people have and what online guides recommend? Does this mean my distributor drive is potentially installed improperly? Does any of this matter if I am able to get the correct advance out of my timing light? I ask because I know the engine is a rebuild that was already running on megasquirt when I bought it and I don't know if this is something I need to resolve. It had some weird ignition problems before but the wiring was a disaster. I want to know where to look next if there are more ignition issues or if this can cause problems. I can post some MSQs if that's helpful. Thank you!

I’m also interested in doing this. What are the part numbers or links to what you’re using there? I see the pressure switch there - is that also an aftermarket clutch slave?

That's interesting that you mention that. I have the same unit triggered by an MS2 and have some weird power delivery issues, where the torque drops off rapidly, then come right back, producing a really oddball (and sorta disappointing? It makes 258whp but should be able to do more) power curve. Did you have the opportunity to dyno yours with the problematic MSD StreetFire? I'm curious what it looked like on your setup. Posted mine below for reference Some other members here have speculated that it is caused by noise coming in through the optical pickup on my L28ET distributor, but I originally was thinking it might be a problem with the MSD StreetFire unit. Now you've got me wondering... I've got an MSD 6AL box to try as well as a different trigger wheel for my distributor so I can basically eliminate either or both from my setup. Will definitely post back in this thread once I have more information.

I don’t think there’s a known “safe advance map” for our engines, but what I said about timing slightly increasing after peak torque is a really common pattern. If you take your car to a dyno and have someone tune the timing, that’s how your spark map will end up. Guaranteed. In the meantime ensuring that your base timing is set right and then reviewing a lot of other tunes and staying conservative is probably alright. But you shouldn’t lose several degrees of timing as you run up through the RPMs. Also yeah it sounds like you’ve got a problem with your alternator or some kind of wiring issue. I mentioned that you may want to try to relay the megasquirt directly off the battery rather than scabbed into some other part of the electrical system (not that you’ve done that I obviously don’t know what’s going on with your wiring), that may help if you want to try something that should only cost a few dollars rather than needing to do a whole alternator swap. FWIW I’m running a 90A Gm 1 wire and based on datalogs I fluctuate a whopping .1v over the course of a very long drive, essentially keeping a rock solid 14v constant. That should be your goal and would probably be a decent place to start solving problems with your install. Definitely post results as you try things out and they get better. I messed with my L28ET megasquirt setup for quite a while before I finally started becoming happy and relatively satisfied with it. Good luck!

Hi, I took a look at your log and tune and have a few suggestions - Your TPS doesn't appear to be calibrated right. It looks like you are going WOT and only achieving about 85% TPS - Your spark plugs are the wrong heat range. They are too hot, 6 is an N/A heat range. You should be running a 7 heat range plug like a BKR7E or BPR7E. 0.028 gap should be fine - Based on logs you make boost really late for such a small turbo. Is this just you only jumping on the throttle later in the powerband or is this where you have to be to make pressure? Do you have boost leaks? You should make or buy a boost leak tester and test. For comparison I am running a older, less efficient, larger frame turbo, and making positive pressure at 2k and start making decent power around 3k. - I'm not sure how accurate your wideband is but things look a bit fat under boost generally. I'm seeing high to mid 10 AFR's on some of your pulls, low 11s on others. Try to target mid to high 11s under boost if you can - Your spark map looks too conservative to me. In fact, all of your timing seems to diminish as RPMs go up. This is actually the opposite of what you want: Once you are past peak power, you should look to slightly increase timing to to carry power higher in RPM range. FWIW my tune on my L28ET (that I messed with on a dyno and whatnot but admit is far from perfect) is at 24 degrees advance at 180KPA, yours is between 22 all the way down to 18 depending on RPM. Again, FWIW, messing with my timing, under power, I was able to gain 5-10HP per degree of timing added - if something like that is true on your engine, you could imagine yourself dropping 20-40HP as you remove timing at the top of your powerband. Maybe this is some of the flattening out at 4500 that you're feeling? I'm not recommending that you just jump everything up to like 22 degrees at that load or whatever, but you should definitely review some other people's tunes and whatnot and consider tinkering with this a bit - I don't recommend running a tiny gap. I thought I was having ignition issues on the dyno, de-gapped a new set of BKR7E plugs to 0.020, and then fouled them out after only a couple of pulls, losing power after every pull. I don't think a single coil setup can reliably run this small of a gap. I slapped another set in at 0.028, got all of the power back, and then did several more pulls without issue. - Definitely fix the alternator issue or look into something shorted out and drawing too much power. I really recommend swapping to a 1 wire GM alternator. They are way cheaper than Datsun alternators, super reliable, and you can get them at almost any parts store. The swap took my less than an hour after my ZXT alternator failed. Highly recommend. No reason for you battV to be moving the way it is and I'm sure it's making megasquirt pretty angry. Test out your voltage in a few spots on your wiring harness. It might be that you just need to put the megasquirt on a relay more directly tied to the battery if you’re getting 14v elsewhere. According to the megamanual, your megasquirt should be powered off of a relay powered directly from batt positive itself and not from any other source. - Try a higher averaging lag setting on your RPM input, it might help it smooth out RPM input a bit. It's really shaky in your current setup. I've been messing with this on my tune too - Move your MAP signal, it looks a bit dirty. You may want to try moving it somewhere on the manifold where a single cylinder's pulses can't affect it so much hope you find this helpful wrenching on a megasquirt system can be both frustrating and reeally rewarding once the stars align and it finally works properly! edit: also wanted to note that you should separate your BOV and MBC lines. Generally people put their BOV on a dedicated vacuum line from the intake manifold, and then run the MBC/wastegate off of the charge piping or off the compressor itself if it has a nipple another note I just thought of: how are your grounds? In my experience, megasquirt gets angry with poor grounding. All of megasquirt’s grounds should be run back to the intake manifold and grounded together, separate from all of the car’s other grounds.

It's hard to guess what kind of power an engine might make because there are a lot of variables in play, but you should be able to get a relatively close estimation by using your phone with a "dyno" app like pocketdyno, dynolicious, probably some others, if you can put in accurate weights, c/d, frontal area, gearing, tire size, etc. I'd recommend several pulls and average them together. Otherwise a couple of dyno pulls are usually only in the $50-100. That said if you are taking guesses before you start to get actual numbers, my shooting from the hip guess is 155whp, having looked at other L series dynos in the past...