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eec564

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Posts posted by eec564

  1. The most reliable thing is to pick up a copy of the FSM for the year you're looking at. It will tell you size and ratio for anything. Of course, that also depends on previous owners not swapping parts around, which is always a distinct possibility. On the ZX, per my 82 FSM, the rear diff mount is listed with the following note: "Differential mounting bracket and adapter plate of R200 differential carrier are installed opposite to those of R180 differential carrier. Install them according to identification marks shown in table below."

     

    | Bracket | Adapter Plate

    | White Paint | Cutout

    ------------------------------------------

    R200 | Front | Rear

    R180 | Rear | Front

     

    The easiest thing to do is just learn to tell the difference visually. Also carry chalk with you for easy marking of the driveshaft to check the ratio. Or just use the John Coffe method - pull it apart and look!

  2. Most certainly not the original wiring. Measure and/or make a template to determine physical fit. Get the FSMs, read through and trace out the wiring diagrams for the stock dash, the dash from the car you're looking at using, and check out the section for the digital dash in the 83's FSM. Don't forget to check sensor ranges (temp, oil pressure, fuel, etc) and the sensor for the speedometer too. I'm with hoov too, I like the 87-89 digital dash better. I have one in my 88 and it's pretty darn awesome.

     

    -Eric

  3. Take a look inside your old cat. You should be able to see right through it, with a nice honey-comb. If you can't see light, then it's clogged and will eat power, if there's just a straight-through hole, then most likely retarded timing or running rich burned it out. If it looks physically in tact, then it's likely just old and worn out, but not damaged.

  4. Yup, that's right. Take a look at the EFI bible, you can pick up a copy from http://www.xenons130.com in the reference section, listed as the 280Z/ZX Fuel Injection Guide. Take a look at page 16, as well as the rest of the thing.

     

    I'll chime in on the other thread later, it'll take some thought and such, and I need to run out for a bit. In the mean time, read up on reading spark plugs. While there's more to it, a good start is here:

     

    http://www.dansmc.com/spark_plugs/spark_plugs_catalog.html

     

    -Eric

    [url=http://www.xenons130.com/files/280zfuelinjectionbook.pdf][/url]

  5. Wow, there's a bunch of wrong information in that thread.

     

    Also, the cold start valve only gets power when the engine is cranking. It doesn't matter what the thermotime switch is doing once you release the key, since it provides a ground signal to the cold start valve, and positive comes from the ignition switch. There isn't any time at all the valve should continue to operate once the motor is started. With the motor running, you can verify this by removing the plug for the cold start valve and testing for power on it.

     

    Also, pull your plugs and look at them. Look up articles on how to read plugs, and see what they're telling you.

     

    -Eric

  6. First, add more fuel. 3 gallons isn't very much and may not be reaching the fuel pickup. Second, you should have a fuel strainer between the tank and the pump, not a filter. Pumps are good at pushing, not pulling. Put the fuel filter between the pump and the carb.

     

    Trying to get fuel straight from the line coming from the tank is the best plan, once it's full of fuel and flowing, hook the pump back up (through the strainer) and run it. You should hear the pitch of the pump change once it's full of fuel and pumping. Keeping the fuel line under the hood in a bucket can be nice to help purge the lines and verify sufficient flow, as it can take a while for the fuel bowls to bleed enough air through them to prime the entire system.

     

    -Eric

  7. The condenser helps filter out noise from getting to the rest of the car. It'll help keep efi systems stable and reduce radio interference, mainly AM. The case of the condenser is bolted to the case of the alternator with a spare ground bolt, and the terminal (wire with connector) goes over the battery terminal. It's not critical, especially with carbs, but it doesn't hurt anything and the ZX alternators all have them, as far as I can tell.

     

    -Eric

  8. The cold start injector should only squirt fuel while cranking with a cold engine. It doesn't keep adding fuel once the engine is running. You can verify this by checking for voltage at the connector for the valve itself, see if it has power with the engine off (key on), while cranking (remove coil wire) and while running.

