whyfeel

Techno Toy Tuning has front weld on kits as well as front and rear coilovers for s130s now. https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/s130

I have been daily driving an L28 for more than 10 years. I had it rebuilt when I got it and within a year the old (original) harmonic balancer separated. I only need 1 pulley for the alternator and water pump as well and went with the OEM 3 pulley. I am glad I did. The engine internals are stock, it passes smog easily and I abuse it to no end. That BHJ product looks great and you can option a trigger wheel for megasquirt. It looks like a good choice.

I have an '82. I used some from a Z31 300zx from a junkyard and they fit with no modifications. The part looks slightly different but the fasteners let me up and the doors latch great.

I have an '82 280zx n/a with a crane HI6s and LX92 coil. I used the 280zx distributor, removed the magnetic trigger assembly and installed the optical trigger conversion. I don't believe the magnetic trigger will drive the HI6. On the outside of the distributor was a plastic box that I removed. It looks similar in pictures to the ignitor on the S30's. The bonus of having the optical trigger is it's adjustibility; you can move it around in the distributor to get extra timing.

That's great compression. I noticed you set it to 5 degrees BTDC. FSM calls for 8 plus/minus 2 degrees BTDC for an '82. I run 10 BTDC on my '82 zx with a '79 engine. Also double check the head temp sensor. I clean mine every few months to be sure, because it directly correlates to your fuel mixture. I know the hesitation and stumbling you are talking about. The car will run great but sometimes when cold it falls on it's face and starts "popping" in the intake somewhere until you let off the throttle.

^^^ Good to know. The t-top 280zx is really good at acting like a greenhouse in 100 degree plus weather. I've got my t-tops limo tinted and need to get my back 3 windows tinted a lighter shade so I can still see at night.

1982, 2580 lbs with a half tank of gas. I have some fiberglass on the car, but I did NOT remove the bumpers, I installed over the top of them for safety. You never know what kind of crazy stuff is about to go down on the roads. I eventually would like to build new bumpers, lighter and stronger than original. Ac removed including under dash parts. Power steering removed for manual rack and pinion. Odyssey battery, Al 13lb flywheel. Stock seats, power windows, mirrors still there. All interior pieces still there (minus the rear tailight cover and the rear headliner part) with full carpet.

Here is a shot of how I mounted my tweeters. The stock speaker location is weird so I used a component to try and get better imaging. As it sits the high tones float right to your ears, even with luggage or a load in the back. This particular placement requires some EQ work to pull the excess highs out of the mix and it sounds phenomenal. The tweeters have a clear path to your ears but the rest of the speaker is shooting into your kidneys. Sorry, my car is dirty.

Been busy as usual. First, the boring stuff. So the front suspension and steering is completely rebuilt now. Tokico Illumina struts Tokico springs Techno Toy Tuning adjustable TC rods Techno Toy Tuning Roll Center Adjusters Offset drilled Aluminum front control arm bushings various poly bushings New tie rod end links re-manufactured Manual rack and pinion steering rack ball joints were replaced 3 yrs ago Front wheel bearings and races replaced Front sway bars are 1 1/8 inch I just got the bearings and tie rod end links in and got new tires and an alignment. I had my front tires set to -0.4 degrees of camber each and it feels amazing. Also did a brake job for the bits that wear out. Replaced my front rotors with a set of cross drilled and slotted rotors I had from the previous car. Resurfaced the front and rear rotors with 3m twist lock pads and replaced brake pads with performance pads from PBR. I have been running them for years and they respond better with increased heat up to very high temperatures. Started in on the body. MSA body kit I had on the previous car was beat to hell. A little wet sand and rattle-can job turned out nice with my brother's help. I have some issues to clear up and will remount and relocate several bolts but it will suffice for now. I wanted to mount the fiberglass while retaining the stock bumpers, however heavy they are for safety reasons. This car is my daily driver and crazy **** happens on the open road. The bumper mounts needed to be moved back, overall shortening the car 3.25 inches from front bumper to back bumper. This doesn't include the two front rubber pieces on the bumper, at least 0.5 inches thick. So putting this on shortened the car overall 3.75 inches. Front bumper mount. Drill tube to release oil and smack with sledge gently to free up. Take measurements and weld in place. One of the rear mounts. Front view. Side view. Rear quarter. I still need to clean up the gunk on the side and do some more spraying but I really like it for now. Still need to tackle the rear suspension. Have the Tokico Blue struts and springs on as well as a 7/8 inch sway bar but I need to adjust my rear wheel's alignment. Despite the problems and a list still a mile long the car drives amazingly.

