Ozzie831

Thanks for taking the time to check out my post. For starters I did the fusible link upgrade and alternator upgrade from http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/ about a year ago. At the time the car ran pretty bad because the turbo install added a bunch of extra electronics and the alternator I was using wasnt supplying enough juice to run everything that I had installed and it was wreaking havoc. I just recently purchased a 140amp alternator from Zspecialties and its blowing my 80amp fuse. The fuse does not instantaneous blow when I turn the car on. It only happens when I am driving/revving the engine. Ive let the car running for half an hour in the driveway and nothing happened but when I drove it less than 2 miles it would blow. Ive even gotten it to blow by revving it in the driveway. Out of all my driving tests, Ive never gotten more than 5 minutes from my house before the fuse blew. Every time I drove the car, the volt gauge in the dash would sit a little past the 16V mark under acceleration and 14ish when stopped at a stop light. I noticed when the fuse blew, it would jump to where the little red LED is then go back the the 16V. (I only have 2 wires to the alternator, the battery power and the ground. I dont really know how my gauge is operating since its not even plugged in...) I hooked up a volt meter to the battery and let it sit in the driveway. The volts were at 13.8-14.4 during idle and revving. So I went and revved it for a bit and when it blew there were no spikes on the Volt meter it just stayed at the 13.8-14.4 range; however, the dash gauge still spiked. I checked the wiring and I didnt notice any shorts or anything that looked bad, unplugged, or out of place. The reason I purchased the new alternator was because I thought my last one failed (it was a Nissan Maxima alternator from Oreillys). After I purchased the Zspecialties alternator, I went and unhooked my old alternator (in preperation for the new one) and learned that my white and red power wire had eroded to the point of cutting itself in half. So I replaced all the old white and red striped wires with new 10 gauge wire. One thing that keeps creeping into my mind is that maybe when I updated the wiring, I maybe swapped around the 4 wires at the MAXI Fuse block. Im pretty sure I didnt but that is the only thing that I can think of. Any thoughts and suggestions are appreciated Austin

I think I figured out the problem. As suggestedby NewZed, I believe my fuel pressure regulator was sticking open. I bought a different brand fpr, tested it out and havnt noticed any similar symptoms. Also Ive noticed that my car now keeps fuel pressure after I turn off the car, all the other fuel pressure regulators that Ive used dropped to 0 when I turned the car off. I rewired my whole car to incorporate the megasquirt ecu, the pump is placed in the same spot as the stock one (maybe even a little lower), no exhaust near the lines. So Im going to keep monitoring the situation to make sure everything is still good. However a new problem arose. I believe my alternator just took a dump. While I was driving the other day I watched the voltage on my dash gauge dropping slowly and my AFR slowly got leaner until the car died. I did the alternator upgrade a while ago but I either screwed that up or the new ecu, it's components and electric fans are using to much juice. Ive tested the battery when the car was on and it was only at 12.3v. I think that is a bit low (thats without lights, ac, blinkers, or radio). The alternator is O'Reilly brand 60amp. The electric fans are the Flex-a-lite low profile S blade 12in 420 (I know these things use a lot of juice), these are wired to the key's "on" position.

Hey how's it going? Ive been dealing with my 77 280z turbo project these past few years and Im having a serious problem with either pump cavitation or vapor lock. I dont care what you call it, it's getting really annoying. The car will start up and drive just fine to my destination; however, if it sits more than 10 min I have to sit for several hours just to get the afr back to a safe driving range range. I only work 5 miles away and I usually have to wait my entire 8 hour shift for it to not be running super lean. Several times I have tried to leave and go on lunch but my AFR is at 17+ so I was stuck till it went down. Ive tried heat shielding everything, tried different pumps (currently with a walbro 255), bigger fuel lines (only the rubber lines, not the hard lines), I have hood vents, Ill even leave my hood open half the time hoping that will help. My normal AFR at idle and cruising is about 13.3, but when this leaning out happens, it get to 15's+. While the car is on, the temp doesnt get above 180. Im assuming its pump cavitation solely based on that Ive noticed my fuel pressure being lower whenever this happens (plus people have said that z's cant get vapor lock). Ive even revved the engine and watched the fuel pressure plummet the higher the RPM's get, plummet as is goes from 32 psi to 0, or pretty darn close. Any advice is extremely appreciated. If there are any questions about specs/parts/anything, please feel free to ask. Austin

1977 Datsun 280z 4 speed 2.8L (Turbo-ed) MS2 V3.57 Upgraded alternator to a mid 80s Nissan Altima (90amp). MSD 6AL MSD Blaster 2 Coil Generic Megasquirt Wiring Harness 280zx Turbo Distributor Electric Fans 55lb Sieman Deka Injectors Innovate Wideband O2 3" Intercooler Pipes I have looked through one guys tune. Thats how I got it to finally start running. I made a hybrid between that one and the tune that I had from my MS1.

