PeterZ

That kind of stuff usually only happens when someone accidentally reverses the positive and negative cables during the jump. Only one touch is enough to fry the alternator diodes. Voltage spikes during cable disconnecting is also a problem on computer cars. It helps to have the headlights on for any kind of jump start. The lights give any voltage spikes a place to go other than the computers. BMW requires a certain fuse, #21 I believe, to be removed before jumping.

Putting a prop valve in the front brakes is somewhat verboten Peter. I'm surprised that worked at all, for the same reason as stated above. The harder you step on the pedal the less pressure gets there (proportionally). Well said, Jon. I like the solutions listed above such as overdoing the rears and bringing it back with the adjustable valve. The Maxima rear kit was smallish anyway. Thanks. The tandem master set-up works well for my DSR chassis; excellent work on the mounting.

Normal? no. Dim the lights at idle? possibly. If a common test light (remember those) in series between the disconnected battery cable and the related battery post lights the test light you have a problem. You won't know how big. Most test light bulbs will glow dimly with 0.1 amp current and are bright by 1 amp. 1/10 amp is enough to drain your aberage sized battery in a few days. If you have a spark at the post you may several amps. Use a good ammeter in series with the disconnected cable. Start with a high amperage meter (10A scale) first or you might blow the internal meter fuse. Go to smaller scale on meter to get a good reading. The amount of drain can help you figure where to look. (I.E. A reading of 3 amps could be an internal problem with the alternator) Disconnect fuses and observe the meter. If all the fuses are gone and you still have a drain the fun begins. You have to look for what is powered and not fused. Starter, ammeter, etc. (book time) good luck. PS you may have 2 problems. A drain and something wrong with your charging system/wiring. What are the voltages at the alt. pos. post and at the battery during idle and 1500 RPM? The change in brightness is obviously not right. P.S.P.S. NEO997X bring up a good point. Check the belt tension. Rev the engine until the voltage jumps up had keep it there for a few seconds. A slipping belt may not make noise but a slipping pulley will eaasily burn your hand. Use a wet rag to test for heat on the pulleys.

Good article. I was taught the valve tapers off the rear brake pressure under hard braking to reduce rear whell lock-up due to weight transfer. I need to do some work on my car as I still have front wheel lock-up. I like the height adjusting valves (Toyota Truck) because they compensate some for additional weight in the bed. On my old BMW 2002 ITB cars we had to put an adjustable valve in the front brakes. Not fun as the calipers each had two brake lines. (The master cylinder had 5 lines-4 to the front calipers)

I have the vented 300ZX rotors 4x4 calipers and R4S pads up front and stock pad 85 Maxima calipers and mounts on 280 rear rotors on the back. No, they didn't just fall right in but I'm stubborn and had to make it that way. I liked the parking brake setup too. The searches may list the wrong or misleading info by the way. One recommends 83 maxima mounts and another recommends 85 mounts. The 85 mounts needed a little fab work but it wasn't too bad. The car still had no rear brakes while the fronts kept locking up. Removing the proportioning valve helped. I certainly don't need to add a valve in the rear. I don't yet see the need for another master cylinder either; there's only slightly more pedal travel now but at least it stops better. The 300 ZX rear rotor has a larger diameter than the 280 though I don't think a 1 inch diameter change is enough to balance my brakes. Did I miss something like some rear calipers have larger pistons? The surface areas all seem to be the same for that style pad.

PS when performing your piston drop test try to measure the rate of piston rise. The two suction pistons must rise at the same rate. You don't need calibrated fingers; you can tell if there's a problem with one of the dampers.

Were they overfilled? There's a mark on the plunger. Monitor the rate of oil loss, maybe diligent maintenance will keep them full. Low oil will make for lean running off idle. I recommend using whatever oil you use in the engine and tune accordingly. That way you'll never run out of or have to carry "special" oil.

