trippintl0

I have used the Harbor Freight jack for almost 4 years and it has worked great. When I bought it, it was on sale for $39.99. What a deal! It looks exactly like the one in the picture you linked too.

"...coupled with the fuel injection harness needing to be pulled and replaced (possibly restoring bad connections?)" I'd bet that was 99% of your problem. First thing I like to do is replace all the connectors with the quick-release ones from Volvo's or similar Bosch fuel-injected vehicles.

Obviously, take the car since it's FREE, strip it down, store the motor & good parts somewhere in somebody's garage where it will sit for that project that will eventually use it! Sell the parts you won't need to recover the cost of towing the car, etc., After you do this several times, you still won't have a Z to drive, but you'll have so much potential! And you'll be in the same boat that I am in!!

There are many ways that MS can control spark. In fact, even Moby's installation guide shows one or two ways to run spark control. There are a lot more ways on the megasquirt.info site.

You should let it run spark too, because having a good spark map will greatly affect gas mileage too. That's why stock distributors have vacuum advance - for mileage. With programmable spark, you can have vacuum advance and boost retard.

He had his 280zx featured in a centerfold of ZCar Magazine. I remember it. The caption talked about the turbo conversion and how he loves to race and show up mustang 5.0's or something like that..

i recently bought an 82 slicktop (USA), purchased for $400. body is nearly perfect, but motor was seized and guy just wanted it gone! i had no idea it was sort of rare.

make sure the two bolts to the control arm are NOT connected. Then get the nut started on the tension rod. Then, put a jack under the control arm to compress it up slightly until you can slide the rod under there. I had the same issue, it was because the rod was angled down since I bolted up the control arm first.

Mine is on Fixed Duty, 75%, not inverted. Yes, on the 'Minimum for HEI4' my car cuts out sparks and does weird stuff. It seems pretty reliable on 75%, that's what I've always had it on, with a totally cheap $20 AutoZone module mounted to a ghetto heat sink off an old stereo.

Sorry I didn't post pics, I don't get on here much, and I have dial up right now. But here's a couple. Disclaimer: I have no idea if these settings are "Ideal". Of course this is a band-aid fix anyways, but regardless. I just played around with these settings for about 10 minutes, and the driveability got so much better, I haven't touched it since then. good luck, hope this helps somebody else like it helped me!!

By the way, I've been reading this thread - I have the same problem. Car runs fine until it gets good and warm, and then when I get to a stoplight, it wants to run lean, because sensor is reading like 155F at idle. I decided I would make a little mod in the .ASM code to discount the air temp sensor if TPS is < a certain value. >> BUT! << as I was digging through the code, I realized there's already a provision for this! I have MSNS-Extra Hi Def. code. The option is called, "Coolant-Related Air Density", under the "Advanced" menu in MegaTune. It was created for this exact problem. Basically, if the rpms are less than a certain value, it will NOT derive the air density from the air temp, but from a Mixture of air temp and coolant temp. (you can control how much weight it puts on Coolant temp vs. Air temp., and the RPM's that it will activate and deactivate at) As soon as I put it on, I had perfect idle, even when hot; Perfect hot-restarts, etc. And I still have driveability when the temp sensor is heat soaked. It's wonderful! (note: yes, I realize this is a "Band-Aid" fix! I don't know why my Air Temp sensor heat soaks so bad. But this is working good until I can have time to fix the real issue, since this is my daily driver!)

You need the head temp sensor and the oxygen sensor. The boost sensor is only to power the stock electronic gauge, it doesn't help the car run.

The knock sensor screws onto the actual engine block, not the cylinder head, timing cover, or any other accessories. It is directly in the engine block. As stated before, don't even worry about the knock sensor. The knock sensor isn't on all the F54 blocks, but only the ones that were designated for the turbo motors.

knock sensor is on the turbo F54 block, definitely not on timing cover. The way I understand the hydraulic lifters (which may or may not really be accurate) is that instead of using the little spring to keep tension on the rocker arm, they use oil pressure. I believe the theoretical advantage is that the correct valve lash can be achieved at all engine temperatures, so they will be just as quiet at cold start-up as they will when hot. The problem is that when the lifter's oil passage gets clogged, it loses pressure to keep tension against the cam, and it start slapping really loud against the rocker arm. It makes some really loud clicking / ticking noise. That's why most people like the mechanical lifters. Also the mechanical lifters are supposed to be more stable above like 5500 or 6000 rpms or so. (again, this is what I heard, and understand, please feel free to correct me) sorry for like 4 multiple edits!

i removed the supra o-rings and installed the stock 280zx o-rings onto my supra injectors, and it fit in there, if i remember correctly.. although it has been a while. Yes, I don't think it will slide into the hole where the pintle caps originally go.

is this a return-less fuel system? i only see one hose going to it, unless i'm not looking in the right spot!

