Mack

OOOoooo!! where in AZ are you? Im in phoenix until saturday! I wanna see an FJ in person! Also, it should be pretty easy to get your MS1 unit to control spark with an optical dist and either an HEI or a coil firing transistor off of an early 90s maxima. thats how I have my 280ZX rigged with a turbo ZX optical dizzy and MS&S_E.

I actually swapped my recirc ball PS unit on my 1980 280ZX out for a '79 manual rack. although, I dont think you would gain anything in this case. The manual rack isnt that much smaller than the 82-83 PS rack. Its basically the same size and shape, just no hydraulic hoses. I think a turbo relocation is the only way to go. what about swapping the manifolds around and putting the turbo up front with the crossover pipe going across the front of the engine? Sure, you;d have to run electric fans and it wouldnt be THAT easy, but def easier and cheaper than fully custom manis.

actually, VH's are starting to show up in a LOT of U-Pull-It type junk yards., complete engines, flywheel to fan with wiring and ECU can be had for about $275. and some labor, of course.

I have a 1980 280ZX 2+2 that I used a 1982 N/A harness on and put in a 1983 CAS distributor to run MS&S_E on. I took the spare harness I had from an 82 n/a parts car, lopped the ECU connector off then started soldering wires onto the appropiate places on the MS DB37 connector. Since the fuel pump relay is part of the EFI relay on my '80, I only had to worry about one relay. I used all of the stock sensors with the exception of a GM IAT sensor. I used the AFM wires for the CAS sensor wires, since the MS doesnt use an AFM. Basically, my harness was plug and play. after I got a TPS bug worked out, it fired right up. bottom line, it is possible, but be prepared to spend an evening with a few wiring diagrams, a soldering iron and a multimeter.

on my car (1980) the fuel pump is kicked on by the igntion switch, not the EFI brain. so, basically I just wired my car using the stock EFI relay to power up megasquirt. I didnt have to muck with the FP relay. not sure how you'd do it on yours... I guess you could just run a hot wire to a relay for the FP, keep it hot all the time and run another wire to the ground for MS.

I did what you want to do. Basically, I took a stock harness, lopped off the ECU plug and re-wired all of the stock wires onto the DB37 connector in the appropiate places. I dont have any wires that werent there from the factory. nevermind the fact that it took me about 4 hours with 2 wiring diagrams and a multi meter... but it looks stock as all hell And its been performing flawlessly.

what stepdown things are you talking about? is yoru HEI new or did you pull one out of the junkyard? HEI units dont last long when you get them from the junkyard and are actually usually bad.

you CANT PHYSICALLY bore out a block 104mm. Its not a matter of strength, or any of that crap. Its noot physically possible. here is a diagram. If you want a huge L series, best bet would be to get an LD block linered set it up for a 91mm bore and get a custom 90 or 91mm crank. that would put you right about 3.5l. and you would still be able to maintain a decent rod/stroke ratio if you used a short compression height piston.

when you talk about measuting the "cross section" of the headbolts (space between them) are you measuring across the bore? like diagonally? if so, that wont work. the hypotenuse will always be greater than the sides of a square. Its the 95 (or more accurately, 96mm) you have to worry about, not the 127mm. L series motors have bore centers set at 96mm, exept for the space between cyl #3 & 4, which is 98mm because of the thrust bearing. ANYWAY. if you measure from the center of one bore to the center of another, you will come up with 96mm. that means if you bored your motor out to 104mm, the pistons would overlap eachother by 8mm!

I have an A87 or maybe its a W58? I cant remember, anyway, its a linered head but it has high quench chambers like a P79. for you 4 cylinder gurus, is this head worth anything? Its got a minor crack and needs some straightening, should it get scrapped or is it worth fixing?

Ill have to post up my .msq when I get a chance, but I can tell you this to make the spark part a little less painful, at first. anyways.... I just made my table like a standard non vac dist. started at 10* at idle and ramped it up to 35* by about 3,000 rpm and planed it out after that. all up and down the KPA range. I add little bumps here and there for cruising and what not and take a few degrees out here and there when it pings, but basically, this made it run stable to get the fuel figured out. oh yeah, my set-up is MS&S_E on a V3 board running o29q code 1983 flat top block with an MN47 head, 260Z 256* cam stock intake, port-matched and 60mm installed with SX TPS 2.5" exhaust 280ZXT dist running coil control through the fidle (I fried my VB921 with a 75% duty cycle, oops) I am using a VG30E ignitor to fire teh coil and running dwell control. stock NA injectors for now, upgrading to turbo units soon. thats all I can think of right now.

