DuoWing

I would say don't even get too hung up on that because if you wanted to, for not very much money the P90a can be converted to use the solid lifters/cam. I purchased the thread inserts fairly cheaply if I remember correctly. I had planned to convert my P90a, I still do, but I got ahold of a rebuilt P90 and went with that.

Well I'm about at a loss here. I'm thinking it's gotta be a vacuum leak I've failed to find, or something with my wiring. I pulled the rail up today and hooked up the old 280Z pump to it, left the pressure regulator connected along with the return line to the tank. I stuck the feed for the pump in a fresh tank of gas and connected it to the battery. Pump pressurized the rail up to 40psi which is the max my regulator is set at without vacuum on it. Used an old coffee can and a cut fuel injector connector from the 280Z harness and hooked that up to the battery. Went one by one connecting the different injectors. They were all spraying in kind of a cone pattern. Should it be in a straight line, but either way the spray looked all pretty much the same amongst all 6 injectors. They didn't spray intermittent or anything. So the injectors check out, there's not a head/headgasket/valve issue as far as I can tell. At least judging by the compression tests. The fuel pump seems to be fine as the rail pressure seems to hold steady. Spraying starter fluid all over the place hasn't seemed to reveal any other problems. I've got spark at all the plug wires at least when hot and running I do. The only codes the Z31 ECU is giving me is Fuel Pump, Fuel Temp Sensor, and Knock sensor. These were codes I'd get when running my 280ZXT. Maybe I'll have to pull the stock unmodified 87T ECU out of my Z31 and see if that makes a difference. I know the car pretty much won't start with the MAF unplugged and even if it does it won't rev past 2000 or 2500RPM I forget which, but revs fine when plugged in. I'll have to try starting it with the CHTS unplugged next. I guess I'll just have to get out the multimeter and just start testing things. Any other suggestions? I just can't figure out why it seems to run fine once warm.

If you're still looking around for parts check here: http://www.importrp.com I've used them a few times for my Tokico suspension kit, fidanza flywheel, and ACT Clutch kit for both cars. They were cheaper and when I bought the clutch kit for my 300ZX the shipping was insane. I used their free shipping and someway the clutch kit came from Washington to Ohio the next day.

I was going to say I'd always wd-40 and slide them on and off the rail a few times when it was out of the car to get them loosened up a bit, then once it was all assembled I could get the rail in rather easily.

Personally I never saw the big difference in running the Z31 ECU that everyone claimed, but I'm actually not convinced my car was ever running as good as it could have been. I really liked the Z31 swap mainly because the MAF was alot smaller, when you run Nistune or a later turbo ECU you can get better fuel maps that helps fuel economy a bit, plus you have the added bonus of the ECU at least able to give you some codes on when some of the sensors go bad. I don't remember exactly, but I think you can run the car with having the VCM all unplugged anyway. I remember though when I did end up removing everything from the car, the VCV, AAC, and VCM I had issues with getting the car to idle as my idle would sit way too low about 500rpm. At least this is what mine sat at on an auto. I had to actually adjust the throttle stop plate on the side of the throttle body to raise the idle. After that it seemed to be smooth. With running just the air regulator I never had a problem with cold/warm starts. I had also just unhooked the A/C and never used it. I'm not sure how the 280ZXT electronics would treat it, but my car was at least running to the point where it would fire right up even on nearly 0 degree days.

I was trying to get to pallnet's site and see that he's been having a delay on his parts recently. So I was wondering if anyone happens to have a fuel rail for the L-series motor that fits o-ring style injectors like the Mustang SVO injectors and such. I could cut them up, but I'd prefer to use a proper rail. I want to say I at least remember that pallnet offered an o-ring style rail. Anyway if anyone has one that they'd be willing to part with let me know. I'm located in Cleveland, Ohio duowing@gmail.com or send me a PM

If the car is warmed up and running the ECU light should be blinking. If it's not or the light is staying solid on while running than the O2 is bad. When I was running the 280ZXT electronics I remember a bad O2 would make at least to me really sluggish low end. You can remove the VCM with no problem, also try pinching off the hose to the AAC and see if that makes any difference. I remember I got rid of that as well. Before I finally converted to the Z31 ECU/MAF I had gotten rid of everything but the air regulator. There's also another valve that could have potentially gone bad. It's the VCV that branches off of that little 4-way split coming off the J-pipe and goes into the manifold. This can be removed and plugged, I believe for that I used a drain plug that was the same size as the L28 oil drain plug. Also try spraying starting fluid all around the manifold to see if there are vacuum leaks, or even remove the oil cap from the valve cover and see if it makes much difference. If there's little to no change it would indicate a vacuum leak, if there's a big change or almost dies then you're good. Or relatively good, try hooking up a vacuum gauge to the manifold and see what's going on.

