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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.

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

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.

No, all Zs did NOT come with EGR. There are EFI intake and exhaust manifolds that do not have the connectors for them. See first post. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=1021415

Mine passed with the original cat, which can't be doing a whole lot of good any more. It mainly depends on the condition of the engine and fuel injection system. Best thing I ever did for it was take it out on the open road and give it a real good work out.

If you have free-retests waiting for you at a smog place, just go test it. Don't spend money on a cat unless you really know you need it to pass. A good running Z will pass without a cat, just make sure it's fully warmed up, and everything is working correctly.

Higher octane fuel won't help reduce carbons. It actually burns slower than lower octane fuel. Unless your compression or boost requires the octane, it's completely useless to run it. Hurts your pocket book too. Those vac lines under the throttle body are SUPER easy to mess up. I know I sat around with a vac gauge figuring out which ones were ported, straight, etc last time I had my manifold off. The FSM is ambiguous at best when it comes to the specific location of temp senders/sensors and which vac line goes where. -Eric

Have you looked under the hood? You will either have it or not. The emissions sticker on the underside of the hood (if still there, and it's the original hood) will say if you're supposed to. If you have had the car smogged, than I'll presume the car is in the state it should be.

Get the FSM from http://www.xenons130.com in the reference section and read it.

I believe it should. Check the FSM. I know my 82 does. -Eric

Check your plugs, even new they could foul quickly. See if the miss is on all cylinders or just one or two. Are you absolutely certain that the egr vac line is going to the correct place? It's kinda hard to tell if you've had everything unhooked and then put back. Check your timing. Note you need to unhook the timing advance plug (on the side of the black module) as well as unhooking (and plugging) vac advance. Be aware that with old EFI systems, component specs drift and an AFM adjustment may be needed to bring the car back to spec. A wideband is exceptionally helpfull here. Also check your coil to see if it's good. You should have a nice hot spark, good and blue. If it's red or orange a new one might be in order. Even better if you can borrow a known good one to test. -Eric

What scared me in that video was the loss of the flywheel. Hard to see, but I think the crank sheered off. I don't think they make scatter proof bellhousings for those things. There used to be a thread on here about a guy's tranny making a funny noise, but I can't find it. -Eric

Right-click, save as. http://1320video.com/vids/ColtTranny.wmv

Aux, aren't YOU at work? You have way too much free time on your hands.

Is the car full of oil? Is the oil milky? Do you have oil pressure? How long was it running? What year is the car?

How much white smoke? Lots and LOTS? Blue-ish tint? Whisps from the tailpipe that go five feet?

Take a look at E&J Auto Wreckers on West Winton Ave, off of 880, one exit north of 92. There's a pick'n pull down there too, go past them. http://www.eandjautowreckers.com/ -Eric

Some did, some didn't. Take a look around the links in the drivetrain section here: http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/ -Eric

I always really liked this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKgGqLkaBFo

They make those to fit the Z? I have to special order the blades for my 280zx because of the pin-style mount.

It also does a number on windshield wipers. Since we have such a long dry season, the rubber on wipers dries out, then the rains come down and nobody can see a thing. It really pays to run the wipers once a week with LOTS of water or wiper fluid to wet them and verify they're still good. When I used to work in auto parts, the day after the first rain we would sell out of wiper blades, and our stock room section for them was HUGE. -Eric

Double up what hoov100 said. Good headlights (with new wiring if they draw more power than stock, relays are a good plan too), faster wipers, and GOOD all-weather tires are the name of the game. Wider tires won't help with hydro-planing, as they spread the force out over a wider contact patch forcing water to go a larger distance to get out from under the tires and putting less force per inch of contact on that water to move it. 205/70R14 or 205/75R14 are good sizes, but it's getting hard to find good tires at all in a 14" rim. The best inexpensive tire I found in that series was the Pirelli P400 (and P4000 for larger rims) with excelent wet traction, and hard to beat dry traction for something with 400 treadwear. If you can find old stock of that tire or something similar, I'd jump on it. Talk to someone friendly at a local tire store, they can help a lot. Look at what they stock, and see what they can order. Such as if you see a tread pattern you like, but not in your size, ask if they can get something similar for your rim. You may also try treating your windshield with Rain-X. Anything to help the wipers keep up. When it starts to rain so hard you can't see, slow down, get in the right lane (with all the trucks driving 40) and stay put. Pull over if you have to, I've done that for 5-10 mins in cars that had excelent wipers, because there was raining too hard to see. As for extra weight in the rear, I'd avoid it. Z cars already have a nice balance, and making them rear-heavy could cause you to spin. People add weight to pickups because they have nearly no weight in the rear without a load, and their rear ends can bounce around a lot. -Eric

Sounds like it could be bearings in the pump that are no longer bearings. The best pump/filter combination I've found is tank - strainer - filter - engine.

Check the filter, and you can do a free-flow test as well. Check the FSM, there should be a certain amount of fuel that should flow per minute if you unhook the line from the rail and put it in a bucket. Or do you have a pressure gauge on the rail and know for certain?