I ran a '79 n/a 280zx and it primed and now I have an '82 n/a 280zx and it primes too.

Haven't made any progress with the tach adapter. I believe the MSD Tach adapter isn't designed to work with Crane's HI6S setup. I posted more information about how I tried to wire it here --> http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/107191-tach-adapter-with-crane-hi6s/ Last fall I noticed the speed bumps on campus were pretty huge. If I got caught in the wrong area I would scrape frame rail. I didn't have the facilities to do frame rails at my apartment, so I bent up some plated angle steel and bolted it up to keep the remains of the frame rails in tact. The PO did a number on them as well. It has been very effective, I should have made them a tad longer. I don't try to smash them and I take extreme angles but the car sometimes needs its frame sliders. Otherwise I have been cleaning up my electrical system. I put together an accessory fuse panel that bolts in place where the a/c and fan used to; two 10mil bolts. It fits nicely and is out of the way. Here is a shot of how I mounted my tweeters. The stock speaker location is weird so I used a component to try and get better imaging. As it sits the high tones float right to your ears, even with luggage or a load in the back. This particular placement requires some EQ work to pull the excess highs out of the mix and it sounds phenomenal. The tweeters have a clear path to your ears but the rest of the speaker is shooting into your kidneys. Sorry, my car is dirty.

I'm guessing you might need the proportioning valve, yes. How much fluid do those Wilwoods take? 4 Piston might be bigger than stock so you could need a new master cylinder.

I have a Crane HI6S system installed on my car with the optical trigger conversion in the distributor. It's an '82 n/a s130 with stock EFI. Here is what the wiring looks like. It works. I need to get the tachometer working correctly. I couldn't find Crane's 6000-8920 but I got MSD 8920 Tach adapter. I hope they are the same basic piece of equipment or I am wasting my time. I have been trying to get it hooked up with everything. In my above poorly drawn wiring diagram the Tach Adapter isn't going anywhere. I was trying to hook it up however the Crane wiring diagrams show different color wires than the MSD wiring diagrams. So I started messing with it. If it is a sensitive piece of equipment I hope I didn't ruin it. Tach adapter, four wires, black, red, white, and purple. Black is obviously ground. Red I hooked up to coil positive wires. I assume that this is just switched 12v positive for entire system. Then I hooked the white Tach adapter wire up to the coil negative/white trigger wire for the optical and the HI6S. I left out the purple wire. The engine ran and no change to tach. I assume that is because the HI6S, optical trigger and the adapter were all hooked up to coil negative and this circumvented any adapter circuit. Secondly, I ran red to coil positive and black to ground. Then I hooked ONLY the adapter to the Coil negative. Car wouldn't start, assume that is because in this setup the optical trigger went to the HI6S white wire and whatever the white adapter wire fed into Coil - didn't trigger fuel, my HI6S trigger led was blinking so it was working. Thirdly, I ran red to coil + and black to ground. Then I hooked the white adapter wire to the HI6S white wire and optical trigger (still leaving it out of the coil -). Then I put the purple wire to the coil - thinking it might be the signal out after "attenuating" the tach signal or whatever it does. In this mode the car started but ran extremely rough, wouldn't do more than idle sporadically, dying as soon as throttle was applied. This is most likely not the way to set it up. The last try, I put red to coil + and black to ground. Then I put the adapter in between the HI6S and the optical trigger on the white wire coming out of the HI6S. The the white wire on the Hi6S went to the white wire on the adapter, then the purple adapter wire went to the coil - and optical trigger. This filtered out my optical trigger sensor, so my HI6S status led didn't blink and it didn't start. So, I am not doing it correctly. I assume either a) the MSD 8920 box doesn't jive with the Crane Hi6S because it is designed for a different ignition type or I need to go behind the dash and find the wires coming out of the tach, then run the adapter wires red to coil +, black to ground, white tapped into the intact optical trigger/coil -/hi6s white wire to pick up the signal. Then figure out which tach wire is for signal, cut it and send the purple adapter wire directly to the tach. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a rev test I did last month. revtestv2.wmv