Looking good! If I can ever get my 280Z running I may do this. My biggest concern is with the 260/280Z reverse light hole. Isn't there part of that left open that doesn't get filled by the 240Z taillights? I'm curious as to what you plan to do for that since it would just be an open hole that if water runs down behind that trim panel can now go right into the car? Just fiberglass up the remainder?

Made a new throttle body gasket, I can't seem to find a vacuum leak now. So that's a plus, but the car still seems to be the same. About 16-17inHG of Vacuum at idle. It seems to vary depending on the day. Still starting and running issues. Unhooked all the injectors and sat there cranking the car. The tach was reading a dead steady 400rpm and my vacuum gauge was reading a steady 3inHG while cranking. Let the car warm-up and then pulled the plugs and did a compression test. 1 - 135 2 - 130 3 - 135 4 - 135 5 - 135 6 - 130 This is a little disheartening, but the motor has yet to be run on the road and actually get up to full hot operating temp. So maybe those numbers will come up once the car has gotten hot instead of warm. I squirted oil in cylinders 1 and 2 and redid the test and got 140 for cylinder 1 and 135 for cylinder 2. I didn't bother squirting oil in the other cylinders. My MAF may possibly be dieing or something with my wiring. While idling I started pulling the injector plugs again. I noticed it seemed like upon disconnecting injector number 5 the engine would barely change, or it was such a slight change that it was barely noticeable. Need to go get noid lights now to test and see if the injector is being triggered. Every other injector when disconnected at least made a noticeable difference in the idle. I then went ahead and tried pulling spark plug wires one at a time all made a noticeable difference except number 5. Which either was no difference or just a very slight difference. If 5 is barely firing could this have an effect on my vacuum and cause enough of a difference in the idle? When I had injector 5 unplugged I tried revving the engine and it seemed to make no difference. I tried restarting the motor with plug wire 5 unplugged and it seemed to make no difference in the way it started up. It seems to me that the engine itself has nothing wrong, but that it's more in the electrical or the injection. I guess I'll have to pull the injectors now and test them all. Perhaps the injectors from sitting for awhile got something in them that caused them to start clogging? Maybe it's time to just get a larger set of injectors? SVO injectors? Idle fuel pressure is about 30psi. I'm just getting really frustrated with this. I don't know why I'm having so many issues.

Alright, well I went ahead and finished adjusting all my valves. All the intake set on the tighter side of .008in and all the exhaust set on the tighter side of .010in. I bolted everything back up. I didn't change out the plugs yet because I didn't want to foul out another set yet. I went and hooked up my 86' Turbo ECU and tried to start the car. Still generally the same issue, although I did manage to get the car to start up a little bit easier this time and it seemed like it was doing alot better with throttle right away. Pretty quickly it smoothed out and seemed to be idling alright. Timing is a bit advanced, by about 4-5 degrees. So I'll need to turn that back as I can adjust the timing maps, etc through Nistune. Hooked up my vacuum gauge, and the needle was hovering right around 17inHG of vacuum. It wasn't perfectly steady, but the needle wasn't bouncing or vibrating that indicated at least to me anything being wrong. Revving/throttle response was a lot smoother after adjusting the valves. Fuel pressure is sitting around 35psi if I remember correctly. Should I adjust the regulator down to 30psi at idle like the FSM says since I'm still using stock injectors for the time being? I think my compression gauge is junk because every cylinder read 95psi. I know not that long ago I was getting much higher readings than that using a completely different gauge. Anyway while the car was running, I shut it off and restarted it a few times just to check again. Kept restarting fine once the car seems to get warmed up a little and straightens out. My Tach was showing 1000 RPM at idle. Nistune was showing about 775-825 which I assume because of the advanced timing. Anyway I was desperately hoping to find a vacuum leak and started spraying carb cleaner or starter fluid, I forget which all around. I was not finding anything near the valve cover gasket, nor the intake/exhaust gasket, nothing around the head, the brake booster, etc. Finally I noticed that when I sprayed a bunch right around the throttle body to Intake Manifold the car would really start bogging down. As the fluid cleared out the idle would come back up, and I did it several times. I then sprayed all around the engine again really loading it up just to make sure and only found that spot. So maybe, I've finally found my issue. So it's either a throttle body gasket, the block off plate I made for where the cold start injector went, or that gasket for the little nub that comes off the throttle body for the air regulator. Where do you guys get new throttle body gaskets. I don't see any on MSA's site. Well hopefully this and my new set of plugs will finally clean this mess up.