At least he has access to a computer and uses fairly good grammar. I'm envisioning a bunch of well to do people sitting in their mansions typing that string back and forth to each other. All of them sitting in the darkness wearing Lord of the Rings capes and Bukakke shields pulled down tightly to shield them from the light of their computer screens.

Use relays! I'm finishing mine hopefully tomorrow. (Replacement connectors on order for the JY relay holders.) Each headlight on my 240 uses a single wire to power the light (each light on a seperate wire/fuse) and two grounds - one for low, the other for high. The ground is in the stupid lever on the column. Didn't combine lo/hi for high beam though, good idea.

I just started the conversion for putting my headlights on relays so I can reduce the amount of resistance in the system. They are pretty bad right now. I verified the operation of my mock-up last night. I need to tidy the harness and mount the relays into a spiffy relay mount.

Wow, I's been a long weekend. I have been helping Kyle with this problem. Jmortensen, congratulations on your PT contest. I won that contest in Calif. 1978. We took second place at the National level because I missed one item on my mental checklist. We lost by 7 minutes because I had to diagnose something I had initially overlooked. Darned if J.G. Moore didn't somehow know what I'd forget to check. I have been helping Kyle with his diagnosis for a few weeks now. The basis have been covered as well as we can do without me actually being there. His carbs are wrong in my opinion and he has listened to our comments. I understand he wanted to verify the carbs were actually too lean (pulling the choke made the car run better) and to find out at what RPM so we could get to the jetting or go back to his old round top SUs. The exhaust analyzer is a very good tool for setting up carbs. I wish I had access to one again. I know very well how to set up the SU mixture ranges by shaping the needles. Even those funky later ones on the 260. Kyle, I'm still willing if you haven't burned the car.

You probably have worn contacts on the turn signal switch. You can verify that by the visible smoke that comes up from the steering column while sitting in the left turn lane waiting for the light to change. Somebody recommended to apply pressure on the back of the switch contacts to make better contact. Try that to verify the condition. I put my rear lights on realys to reduce the amount of current passing through the turn signal switch contacts. The front lights are used with the flasher unit to control the relays. Works very well.

The valve flows in the direction of the valve cover to the intake manifold and is shut by manifold vacuum. High vacuum, low blow-by condition (idle) the valve is closed. Low vacuum, high blow-by condition (WOT) an internal spring opens the valve to allow more venting to the intake. The valve will flow easily on only one direction (to the intake). It also serves as an anti-backfire valve so the intake flame doesn't go the wrong direction into the crankcase blowing out all your seals and making interesting shapes out of sheetmetal valve covers. No PCV on the car makes for more frequent oil changes as the nasty exhaust gasses that blow past the rings are not evacuated and your oil gets contaminated faster with poo-poo. The additional hose to the air cleaner is to allow for proper venting should the amount of blow-by exceed the ability of your PCV hose for the conditions. (such as prolonged full throttle runs) Pressure in the crankcase means more oil leaks too. I suggest run the PCV and additional hose. It may clutter the looks but it is one "smog" device that is actually good for your engine.

Mwahahahaha. I love it...Years ago I did my first Hybrid wiring (toyota V8 all with one color wire. I don't recommend it.

I think the oil filter for a Z is the same as for a Ford engine (Fram PH8A) so the adapter will need to match the engine threads (verify per 260DET), the remote filter can be whatever you choose.

Is the pushrod at the slave cylinder adjustable and is the release point in the pedal very high? You may have a too-tight adnustment. Did you change anything else like the release bearing/collar or pressure plate to go with the disc?

Sounds like fun. Don't forget to check your chassis ground all the way back to the battery. I think one fuse powers the marker lights so if one bulb is dim the power loss is after the fuse (since the power branches off to each light).

You can use a "heavy duty" flasher unit and it works even if only one bulb is in the system. The problem is that it doesn't let you know if there's a bulb out, the police do that for you. Once again, you can put the rears on relays and trigger them using the front bulbs and heavy duty flasher units. I haven't had a problem with the signals since the change.