Been a while, been busy with work and school. I'll try and bring things up to date. First off, the above mentioned headlights are removed in favor of proper DOT approved MSR H4 headlights. Much better pattern on them. I have done normal maintenance, engine oil and filter, valve lashings, timing, cleaning harness contacts and the like. I have been running Redline synthetic oil in my transmission and differential, that is really nice. I have gotten a tach adapter, couldn't get it working. At the time I had a bad optical sensor in my ignition set so the engine kept dying while I tried wire it up in a few configurations. I have a Crane HI6S and I got the Tach Adapter from MSD PN 8920. The asked for Crane product was part number 6000-8920, so I thought it had a chance to work. It has to be with the Red and White input wires for the HI6S but I wasn't able to finish my troubleshooting. The problem is the MSD adapter has directions for use with MSD unit so the wire colors are slightly different. Here is how I have my HI6S set up. Any input would be greatly appreciated. In any case it runs well. I put in NGK Platinum plugs and gapped them to 0.045". The throttle response is neck snapping. In march I replaced the engine mounts and transmission mount. It was an amazing difference. I had replaced the engine mounts 8 years ago with OEM Nissan and they were shredded. My car was much quieter afterwards. Also at that time my kind brother sourced a junk 5speed that happened to be in great shape. It has the best throw of any used Dastun 5speed I have felt. The '79 5 speed I was running was destroying itself, I pulled 3/4" chunks out of the drain plug a year before I took it out. The speedo failed as well and started working with the new tranny. This is the nearly dead transmission's plug after I drained it before the swap. Pretty impressive that all that metal was flying around and it was still working. I think the Redline oil helped keep it together that extra little bit. It was very noisy in fifth and getting hard to shift. I didn't blow any gears but I took it easy towards the end, I didn't want to get stranded. Also been working on the front end. I put in Techno Toy Tuning TC Rods and I am very impressed by them. It tightens up the front end so much it got me going finding other broken stuff I hadn't noticed yet. I replaced the manual rack and pinion steering, already had poly bushings in it. They are getting very hard to source and it took Autozone 4 attempts to ship a working model. They were all re-manufactured however the first one had slop in the right side, the second had reverse threads on one end link. The third was the wrong part number shipped! They shipped a rack for a completely different vehicle. The fourth was finally right and works great. They are phenomenally expensive BTW. Now that the rack is good I need new tie rod links, one side is a little loose. An alignment after that and I should be feeling pretty damn skippy about it. For added comfort I got a set of Alpine S series component speakers. I mounted the tweeters flush inside the strut towers, gives pretty good imaging. Added a Bazooka 200w sub strapped in back and it is more than enough sound for the small interior. The sub is small, so you can unstrap it and unplug it easily for spirited drives. I have some more stuff to do, as always with a Z. Will update.

Cleaned my headlight harness. I have 25$ ebay headlights but they are 100w halogens and are properly aimed not at other drivers. Also, I got it on the scales a few weeks ago. Around 2.5 gallons of gas without me in it wet it weighed in at 2720 pounds. Ran 2900 pounds with me in it. I am very happy considering that I still had the jack, spare tire, the t-tops, tools and everything still in the car.

Thanks for the compliments. I do what I can. I swapped a couple of wheels with my little brother. I like it, running 195/60R14 in front and 225/50R15 in back. The extra grip in back feels nice.

Got my Crane Hi6s installed. It smoothed out the engine a great deal and brought out a lot of midrange power. The stock coil was ancient. I still need to clean up some wiring and get the tach adapter to fix the tach jumping around below 2k.