Its not possible. 104mm bores on an Lseries. check the space inbetween your headbolts, no way no how does it measure up to 104mm. WHile the specs for the deisel may not be the same as a gas engine, the bore spacing still has to be the same otherwise we could not use LD28 cranks in L28 blocks, nor could we put L28 heads on LD28 blocks. the bores have to line up with the combustion chambers. I hope this is a joke. BIGGEST L series Ive ever heard of is a 3.5L in japan, using sleeves and a custom forged crank.

I did it the other way... I took an old harness I had laying around and hacked off the ECU connector and soldered the wires to the DB37, with all the appropiate wires going into the relays and what not. I also used the old AFM wires for a 280zxt dist so I could control spark. there are enough wires left over so that I can go wasted spark with 3 coil packs when I get the wheel decoder figured out.

oh yeah, I found a discription of the nissan power transistor, if this helps...... so, this bsically operates JUST like a VB921, correct? yeah, I know, vb921s are only $5.50, but time is a factor and shipping time over the 4th weekend will suck.

Just for now, until I get my wasted spark, I could use this little transistor to fire the coil directly from my board, much in the same way the VB921 works, right? or, coudl I fire it through the fidle and enable dwell control? just looking at some options until I get my wheels built....

From the looks of it, you'd have to take all of the existing counterweights off and start over from scratch. it looks like the stock l series cranks share counterweights between some of the throws.

I went junkyarding the other day and came across some transistors used to fire the coils on 1989 to 1994 maximas with the vg30e engine. I think they should work in much the same way that a vb921 works, correct/ anyway, they are on the wiring diagram in this page, just to the left of the middle on the bottom of the page. http://aarc.epnet.com/application/8961/chiltonimages/8961/89616e01.pdf im sure mtcookson should be able to tell me what i need to know...... I yanked 3 of them and i also got a gm 3.8L coil pack.... and a few vg30E chopper disks. gonna make my own 72-2 wheel (36-1 x 2 running at camshaft speed) and just use the wheel decoder and go wasted spark.

i think the VE30de engines form the 92 to 94 maxima SEs had bolted on counterweights.

take it to any mahjor body shop that has a frame straightening rack. they should be able to sort it out for a few hundred bucks.

oh, its a G-nose! here is a pic of a 280ZX with a typical airdam and headlight covers.... notice how it is still easy to distinguish where the hood ends and the bumper begins, because the bumper is flat and the hood is sloped? the G-nose continues the same slope as the hood has out to the end of the bumper. plus, you can really see how far the headlight buckets have been extended. on the stock X, the headlight buckets end where the hood ends, but on the G-nose, they continue out about another 2 inches. The G-nose gives it almost a porsche look to it./ It does look VERY factory and VERY nice.

here is a MUCH better shot of one. maybe just a better G-nose.,

deisel rods are 140MM center to center length. They weigh about 80 grams more than an L24 rod and they have a massive 25mm full floating pin. they look sturdy as all hell. Im sure they could take a LOT of boost. For use with normal pistons in a gas motor, I think you would have to bush the wrist pin hole to get it down to a normal size i.e. 21mm or so.

has anyone seen one in person? is the company that made them in England still in business? Im kind of contemplating one for my ZX. I've got a summer off, 2 parts cars, some cash coming my way and a whole lot of time on my hands. would probably be faster and easier to build my own that get one from England, eh?

the ratio on a 4.11 should be 37:9. as far as LSD, i wouldnt trust the "jack the car up and spin the wheel method". someone once explained to me that worn spider gears could cause an open diff to behave like an LSD. I cant remember how, but it does. best to get pics of the clutch packs.

hrmmmmmm..... another idea here... can I make a wheel out of thin sheet-metal? or does it have to be thick to get a good signal? I can just bolt it on my crank damnpner where the 3rd pulley bolts on! I have a 1980 280ZX so the outer most belt groove is removable. and I dont have PS or AC anymore.