     

    How and where did you test the switch you found to be bad? Did you unhook the cold start valve from the harness before testing? How badly are you failing smog and in what catagory(s)? Make sure your plugs aren't fouled and your o2 sensor is in good shape. These cars seems to go through those at a decent rate, especially if you spend a significant amount of time at WOT.

     

    Either way, FAST says the p/n for the 7/78-8/81 thermotime switch is 22635-N4710. Try the dealer, or see if someone can cross that number.

     

    -Eric

  9. Neatfree looks like a MAJOR scam. Their website is laced with a trojen, and the domain lookups point to ambiguous entries, shared with lots of other mass-registered names. Anyone you contact via that site is not affiliated with copartdirect, but simply posing as a legit company to steal money. Copartdirect is legit, but contact them directly, not through an un-releatedly named website.

    -Eric

  10. Tire design/size and most importantly speed will make you hydroplane. I've managed to hydroplane my rear tires only once. This was in a 4500 lb Mercedes that stock had a 52/48 weight distribution, but the way I had it loaded it was exceptionally close to 50/50. 205/70R14 tires, good Pirelli P400 tires in front, cheap walmart crap in the back. I had no choice with the cheap tires, as I'd gotten two flats out in nowhere, approaching the middle, while driving cross country. They were the only ones with anything in my size. It was a weird feeling to have the rear end start to slide out, but the front stay solid as a rock, a little braking and my drivewheels settled down, and things were good. Two days later I got two more P400s and never looked back.

  11. Dumping timing doesn't work here, as that's one thing they check. One thing with the later NA 280ZX distributors is the electric advance. If you time the engine to 9 btdc with it hooked up, the smog tech will see something to within 1 degree of spec per the computer, not knowing to read the directions on how to time/check timing printed on the bottom of the hood, and then once you're much off idle you'll loose about 10 degrees of timing, which may reduce HC and NOx. Still, any decently running car should pass our emission testing without trouble. A poorly running car also robs you of power. I don't know any race team that would want un-burned fuel dumped out their exhaust into the atomosphere and not burned up making power.

     

    On a side note, I was under the impression that a mild cam would help clean up emissions on an L engine. As long as the duration and overlap weren't causing fuel to dump into the exhaust things just ran alltogether better.

     

    -Eric

  12. Running cars on alcohol when they weren't designed for it is a general no-no. Alcohol eats away natural rubbers. The seals in the fuel system of a 25+ year old car don't need any abuse done to them. It has been done before, and is a bandaid fix that won't cover up serious engine problems. Around here E85 is the alcohol source of choice, a lot cheaper than methanol from a hardware store. It will also throw your AFRs way off unless your fuel system is really good at compensating in closed-loop mode. The old bosch l-jetronic system may not have that much authority for ego correction.

     

    A new exhaust wouldn't help any unless there was something wrong with the exhaust to begin with, such as a clog. Catalytic converters have been known to get clogged, but mostly they just quit working. Also, the cleanness of the burn happens in the engine, well before the exhaust. A clogged exhaust will cause lots of backpressure and loss of power, but under the conditions a smog test is preformed could very well do little.

  13. Sounds normal to me. As long as you aren't knocking at high RPMs you should be fine. You'd know if you were getting valve float even if you didn't know what it was. The engine feels like it hit a rev-limiter, kind of, falling on its face, rattling and miss-firing. It's not the taper-out and out-of-breath feeling a stock engine gets at 5500 under load, choking its way up to 6500.

     

    By the way, did you ever fix your fuel supply issue?

     

    -Eric

  14. Removing EGR won't net you more power, and may actually hurt mileage. The valve is only open at part-throttle cruise and is there to introduce inert gas to reduce combustion temperatures and the formation of oxides of nitrogen. While a nice header would help, there's no reason to use a non-egr N/A manifold over the stock one, and since battle's is working, and especially since he needs to pass smog, leaving it in place is the best option. A good check over the EFI system and a leak-down test goes a long way to determining why anything isn't passing smog.

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