I'm no expert and don't claim to know much about turbocharging, but what I got out of Tony's post was essentially that don't look at it from the aspect that it's making more power as the reason to need to retard the timing, but rather that you're motor is being able to use the fuel/air combination much more effectively. So you have less friction on the air, less compression of the air from the turbo, so less heat. I can't be sure on this, but it also sounds like you don't need to the extremely huge injectors because there's overall less being stuffed into the chamber than when you were running it on 20psi. It all works out to build more power, with less likelihood of detonation. So in that respect you can then run more timing advance and with the port/polish, better turbo, etc make more out of less much more efficiently. At least that's how I interpreted it. Mainly when he was saying about making 300hp+ on a stock j-pipe without the need of an intercooler is what gave me the way I took it. Edit: I think this line from Tony best sums it up: Things that become mandatory at 20psi are not necessary at 8-10 psi.

I don't have any questions on wiring this up, mainly I just wanted to see if anyone can chime in that's done the swap. I'm trying to get my 280ZT running. Well it runs, but could be better. I'm trying to narrow down issues and I wanted to see if anyone has had this problem. I had the Z31 ECU swap all setup and running pretty much perfectly before I tore my turbo motor and harness out of my old 83' 280ZXT. Anyway I was always getting an error code for the fuel pump circuit. Code 22. I was wondering if this is just due to the different way we have it wired if you follow Afshin's guide? I was curious if anyone else has a Z31 ECU running with no issues and is getting this code. Also it's weird as I'm not seeing a code 21 for an Ignition problem, but on the later 87-89 ECU that lets you do the real time diagnostics I'm seeing two codes basically for the fuel pump, and one for the ignition. I don't always see the ignition, and I pretty much always see the fuel pump one, but the only time is right when the car starts up. I won't see it again while running. Either or them, or at least I've yet to see them again. So basically is there anyone out there with a Z31 ECU swap that has essentially a perfectly running car that sees these issues? I'm just hoping that my cold starting issue is more related to something other than my ECU/Wiring. Any help/info that you guys can provide is as always, greatly appreciated.

I'm curious, you've been turning the bolt up on the cam gear in the head, the one exposed with the valve cover off, to get to TDC right? I just want to make sure, because I've always gone by turning the crankshaft pulley when setting the car to TDC. Here's the ghetto thing you can do is if you don't want to set the car to TDC, what we did when we changed out my cam was loosened the nut for the camshaft a bit, and put a bunch of zip ties real tight to keep the cam gear attached to the timing chain so then we didn't have to worry about rotating the engine back to TDC. We were able to just bolt it back to the camshaft, keep the timing, and then just snipped off the zip ties. As for that camshaft gear bolt, I don't remember it being too hard to loosen.

I can't remember what brand it is. I picked it up at summit. I think it was a generic brand or it may have been a summit branded one. There's really no logo on the FPR. Will the fact that it bleeds off quickly though cause starting issues? This was it: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/PFS-10670/ Professional Products? It was the only thing they had in stock that worked for me and I was kind of desperate at the time trying to get the car running. I don't know if I should look for another regulator or not. It seems to work fine when the car is running though. It's supposed to be rising rate.