Anyone have a test light??? The circuit is pretty easy to figure out and trace problems with a decent light. Look for power in and follow everything down to the bulb connections to ground. Then I recommend you put the rear bulbs on relays and use the front lights (through the flasher) to trigger the relays for the rear. The rear bulbs carry enough current to mess up the TS switch contacts. Did you lose both ends of the right side or something like just the right rear bulbs? Mario-I too had to take my switch apart. I used dielectric grease, cleaned and aligned the center contact and then bent the mount tabs tight. No problems after the relay install, been two years now.

Good ideas from everyone above. I would also recommend verifying the cam is what you ordered. I helped install a kit for a truck and the cam was way wrong and did what you describe but it had 8" Hg at idle. Summit sent the wrong cam in the right box. Summit was OK with replacing the cam but we had to pay shipping and for all the gaskets. We didn't check while the engine was on a stand. Also, my Z8 cam runs like $#!+ without about 25 degrees advance at idle. (It has the performer kit with alum. heads) I had to get creative in changing the advance curves so I didn't have 60 degrees at 4500RPM but it is much happier now. I could see how a lean condition and/or "retarted" timing could make a few cylinders run hot, I have no idea how effecient your intake is at idle. Good luck.

16v is still too high unless your meter is not accurate. Did you try a different battery? With such a voltage change you would have illumination problems as well as starting problems. To where does the charge wire go from the alternator? I have a similar problem on my Z8 in that I lose almost 2 volts from the alternator wire through the stock ammeter to the battery. Cleaning up the wiring helped my battery problem but I measure 14.5 volts at the alternator and only 12.75 at the battery. You may have a poor connection and are reading high volts at your meter connection but getting much less at the battery. Losing water is an indication of excessive charging. (15.5v or higher above 1500 RPM) PS I'm curious as to what the charge voltage was during the Wall Mart test. sulfated batteries often charge up (and test well) but they require higher voltages than your system is capable of. Your battery goes dead a week or two later because the system can't charge at the higher voltage requirement.

16 volts is high enough to cause the water loss in your battery. Where are you taking measurements? If your battery sees 16 v during off-idle conditions and 10 volts at idle you have problems. Your battery may be sulfated and not taking/holding a proper charge, regulator problems, etc.. I recommend load testing the battery (250A for 15 seconds, should not drop below 9.8 v) and having an output test on the chg. system.

No offense, if your flywheel is reciprocating you have trouble but I know what you mean. You are gathering components for a cometitive car. PS make sure the assembly is balanced or at least from a company you trust and I recommend you have a rev limiter (MSD6AL). About 5 years ago at ThunderHill a guy with an ITS Z broke the crank at the flywheel. The break was such that the starter could get the car to start but what a vibration as the flywheel tried to get out of the block! Nasty. PS. I also recommend a rev limiter to assure you don't lose the valves through the retainer at excessive RPM. Stock retainers can't handle high rpm and the valve stems try to pull through the retainer if you miss a shift or two and the tack goes to 8100. I have personal experience of this. I won the race in a friend's car and got the $21.00 trophy but it cost me $1100 at Rebellos to fix the head. You can actually observe the valves over time trying to pull the keepers through the retainer. Valve lash doesn't change but the retainer creeps higher and higher up the valve stem. The racer's valve stems were almost through the retainer. We caught the problem because the guy's car had a tach with a tell-tale needle. I and had seen the valves pull through or break off on other cars without knowing why. When I got my car I bought a limiter and installed new retainers. I could see the originals had started migrating. Below 7,000 doesn't seem to have this problem but if you miss shifts and don't have a limiter you too can watch the occurrence. Good luck with your car.

Any chance you have a leaking injector bleeding off fuel pressure when the car sits? (That includes the cold start injector) I haven't seen a MS set-up but a pressure gauge could determine a fuel pressure loss pretty easily