john kosmatka

I might know this guy. His name wouldn't happen to be Jesse would it?

Nice, California Z's are amazing compared to what we have to work with here. Well worth the effort of picking one up. When I was in Northern Cali I found too many good deals that were rust free, but no way to get them home since I had driven out there. Good luck on the trip!

Yep makes sense. Also for the sway bar bushings, putting a zerk fitting on the straps and drilling a hole in the bushings works well for lubing them up.

Great progress so far. Looking through threads like these make me want to start my chassis reinforcement project before the auto-x season is even over. Did you raise the floor pans up at all? Can't tell from the pics.

Sounds like a great way to spend your birthday, besides the injury part. I went down pretty hard earlier this year riding some tight single track, terrain wasn't quite as rocky as in that video though. I feel for ya, even the slow speed spills on the rocky stuff leave me sore the next morning.

Any more progress in the last month?

Looks awesome Clive! Red is such an awesome color, the added contrast with the flares will make it look even better.

On the rear calipers on some saabs, you have to go on the back of the caliper and there is 14 mm dust plug bolt that covers a 4mm allen head bolt that is used for adjusting the ebrake. You must retract the allen bolt as much as possible to fully compress the piston, this may have been your issue.

Strange, had the same exact problem with my 02' WRX. Had a seized slider pin on each side in the front. I remember I had to heat them up red hot with the torch to get them to budge, thankfully I had some spare Subaru calipers around that used the same pins.

In the end I found that this was being caused by poor connections at the ignition module under the dash. Although all the things above were also possibilities and are worth trouble shooting if you have a similar problem.

Hesitation is only under load. So it can be 1/4 throttle or full throttle and it still does it. If your cruising and holding it at say 3k rpm it will cruise fine until you try to accelerate. If you put in the clutch it rev's up freely, turn the car off and back on. The hesitation is gone for a minute or so. It is stock efi. I will check into the ignition module as I was thinking the same thing, just haven't had the time to check it yet. No vacuum leaks, new afm boot, freshly cleaned fuel injectors, fresh fuel pump, fresh fuel filter etc. Thanks for the suggestions. I am going check the fuel pressure this week too just to narrow things down. But I really have a feeling its ignition related.

Nice man! I was looking at E46 M3's myself earlier this year. They're such nice driving cars. They aren't the quickest cars out there, but their silky smooth and a joy to drive. Have fun!

A little update. Switched out ecu with spare, same issue. Fresh fuel filter even though the last one didn't look to old, same problem. Tested the coil, got 1 ohm of resistance on the primary and 11k ohms on the secondary. I couldn't find any specs for the stock coil, but these seem reasonable. Fuel pump is a new walbro and the old pump shows no signs of crud. When I drained the tank no rust or crud was found. Also, just cycling the key will get rid of the hesitation for a short period. So say I'm driving along and it starts hesitating at 4k rpm, turn the key off and immediately back on. The hesitation is gone for about 30 seconds to a minute. I'm almost getting to the point where I want to just scrap the stock efi and run mega squirt. But I know its just one simple little thing causing it.

Any other ideas. Ill probably throw a coil in today and give the wiring another look over.

So, I've been trying to chase down the hesitation problem on my 77' 280z before the next auto-x. The car drives fine when you first start it and pulls clean all the way to red line. After say a minute or two of driving the car begins to hesitate around 3500 rpm and up. If I pull over, shut the car off for about 30 seconds and restart the hesitation is gone for another minute or two of driving. So far I've checked the coolant temp sensor and afm according to the shop manual. Both are within their operating specifications. I am leaning towards an ignition problem, possibly coil? I checked the base timing, at idle with the vacuum advance disconnected I saw about 13 degrees, which is good in my book. The car hesitates weather or not the vacuum advance is connected or disconnected. I also have the cold start valve, egr and air regulator removed.