Hey everyone, i got my car kinda running today yay! It runs like crap, but it's running. I dont know what to look for to make it run better, im not a tuner by any means. It wont Idle but if I keep giving it gas then it will stay alive. It sounds like its running well at the higher RPMs versus the lower and mid ranges. The car is a 77 280z, MS2 V3.57. Im hoping to hear some suggestions to make the tune better. Thank you for the help. Feel free to ask any questions. Tune.rar

I can take the key out whenever in my 77 280z. I think it is quite handy. In case i left something inside the house, I can keep the car running.

When I downloaded tunerstudio the start and warm up enrichment settings were preset to a random car. So it is a possibility that it is the settings could be wrong. Im not a tuner by any means and I have no idea what they are supposed to be set at. Is there anything else that I can check while I wait for a buddy of mine to come over and check out the enrichment settings? Ive tried uploading my tune on here but for some reason it's not letting me, says i dont have permission to upload the file or something

Alright so I got the car to turn over thanks to newzed's link. The problem was the way my car's wiring was previously set up with the MS1. On that set up I didnt use the Spark A wire on the Megasquirt generic harness but after looking at the link it shows that the MS2 uses that wire. I connected the Spark A wire to the white wire on the MSD like the link stated and Bam it attempted to start. The problem now is that I have to keep pumping the gas to keep the car alive. It wont idle, it will just start and die without me vigorously pumping the gas. Any suggestions on that one?

And are you assuming that I have oscilloscope? how am I supposed to tell if I am getting a square wave without an oscilloscope? I dont have a job and Im not going to just go out and buy one.

And what does it need for MS?

Checked the cap and rotor. They seemed alright. I cleaned em up and tested again but still nothing

How's it goin? Im working on my turbo-ed 77 280z and Im not sure where my spark is going :/ Im running megasquirt 2 v3.57, MSD 6AL, MSD Blaster 2 coil and a 83zx dizzy. I have good spark from the coil to the dizzy plug wire but it seems to go somewhere after that and its not to the plugs. I did the MSD test that checks the spark going to the dizzy from the coil spark plug wire. The one where you put the coil plug wire next to a ground and touch the white MSD wire to a ground to see if it makes a spark. Ive had this problem before but I cant remember how I fixed it. I cant remember if it's an MS problem or a mechanical/wiring problem. I've turned the dizzy to different degrees to see if it was in the wrong place but there was no change. I have the RPM signal in tunerstudio while cranking so that is good. Ill attach my tune in case there is something wrong and I dont see it. Im not sure if the spark is just too weak but it looked good to me when I did the test (I dont know what a good or weak spark looks like but i could get a spark from a pretty good distance from a ground, about an inch or 2, when I did the test. I dont know if that constitutes a good spark or not but meh).

Okie dokie, I got the RPM signal. I believe the battery was just too low for the computer to sense it :/ So now I just gotta work on my timing since I dont have spark :/

Im not very electronically savvy when it comes to tuning, wiring or computer boards but I do know how to take a screenshot haha.

I just bought a MS2 V3.57 (with the Single Ignition Output through BIP373 coil driver) for my 77 280z and I cant get the RPM to sync. I used to have a MS1 V2.2 but I didn't add drop resistors to my injectors so the box got screwed. Everything used to run fine with the MS1 but now with this new box I cant get the RPMs to sync. A little about the car ignition: 83 Turbo Dizzy (Has a 1k resistor between the white trigger wire and the +12v) (stock trigger disc) MS generic wiring harness MSD 6AL MSD Blaster 2 coil I used a volt meter at the dizzy's signal wire and it's getting 5.26 volts at the highest, .36 at the lowest. I don't know what the volts are supposed to be at, but I was told to take a look. I dont have an oscilloscope or a stimjim (dont have a job so I wont be buying either). Id be greatly appreciative if anyone has ideas. If I missed something I will try and answer any questions to the best of my ability. Austin

Quick question. How would you wire the stock resistor packs to the injectors? Im slightly a noob when it comes to wiring so layman's terms would be great haha. I guess this was the step I missed that made my computer explode. I have low impedance injectors and I guess you need resistor packs. Whoops.