I think Tein produced some struts / shocks that were adjustable, and could be controlled by electronic actuators. You could adjust them from inside the car. Kind of like mounting a small motor on top of the adjustment knobs or something.

Well I finally got around to installing my 300zx coil in my 280zx (running MSnS-extra, cheap autozone HEI ign module, optical dizzy). I haven't really had any time to mess with my car since I work full time and go to school full time, plus it's my daily driver, so all repairs have to be finished the same day! Anyways, I noticed that when we painted the engine bay, we forgot to clean the metal where the coil grounds to the engine compartment! I don't know how it even was running. I also found like 3-4 ground wires that were so dirty, and 2 that were not even connected. (We were really sloppy trying to get this thing running, first car project ever) So, the point is, I used my die grinder to clean all the metal nice and bare, reinstalled everything with dielectric grease, new 300zx coil (actually came from early infiniti m30, had the vg30 i think). The car runs A MILLION times better! It actually freaked me out, because the throttle response increased tenfold. The mid-throttle is so much smoother and more powerful. I imagine I'll get better gas mileage as well. (i've never got much better than 20 mpg, but since I always drive the car so hard, i figured that was why) Also for a while I had a problem with the car missing above ~4800 rpms. I sort of solved it by making the spark plug gap smaller, but now it's even better; it is smooth all the way up to about 5700 (i don't really rev higher b/c it's stock with hydraulic rockers, doesn't make any more power above 5500) In addition (sorry for such a long post!), my radio has always made a buzzing noise, which is now disappeared!! I'm excited. Moral of the story: If you are a beginner like me, don't forget that grounding is very important - don't overlook it.

since MS is programmable, if you are good at writing assembly language code, you could probably use an input from a vehicle speed sensor, or better yet, from the tranny output shaft (that way rear end gearing and tires wouldn't affect it), compare that with the RPM of the engine, to determine what gear you are in. For example: if vehicle speed >15 and <20, And RPM's > 3000 then Gear = 1 if gear = 1 then maxboost = 14 psi (etc.) this is theoretical of course, and would have to be set up for each car / transmission. To actually do it, you'd probably have to set it up in the form of a table, using indexes to pull the correct data. It would probably be too slow just to use 'compare/jump' instructions. I imagine the whole thing would be extremely tedious. A possibly much easier way to accomplish the same thing would be to simply divide the vehicle speed by RPM to determine the ratio. Then find the closest ratio to this.

typo, meant 36 sorry, i edited it. But isn't this true? I'm no expert on cylinder heads or anything related to engines, but after spending hours reading up on this stuff, particularly quench areas and things of that sort, this was the impression I had, that the more modern style combustion chambers don't require nearly as much timing, and were also much less prone to detonation. I don't know if they are less prone to detonation BECAUSE of the reduced timing needed, or if these two are independent. Granted it was a while ago I read this stuff.

I was under the impression that the shape of the combustion chamber, plus good quench area goes a long way to prevent detonation. Our cars need like 34-36 degrees timing, whereas a honda with a combustion chamber that directs the mixture quickly to the center of the spark plug might only need 24 degrees total timing (just an example, I have no idea what timing hondas use). They become much less prone to detonation because the mixture burns so much quicker, there isn't as much time for the mixture to explode on its own.

In your .ini files for megatune, you have to set it for MSnS-Extra. It's either custom.ini or settings.ini, can't remember off the top of my head. Also, there are like two copies. You only edit a certain one. There is a .BAT or program you can run that should open up the program to edit the correct config files.

Sure, that'd be cool. I'll have to wait until I'm finished with exams though, which isn't until Dec.15! We could meet up over the holidays and work on the z some. Shoot me an email or something in a week or two, or i'll email you or something.

Waxahachie? Crazy, i'm in Dallas, TX, Oak Cliff area. My 280zx has ms1 v3.0 l28et, pallnet & 440cc supra. I'm running the high-definition MSnS-Extra code.

I think if used with gas it may be OK for frame rails. Getting good welds on body might be harder with that welder. I have no experience with that welder so I can't say for sure. Personally I plan on getting a Millermatic 135 MIG welder, about $600 (plus cost of accessories). Small, good quality, reliable. A lot of it is just opinion. You could probably do the job with a super cheap welder, with flux core wire and all. It might look crappy and take 3x as much work to get all the slag off. Whereas a better quality welder will have better control over heat, wire speed, prettier welds, and possibly even better quality welds (a lot of this is dependant on the operator too, of course). For body work, good heat control is important because too much and you'll warp the sheet metal. MY opinion is that if you plan on keeping it a while and using for more than frame rails, get a better quality welder than that one.