Well, it sucks living 120 miles from where you do serious car work, but I try to make do. I've kept up with various maintenance tasks such as a new alternator, front bearings, new rotors and pads, new back deck weatherstripping. I got all 4 wheels to match, fixed a rear exhaust hanger, put a new clutch slave cylinder and stainless braided line in, new oil pressure sender, new acc belt and oil changes. I have another Derale electric fan in the mail to replace the one I have which has died finally. I finally got my suspension to a good place though. It felt great and drove fine, but I wanted it a bit better. I got Techno Toy Tuning roll center adjusters and another set of offset control arm bushings. Old bushings were actually installed backwards according to the installation instructions. New bushings have grease fittings. This should be very helpful. RCAs installed. I haven't tightened the swaybar end link down yet in this picture. Rest assured it got done. I still haven't gotten it aligned. I adjusted the control arm bushings to give my best guess at the most available camber. It drives very straight and corners like crazy. The camber gives an amazing confidence and grip in the middle of any corner. The RCA's have also made a big difference and the whole car bounces less and is easier to steer, even in parking lots. I don't have to have a death grip on the steering wheel in case a hit a bump midcorner, either front wheel's suspension will absorb it like it should instead of bouncing the whole front end. The car is now incredibly driver friendly. I replaced the heater core. I put it back under the dashboard in the plastic case it's housed in and hooked up the heater hoses to test it. Good thing I did because it leaked. The core itself and the original core was fine. It was the thermo dashpot valve in back that was leaking and parts to replace it were not a direct replacement and looked like a pain. I never thought the stock fan in the defroster or vents was strong enough to be of any use anyway, so I went with a different approach. I wanted and got a rudimentary heater/defroster. It works decently and a couple shields in addition to my setup to help channel airflow a bit would help. The design as is is nice because you can angle the core by swinging the rack up or down. I gutted all the air/heater/air conditioning ducting and vacuum lines from under the dash. I weighed it all along with removing my a/c compressor, all lines (except the one in front core support behind radiator), hoses, condensor and heater controls. Turned out to be 75 pounds. So with what I put in that I didn't weigh I guess 65 pound weight savings with a/c removal and heater modification. Aluminum frame I put together to hold the core up. Put a heater hose on the frame to insulate it from the core. I use zipties liberally, I know I should probably do something better, but it works for now. Got a couple good bends out of the Al on the top end of the frame under the dash. Cut out a few small steel brackets for the bottom. I bolt it right into the original heater core mount. I used one of the FI cooling fans from the 280zx's engine compartment. I wanted something with some kick for cold days and my poor design. I got some copper plumbing fittings from the lumber yard and snugged everything up with hoseclamps nice and tight. It leaked a little once, a few half turns on the clamp and its been solid. I was surprised because the fittings are so small, I thought I was going to have to silicone it all together. Still an option if it busts. I'll try to update a little more frequently. The most important thing is that this cars drives me every day everywhere I need to go and looks nice doing it too.