Well I went and checked all the valve lash cold today and found something interesting. The adjustments were all over the place. Cylinder 1 was about .008-.009, Cylinder 2 was .005, I had one that was at .011, .012, etc. The exhaust valves were something else. 3 of them were .008 and 3 were .012. I didn't have the book with me so I couldn't remember what to adjust the exhaust valves to, but I went through and adjusted all the intake valves to .008 and tightened/torqued them down. I went and had to buy a pack of metric crowfeet for just the 17mm. Hopefully I'll find a use for the rest eventually. Anyway I'm hoping once I've got this taken care of, I'll try and get the car running and warmed up and check my ignition timing. I remember I set it correctly a while back, but I want to say I may have set it before I realized I had forgotten to install the CHTS. So maybe my timing is way off as well. I figure once I've got all that done and had the car warmed up I'll have to do a compression check and then recheck if those cylinders are still showing lower by squirting some oil in there. My spark plugs were all completely black. They looked like they had been fuel soaked, so I need to clean them off or just grab another set of plugs as that may help my issue. Another odd thing I noticed is that ever since I got my aftermarket pressure regulator it seemed like it would never hold pressure. The pump would prime it'd jump to 40psi on the rail gauge and then slowly drop back to 0. Then the other day I noticed after priming it would drop to about a little under 20psi. I think 15-20, and 2 days later it was showing that it was still holding pressure. Maybe there's another fuel issue to check into? As far as valve lash goes, I was looking in my Haynes guides and saw that in the S30 book they show cold lash as .008 for Intake and .010 for Exhaust. The S130 guide shows .007 for intake, and .009 for exhaust, but they both show the same lash values for hot adjustment. Well as said if you guys can provide any help, that would be much appreciated.

I'm hoping someone can give me some direction on where to start and what to look for. Anyway I've got my 280Z turbo project that I've been working on. I mess with it here and there, but I'm having trouble with it. I can't get it to start from a cold start very easily. Most of the time I'll be sitting there cranking and cranking. Finally it'll start maybe after stopping and cranking a few more times. Generally it seems that once it starts it'll either immediately die or it will idle, if I give it very light throttle it will start to rev up. Too much throttle and it will nearly die or die. After about 30 seconds to 1 minute the car seems to straighten out and things seem to start acting better. I can drive the car around, rev it(there seems to be a very slight hesitation if I open the throttle real quick(not sure if this is a normal Z thing?) and it revs up fine. Pops on revving down. It will idle all day long and seems fine although idle was a little high, but timing may be off. Need to check that. I can get in and drive the car around. Stalled it out by accident and it started right back up. Once it straightens out I can shut the car off and it'll start right back up with no issues. It just seems once I let it cool all the way down I have to go through this crap again. I'm using two different ECUs: 1986 Z31 Turbo with a Nistune Board 1988 Z31 N/A with Nistune They seem to run generally the same, regardless of ECU. Prior to this swap I had the engine running essentially perfect in my 83' 280ZX Turbo on the Z31 ECU conversion. Since the swap all the gaskets were replaced, oil pump, water pump, head was swapped to a rebuilt P90 with the type "A" N/A cam. Still have my old P90a around. N42 egr-less intake manifold, but I'm still running the Air Regulator. Pallnet fuel rail with pressure gauge, an aftermarket rising rate Fuel Pressure Regulator(set at 40 psi could this cause too much fuel?), and Walbro fuel pump. The fuel tank was professionally removed, blasted, cleaned, and coated. I did change out the CHTS with a new one from Courtesy Nissan because it at some point hit the ground and I figured a bang like that would probably cause an issue. I've done a Maxifuse conversion, have an MSD Blaster II coil, using a remanned ignition box from my 83. I was going around all my wiring and checking everything, shaking wires, checking for any hot wires. I had found that two wires coming from my Fuel Pump Relay were actually getting pretty hot. I re-soldered those wires and they stay cool. This seemed to actually improve my throttle response on the car. The Fuel Pump Relay still seems to be getting warm, don't know if this is normal for these relays to be warm? Z31 ECU is only giving codes for Knock Sensor, Fuel Pump Circuit, and Fuel Temp Sensor. I was getting these codes when I had the setup in my 280ZXT and it was running fine. Z31 FSM shows that the fuel pump circuit code can be related to the idle control valve which my car doesn't have. ECU real time diagnostics would sometimes on startup flash for Ignition and Fuel Pump Circuitissue. I used the other self diagnostics mode and the ECU is seeing the TPS, and Start switch no problem. Removed the oil cap from the valve cover and the car started to idle worse, but it didn't idle terribly. So maybe this could be a vacuum leak I've yet to find? Went through and one by one disconnected the injector connectors. Each injector when disconnected made a definite difference. One final thing is I've checked the compression after the new head/headgasket was put on. I was finding for some reason compression was lower in cylinders 1 and 2. I haven't yet tried to adjust the valves, but I did check the lash and found that these two cylinders my .007(I believe that's the proper clearance?) blade wouldn't fit between the rocker arm and the cam lobe on these two cylinder. I'm really hoping there's not an issue with the head or the headgasket. The car doesn't smoke when running either. So guys, any other suggestions? Anything else I should check? Any other information you guys need that I may have left out? I'm really trying to get this figured out as it's driving me crazy.