Thanks for they info. I have an MS1. The sticker on the back of the box says MS122-C Megasquirt-1 ECU w/MS1-Extra 029y4. I just asked for the guys opinion on if the board was toast, I didnt have him do a full diagnostic on it. He thinks the board could still be alright and that the part went bad. He said some parts like that may act like a fuse when it goes bad so it doesnt destroy the rest of the board. Which I think is correct since everything else seems to work fine. I talked to a couple people and they said that the paste shouldnt do that haha, but I have no idea on what it takes to make these boards. I emailed DIY to see what their opinion is, so hopefully I get a response on monday.

So I went digging and looked at every single wire and fixed all the ones that even looked suspicious but the car still does the same shit so I looked in my MS box and lo and behold it smells a bit like battery corrosion. So I drove all over town trying to find someone that even knew what a computer board looked like and finally found someone. They showed me the part that was causing the smell. It was this little black square that has this "F" on it (It is the square on the bottom right of the board in the picture). The guy also showed me this the white stuff that was coming from behind the part and said that was also a sign of it being no bueno. I bought this box from DIY so I have no idea what it is or what it does. So the question is now, buy a new part or just get a whole new MS?

I was driving pretty quick on the freeway with my megasquirted turbo 280z when all of a sudden my car stopped going forward. I had no idea what was going on so I coasted over into the breakdown lane and looked around to see what had gone wrong. I found that both of Injector bank fuses had blown. Luckily I was with some buddies and they went to the store and got me some more 5 amp fuses. I went to start the car and bam the fuses blew again instantly. So I grabbed my multimeter and we checked how many amps were going through the fuse box and it was about 7.8-8.0 amps which is really random since Ive never had problems with the 5 amp fuses before. So they went and got some 10 amp fuses and now the car wont start. The starter engages and it will start for a split second and then it dies and goes back to cranking continuously until I turned the key to the off position and retry to start it, where it would start and die. I get spark and fuel so Im confused as all hell. Me and my buddies pushed the car to a gas station where I tried to figure out what the problem was but after 2 hours there I decided to give up and walked home. I have no freaking idea what the problem is. My buddy thinks there may be a short somewhere but this all happened at 8pm and it was dark as shit so Im going to go look at it tomorrow to see if I can find anything that may be shorting out. I wanted to post on here to see what others thought, so please any suggestions are appreciated.

well that's awkward, I just realized that my original post didnt keep the link to the fans........http://www.summitracing.com/nv/parts/flx-420/overview/

Cool thanks for the suggestion. Sounds like a solid plan, Ill do that tomorrow. I have a sneaky feeling that the battery is the culprit

Hey hows it going? I'm running these duel Flex-a-lite fans they seem to be using a crap ton of power. I don't know how much power electric fans are supposed to use and this could be normal but they seem to be using too much power and it is affecting my car's performance. With the car running and the fans disconnected the battery is at 13.50 volts, with the fans connected the battery goes down to 12.70-12.80 volts. With the fans connected it seriously bogs my car down. It also seems to be throwing off my megasquirt due to the power loss and there is a 100% change in how the car runs. Feel free to ask any questions and I will try my best to answer them. Any information is appreciated Austin

Hey sorry for the late reply. Connor: No there wasn't any popping from the intake, nor was there black smoke that I could see. NewZed: I turbo-ed my 77 280z. So yes It has boost Blackbell: Not sure what the problem was. It seemed to be getting enough fuel. I did notice it was a little more lean than usual. The fuel pump was my first suspect. It recently started humming a lot louder and more high pitched than it used too. I wasn't 100% sure it was the fuel pump because it was pretty new but maybe something happened to it. I Bought a new fuel pump and a new coil and everything is running smooth

I was driving my 77 280z the other day and it started sputtering pretty bad when I gave it some juice. It runs fine when I accelerate slowly or normally. It may only be happening when I'm in boost but i wasnt paying enough attention to be sure. The afr is around 12ish when it was WOT. I replaced the spark plug even though the old ones seemed fine and there was no change. Im not hearing any air leaks, fuel filter is almost brand new, dizzy is clean and my plug wires seem ok. So Im thinking its either the fuel pump, coil, or dirty injectors? or something else I haven't thought of. Any help is appreciated

exterior and interior are both lacking in the extreme haha, that's why i was asking