Long time, no post. I moved into an apt a couple hours from my parents where I work on my stuff. Apartment complex rules suck. I don't have a camera but I'll try and post pics soon. In any case the car is running great and has been for months, with "routine" maintenance of course. Routine for a daily driver Z. Most of this work was done before June this year but I will give you a quick breakdown. So after I got it passed smog I worked on the brakes. Back left caliper was frozen. I bought 2 new rear calipers, a new master cylinder. I got these in along with stainless braided cables in front, semi- metallic brake pads and four new rotors. It brakes like crazy, my anti-lock brakes are my right foot and my ears are my indicator (just like all classic Z's). Also have sumitomo htr200 tires in 205/60 r14. Not the best tires in the world but they hold heat decently and are cheap. Also redid both front wheel bearings. As far as appearance goes I haven't done much to the exterior. I installed headlight covers and some cheap 100w halogens that are white light with an upgraded wiring harness. I also swapped the trim panels next to the quarter windows from the stock black ones to the earlier '79-80 chrome slatted ones seen on the brown ZX at the top of the page. I added an accessory relay for the stereo, electric fan, headlights and left a few extra slots. I have a Radioshack relay running off the key acc switch and a fuse block for it all. I wired up an indicator light to let me know when the electric fan is running. I have a Derale fan with a variable thermostat so the light is nice to get it set perfectly for the season. I also wired up a Stewart Warner water temperature gauge mounted next to the stereo. I got a fitting from jegs with a sensor bung so I could put the sensor in the middle of the top radiator hose where the hottest water from the engine comes out. I got a new clutch slave cylinder for the clutch. I already had a stainless braided cable but I must have over torqued it too many times because it ended up leaking, got another one. Also very recently adjusted the clutch pedal to the master cylinder because the clutch was dragging (Centerforce II). Clutch is working perfectly. The original '82 transmission didn't last too long. Maybe a few months. I was on my way home to change it with a '79 trans that I had in the brown ZX and it blew a front seal in the mountains on my way. I pulled over and inspected the damage, oil on ground. I didn't have cell coverage so I decided to run it as long as I could without oil. It made it 46 miles without further problems and got the swap done in around 5 hours by myself. I was hauling ass getting that done. I put a new throwout bearing in at this point as well. Also forgot to mention at the beginning of the thread that I ditched the power steering for the '79 manual rack and pinion setup, swapped the whole front crossmember. I've been pretty busy working lately and haven't had any extra time or money to invest in this. I have a new heater core I got last winter that I need to put in and also my Hi6s crane ignition set I need to put in. I need to find a new driver's seat to try and fit better (i'm 6'5"). Otherwise no big plans. If I come into some extra cash I will put an exhaust on it. 3-2 headers, 2.5inch back to Borla muffler. The car is awesome. One of those things that makes you happy every time you sit in it. It handles great, brakes great, and has more than enough power to get me into shenanigans. I put it on the scale running without me in it and made 2840 with less than a half tank of gas and it was within 30 lbs of being 50:50 weight distribution. My little brothers '72 Z had much more front end weight, I forget his numbers. He weighed in at 2360 lbs running without him in it though.

I took off the timing cover only. I didn't take off the timing chain, I only tightened the chain guide and put on the new chain tensioner before I put it back together. It could have slipped a notch. My limited understanding tells me that if it slipped then I wouldn't be able to get the distributor to turn enough to get the proper 8deg BTDC timing, but I could be wrong. Also in a compression test a couple weeks ago all cylinders were within 5psi of each other just below 170psi. EDIT: Good news, the cylinder head temp input got it to pass smog. I had been reading so much about Megasquirt and spark which only needs trigger, o2, water temp and air temp that I neglected to look at the FSM that shows an input from the cylinder head temp as well.

