roger.svoboda

I'm thinking someone put an 84 turbo on the car or Nissan started using those turbos on late production 83's. Seems like it was late in the model year. Scrapped it a year ago so can't verify. When I acquired the other turbos I just looked at them and they had a hot end and a cold end with fans on either side. As I gathered parts together for a swap I said huh! these turbos are different. To mystify me even more I also had two z31 water cooled turbos. Any way that explains it.

if the exhaust is as hot as you state then fuel is burning in the exhaust not the cylinder as it supposed to or had a bunch of carbon in there that caught on fire or a bird nest. Check on the ignition timing. Did you just acquire the car or it has been running and then gave you problems.

measure it before you buy it I think the 3" was for the turbo. Check the size on the n/a it might be like 2.5" YOu could just jump a signal to the base of the transistor and see if generate a spark. Sounds like you are on hte right track anyway. You should have +12 to the collector from the ignition thru the primary and then to the transistor and the emitter grounded. jump some volts to the base and it ought to kick it. Maybe something happened to the mounting socket. Or just not coming thru the ignition switch. Seems other have had that problem.

have you looked inside the dizzy for broken parts. Do you get spark from the coil wire to frame thus bypassing the rotor and cap. Noid light on the injectors will verify they are getting pulse. You seem to know what you are doing electrically. Pull the cover on the ecu and look for blown components. CAn you smell raw fuel at the exhaut end? If you do then pretty sure you got fuel but no fire. Easy way to change the air filter is to buy the kit from msa but pricey. I took a 3" exhaust elbow and welded a bracket to it for support to a convenient screw below it. then just add the K&N after that. this is a pic of the msa kit on my 83na. I put the homemade rig on an 81T. I bought the msa thing when I first started with z's then realized I'd been sold something at a really good markup. If you look at K&N site they had a calculator to determine size of filter needed given engine rpm and displacement. That set cost me like $30 and I think the msa one was excess $100 I kinda think something died conincedentally with the muffler install but????. Did you weld the muffler on or have it done? Whenever you weld on car have your ground wire as close to the welding area as possible.

Here are the pics. Thought I tagged em in there the first time. apparently I haven't figured out how to post pics with the new system. i think it took that time

Can anyone help identifying these turbos. The one on the left in pieces came out of an 83. It sheared the bucket wheel shaft. The center one I bought from Craig's List. The one on the right I got from a guy who replaced his with a larger one. The left hand one appears to be a mix and match with a z31 turbo as the waste gate is integral with the pipe whereas the others have the waste gate as a separate unit bolted to the exhaust volute. Question is did the 280 turbos all have the separate wastegate or did some come with the wastegate as part of the exhaust pipe as did the z31 but did not include the water cooling feature. Thanks for any information

If the car wasn't running how do you know the power transistor was dead? Have you checked the fuel pressure? Need fuel, air and fire to make em work. any one of the three missing and no go. fuel delivery problems seem more common than ignition woes. Checked all your connectors under the hood for corrosion? Don't get so focused on one idea that you neglect other things. Check the air intake system for a mouse nest. is the afm working?

look in the fsm. detailed procedure in there on how to do it.

actually put 12v via jumper wires to the light and see if the filaments are okay. Unlikely but they can burn out.

z31 seem to have problems with getting your belts tight enough. Son's 85T doing that finally tightened it more than I would consider necessary on other cars but it stopped the squeal. Just as you described cold weather progressively worse. You might check that. New belt didn't help either.

if you could write a cogent statement of what you want to know you might get some answers.

are you getting 12 volts at the headlight? VOM will give you lots of info. s130 don't have bulbs for headlights it is a sealed beam headlight. How did you check the ground wire???

think you got that backwards the 81 has the R180 and the 83 turbo has the R200. they swap right in just make sure the driveshaft is compatible. need to turn the diffy mounting bolts 180 degrees to match.

put a noid light on the injectors and check the firing pulse instead of guessing they aren't expensive. The ecu you are using may not be compatible with your 84. Do a search. There is a problem with the O2 sensor for one thing and I seem to remember 86 to 87 was different so you need to know for sure what ecu you have. I know for a fact you can't use 86 with 84 or 85. They will start and run about three blocks then puke. why do you insist it is ignition when obviously you have fire in the cylinder or the engine wouldn't fire on ether. Use some common sense here it isn't black magic. Or if so you had better contact Gandolf.

you mentioned everything but fuel pressure. either you have no fuel pressure or the ecu is not sending signal to open injector. You need a fuel pressure gage and a noid light. you need fuel, fire and air. Obviously if it runs on ether the missing thing is fuel all that ignition stuff is not the problem.

to bad it didn't come up a year ago I threw one away because I think they ugly.

driver door cylinder should have the number on it. But if the hatch doesn't likely someone changed things around. You are looking for a numbr like M1234. Other option is take all the cylinders to a competent lock smith and tell him to make them all work with the same key. Changing the keying is fairly cheap if you do the cyinder removal work. You could also take the hatch cylinder in and see if they can work backwards from that. Not Home Depot or Ace Hardware use an actual guy that has locksmith on the door and makes his living that way. Again the operative word is competent.

That thing you have there is an after market unit that people and dealers put on the cars. Bit garish for my taste. All the original car had back there was a license plate light and the license plate. Finding one of those would be a real long shot. You could go back to the plain simple original look (my preference)

Oh by the way! If you haven't done your bushings you won't notice quite so much with the new shocks. Set of poly bushings, new tie rod ends and ball joints will make you think you are driving a different car. I'd put your money there first. But I guess you alread bought the shocks. Even so since you are going to have the car up in the air DO the bushings.

I just put front and rears on my 86. The rears don't need the fancy cap that went over the three studs. The non adjustable shocks just had three washer head bolts direct to the body. But they will fit if you want to use them. The fronts pretty much the same. You do need the piece that replaces the gland nut of the adjustable shock. Be sure you get the piece for the adjustable shocks the regular stock shocks were about 2mm less in diameter. The pieces came with the shocks I bought. I don't know if boots for the shocks are necessary but some folks put them on. Be sure you tighten down the mounting cap nut securely. I used an impact wrench and held the shaft with a piece of emery cloth wrapped around the shaft with my hand. Don't use ViseGrips like someone did in one post. You scar the shaft might as well buy another set of shocks. If you use hand wrench then there are flats I believe to hold it. Be sure you do that before you start installing them. Need spring compressor for the front. struts easy to remove. Knuckle arm bolts, remove the caliper first, and the three under the hood. Release the sway bar bolt to the control arm and you can push down enough to get the strut out.

thank you for the reply

put a five speed in an 81 worked fine. do a search there are some posts about that. Auto ecu works for 5 speed but not so good the other way around I remember.

Any recommendations on a reputable shop for a turbo rebuild would be welcome. Finally getting around to putting my turbo engine in my 83 n/a

Replace the chts. when you have a problem and unplugging a component makes it better you might think that would be a problem. You didn't say what year type z you have but if stock and not a swap you have a 81, 82, 83. There are differences in those years. The 81 is more different than the 82, 83. So what you got? The guy above is talking about Z not ZX. The z has a water temp sensor the zx has a cylinder head temp sensor. I'm assuming that when you say you have a 280et you mean you have a turbo L6 (S130). Which is it? you can get a lot better answers by specifying what auto you have.

fuel pressure increase from idle as you accelerate so that is normal. Have you checked your timing? what is the state of your spark plugs and wires? Dizzy cap and rotor? Are you boosting? need fuel, fire and air to run. one of em ain't doing right. just a fuel delivery problem would give you power loss but probably not the fits and starts. I'd look into the ignition system first.