I haven't come across the answer yet, maybe it's in here somewhere. Anyway I was curious, seeing as the early 260Zs got slightly enlarged bumpers that then had the extra holes in the back so the bumper shocks could be mounted, I was wondering did the JDM Fairlady Zs have these slightly enlarged rear/front bumpers and shocks or did they just maintain the early 240Z body hugging bumpers that did nothing more than serve as trim pieces? I can't find any pictures of a JDM 260Z or at least a good enough picture to determine if it had the bumper shock holes for the rear bumper. Anyone know that answer to that one? Just something I was curious about.

Hey guys I'm looking for an S30. Preferably 1970-1974 early 260Z although I'm not against the 280Z. If it has a turbo swap that's definitely a bonus. Anyway I'm in the Cleveland, Ohio area. I wouldn't be against paying to have a car shipped out this way. I'm looking for something in overall good shape, and basically ready to drive. I've got my project car, but I'd like to have a nice S30 to just cruise around in and just have to maintain. I'm looking to sell/trade my 87' Z31 Turbo if anyone might be interested. Anybody with something they think might fit send me a PM. E-mail: duowing@gmail.com I'm not quite sure at the moment what my limit on price would be, would prefer to trade, or trade + cash for a good Z. Let me know. My 300ZX: 87' Z31 pre-4/87 Carolina car, never seen snow 155k miles 5-speed with new ACT Street Performance Clutch(almost 500 miles on the new clutch) Some pics:

My 280ZXT had 89k miles on the motor and the car itself really wasn't in that bad of shape overall. Needed a little work to get it running good, but I paid $1500. I got 3 years use out of the car before it got torn apart to use the motor as a donor for my 280Z.

Hey I've been searching around and couldn't find this information. I have an early 87' Z31 Turbo GLL. It's got a production date of later 86, but the owner's manual and the title label it as an 87. I'm being told that apparently the pre-4/87 Z31s didn't have the FS5R30A. I'm also being told that apparently the 4/87s and on besides having the LSD also had larger/heavier duty axles? As far as I thought all the 87's were the same except that 4/87 and on they gained the LSD and a slightly larger rear sway bar. Is there any info I'm missing? Also I'm trying to figure out if my tranny is a FS5R30A for sure or not. When I took it out to change the clutch, I had to remove the shifter by undoing a c-clip/crimp ring(whatever you call it) holding it in place. The rubber boot couldn't be removed from the shifter, plus it matches the pics of the FS5R30A as well as the mount on AZ-ZBum's site and it seems to follow the directions in the FSM. Were there any 87N model year cars that still had the T5? Were the tranny mounts for the T5 and FS5R30A any different? Any info is appreciated. Thanks guys!

I agree with getting the Z-itch, I also really enjoy those cool nights with the heat on and you can feel the turbo is just running more efficiently.

These people keep Ohio interesting I guess. About 4-5 months ago some guy raced down a local street early in the morning and ended up launching his car (chevy malibu) off the grassy hill into nearly the 4th floor of an apartment building.

I could be wrong, but I thought I've also heard that when using the older pre-fuel injection Z tanks something about it doesn't pressurize right or you can have issues in higher RPMs when trying to use it with fuel injection?

That would be the best way to do it. Once you've got that figured out you can just cut those on out, slap in your maxifuse holder and be rid of those fusible links. As for the wiring, I just assume Nissan decided to change the way that was wired when it came to the 76 model year, as with the fact that they added 2 more fusible links.

Actually, this looks correct. For a moment I thought something was all messed up, but I started looking over the wiring diagrams for the 75' 280Z and it shows W to W for the Black link and WR to WR for the green. The only real problem is you just need to figure out which to cut and put into the distribution block. Are you positive you don't have a wire connecting down at the starter? I for some reason when I was looking around thought I didn't have the wire either. For some reason I just didn't notice it, but I do have the extra white wire on the starter. Unless the previous owner did a heck of a job splicing the wires and nicely wrapping them back into the harness it should be quite obvious if it's been modified or not. Actually looking at your pictures you posted that looks pretty stock and unmodified up at the fusible link box there. Other than the link that's just been redone with new connectors, I'd say that's how it came from the factory.