When I got it running when I first put in the engine, well... You could barely call it running. I would grind the starter until it misfired and coughed its way to life, shooting more and more smoke until it would get so rich it would die. The fuel pressure regulator was rotten and fuel was leaking through it. I replaced this with another one I had that was good. It still ran like crap because number 4 fuel injector was shooting out fuel. (I had purchased these stock injectors for my last car and hoped they were still good, oh well.) Through this I took it a couple times to a shoddy local mechanic to try and troubleshoot through this. The fuel pressure was checked ok and the fuel return line is clear. The EGR valve was replaced and cleaned ( I cleaned it). MAF meter was checked by voltage. I removed and cleaned the throttle body and MAF. Vacuum pressure was checked ok after a loose hose near the heater core was found. He tested my ECU and it was OK. He also later messed with the throttle valve switch to try and get it running better. I set the valve lash and he checked it. I also bought Caigs Deoxit and protective electrical spray and cleaned and coated all the FI cables, sensors and anything electrical on top of the engine. I reground the battery with a chassis/engine line and added a 10gauge grounding wire from the driver side firewall to the intake next to the fuel injectors. So I got 6 new injectors and o-rings and installed them. It got much better. I tried using stock ignition and thought my other setup might work better. So installed my old distributor with optical trigger, crane hi6s and lx91 coil. Didn't make a difference so I put the stock 82 dizzy back in (less shaft play on it). New cap/rotor/plugs gapped to spec. Then some new taylor hi-pro plug wires because I had a split boot. When I would set the timing with the stock 82 dizzy the timing would jump 30 degrees or so from where I set it every few seconds. It was weird. The distributor was rubbing the magnets and destroying itself. SO I bought a new distributor. Previously mentioned "mechanic" also checked my catalytic converter after I elicited concern about not wanting to buy a new one. It was melted through and was blocking exhaust flow. Engine ran better with it disconnected. So I bought a new cat. For those of you not familiar with how silly California can be you are lucky. A law was just passed which only allows a certain kind of cat to be purchased within the state. So there are plenty of cats that would fit, 49 state legal, for 130 dollars. I had to pay more than 250 dollars though. So the car was running alright, but it had come to my attention with the valve cover off that the timing chain had almost an inch and a half of free play. So I got to pull the whole mess apart again to get to the timing cover and take it off. I had apparently sheared off the timing chain tensioner. I replaced it and adjusted the lash pad for the chain. It took me three tries to get the timing back in range because when I was putting in the oil pump I didn't realize it had a timing mark. Then when I realized its timing mark I still messed it up and had to pull off the swaybar to line it up right. I got it fixed though. At this point I thought I had gone through enough grief. I figured I had a chance to pass smog. I burned up a new O2 sensor in the process, it was running so poorly I'm on my second. Went through 3 sets of plugs, a couple dizzy caps and rotors. It was running so rich the exhaust started to melt the foam in the back hatch. I did around 3 oil changes because the oil kept smelling like gas. I took it to a local shop and asked them to do a smog check. In Ca for this car the idle test requires 1.5% carbon monoxide. 3% is a gross polluter. I tested at 12%. This was very disheartening. I realized that I had never had the idle mixture set though. This was because that "mechanic" didn't have a CO sensor. So I took it to another local dealer shop (best shop in the county) and asked them to set the idle mixture and test it. It went down to 10%. I bought a new mass AFM and it went down to 8%. I guess the AFM I bought isn't adjustable though, so I might take it back. As it stands I have a water temp sender I need to put in. The only other thing that could be contributing is my lack of cylinder head temp hookup. The original P79 head has a temp between 5 and 6 cylinder, but my N47 from '79 does not. I'm going to talk to the mechanic about the best way to hook up this directly. If this doesn't get it closer I don't know what will. If anyone has any suggestions or questions let me know. As you can see from the post dates this project has been going on for too long. I just want title to my car so I can use it on the road.

It has been a while since I updated this and I have put a lot of work into this project. Some of you can understand it is annoying taking pictures while you are trying to get something done. I did the stuff in these next pictures months ago. The carpet was nasty. PO was a heavy smoker. (bonus shot of my toes) I have black carpet I bought a few years ago, here it is in the back. I have 3 layers of foam insulation under the carpet in front. I like insulation from sound. I also filled the speaker panel behind the seats with speaker box stuffing, especially around the wheel well area. This is the CAI from MSA. I added an aluminum support on the bottom which is really necessary to keep it from jiggling around. Front springs; Stock spring vs. tokico. Front struts ready to put back in. I got all the suspension put back together. This is really bad perspective but here is my ricer wheel gap pic in front. It's about right for the bad mountain roads this car is going to deal with. And I'm out of pictures. So I have Tokico Hp struts in back, Illuminas in front and the Tokico lowering springs installed. I have poly bushings on my tc rods (1 poly and 1 rubber per side) and offset aluminum control arm bushings for camber. I put new ball joints in as well. The steering rack is from another '79 that I had that had manual rack and pinion which is awesome. I have swaybars that I found on a parts car. They are 1 1/16in in front and 1in in back installed with poly bushings. The car feels like a go cart. I resurfaced the front brake rotors and installed stainless braided brake lines on front. The rear has newly purchased rotors and new calipers. The back left was absolutely frozen and I couldn't get new pads in. I have the semi-metallic brake pads from MSA installed on all 4. I just put in a new brake master cylinder because that was shot as well. Also the clutch has a new master cylinder, a stainless braided line and a new slave cylinder. That matches up to the Centerforce 2 clutch (I don't know if I mentioned that earlier) and a 13lb aluminum flywheel. Those are the fun bits. I have the suspension and brakes sorted. This doesn't help me a bit if I can't pass smog.

Internet has been going out and have been busy with 13 hour days. Update soon if I have the energy.

oh snap, thanks!