Daeron

if I had a nickel for ever white, 82 or later 280ZX 2-seater, with red interior and T-tops, that I have ever seen..... ..I would probably use it to go buy a white, 82-83 280ZX with red interior and t-tops.

classic pic man, thanks. My dad has some video that he took in 1989 when he came down here for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.. my family was living up in NC at the time, and its so funny to see my uncle showing my dad this "new 240Z that he just picked up." That car sunk to a LOW low before getting sold, getting the spa treatment (and my brothers 82 280ZX engine) then getting rolled over by some family friends. The individual vehicles come and go, but the spirit within remains the same... Kinda like us shaggy, long haired young kids, right?

I dunno what you guys are talking about, you can hardly SEE the bumpers....... They don't stick out THAT much.... Is this a 75 or a 76? extra cool points for an ammeter in the dash

six bills, that looks to be one hell of a buy!! congrats on the new Z and good luck with her!

Daeron was taking a SWAG I dont think much needs to be done necessarily to tidy up a couple key drag points, but proper mirror selection, good ducting of the air inflow to the front clip, and proper wheel sizing, anlong with possibly the wing deflectors on the windshield wipers, can go a surprisingly long way. My point was merely that the shape of the S30 gives us an easy base from which, with some well-thought out attention to a few relatively minor details, we can build into a relatively low wind resistance machine. Highway speeds, and higher powered vehicles, will be benefiting from this every bit as much, if not moreso, that economy cars. In the end.. isn't it just fascinating to envision having a sports car with this kinda performance and power... that you can ACTUALLY top 30 MPG with on a highway trip with ease? The right steps, in a wide array of places, can attain wonders sometimes. I've been kept away from working on my car but its given me a long time to learn and plan, and This is gonna be FUN.

I can picture, but i can't draw.. it may well be that the idea is beyond drawable, just not possible to render the way I spell it out. even if I drew it, I don't have a scanner, or even a decent camera, so it would be fruitless. I may try though..

what *I* would kill to see.... obviously SERIOUS fab work here. possibly consider installing AWD STi drivetrain and engine.. yes, a box four under the hood freeing up ACRES of space between rad X-member and engine. AWD of course. Lose the stock hood. In fact, the body would be much easier made, with a full fiberglass front end made from pieces of other cars for molds..... but picture THIS. Cut the headlight buckets and the extension of the firewall ahead of the rad x-member OFF. knock off a roadster-style hood wide enough to cover the Z engine bay.. cut the forward section and wheel well out of a roadster fender, put that section onto the top/rearward half of the Z car fender. Re-create the roadster front end on the Z.. the grille might be difficult; using a stock roadster grille might be too narrow to be pleasing to the eye. The intercooler and the radiator and the fans can ALL be moved to the back side of the cross member now. I have no idea if the soobie engine could be made to line the front output shafts up to the front wheels on the Z, obviously that is a make-or-break question on the choice of engines.. but hey, an SR20 could go there too, and still leave room for the stuff up front. Chop the top... maybe even chop the WINDSHIELD if you can, and replace THAT with a roadster windshield (although that would at least double the difficulty of an already ABSURD concept) and if the roadster windscreen can be utilized, why not try to make windows that fit into the roadster Top, too... Chop the tailsection to a point where one could re-create the roadster tail end, add a stretched fiberglass trunklid, and suddenly you've got a vehicle thats not quite a Z, not quite a Fairlady.. hell, not quite a Datsun, either, but man o manischewitz in my mind's eye, its a LOOKER. Miata? WRX? S2000? nah. Fair Lady Z-XT.

I would hazard a guess that to get significantly into the 30s (ESPECIALLY with ~300 horse) you would need to start paying serious attention to aerodynamic details, no matter how advanced your engine management was... but I may be going out on a limb there. I would NEVER have been so happy to have my foot stuck in my mouth, heh...

I am getting around to reading the nitty-gritty on the differential thing just now.. and perusing through the stickies in this sub-forum, it seems a little crowded. I would hesitantly suggest that this thread no longer hold enough merit on its own for it to remain a Sticky.. Jmortensen's encyclopedic post regarding rear diffies in our Z-cars MORE than covered every subject covered here. *Maybe* add a brief "language primer" (r230, VLSD, q45 etc) to the first post in JM's thread.. but other than that, this thread is confusing, incomplete, meandering, and not as easy to digest and absorb as the two other stickies covering this topic; namely, JM's "Diff/CV/LSD/....." thread and the "complete differential list (please help)" thread started by cyrus. OP of this thread: I am sorry to denigrate your thread here, but I make this suggestion for the good of the Land. Mods: If you disagree, please simply delete this posting, with my humble apologies

:shock: + a billion

what kind of block and what kind of power is being produced? these mileages aren't exactly meaningless without that knowledge, but it certainly does help things along...

sounds like a bad dropping resistor maybe? You need what is called a "noid light" by some; it is a light that you plug in in place of the injector to show that your injectors are getting signaled to fire. It sounds like, for some reason, they aren't. The ECU "decides" when to fire the injectors.. thats most of its job. Either your ECU isn't being decisive enough (har har, we will ignore this possibility for now because you've checked all the input sensors) OR, the problem is between the ECU and the injectors. That points directly to the dropping resistor, and unless I am forgetting something (possible) the dropping resistor is the only thing between the ECU and the injectors, other than wire. Its been about two years since i actually cracked my bible... but it SHOULD tell you how to check the dropping resistor. IIRC, its bolted to the inner fenderwell, behind the driver's side wheel. The brake and clutch masters may be somewhat in your way, but you should be able to access it to remove without moving them. Check the resistor before you replace the fusible link with a solid piece of wire.. Please. Click on the link in my sig that says "Fusible Links Blow!" for a lengthy story on exactly why.... short version, when fusible links SHOULD blow, and they DONT......... things can get REAL bad REAL quick. Good luck.

original thread post by Monzter I have been collecting photos of various heads for some time, trying to keep credit and track of who gave me what. I will post the meager collection I have thus far later this week, I need to upload all the images to a gallery here so they are hosted locally. Detailed photos to go with the descriptions and the detailed explanation of the various differences seem to be the most lacking when it comes to head information here.. lets see if we can make this thread good enough to be worth making it (another) sticky.

*I* thought it was an Italian brand of header wrap...

Bah, I forget sometimes that alot of the datsun FI stuff was JECS and not Hitachi sourced... its all so similar looking anyhow, and i do more work on my subaru than on my datsun, I just inserted the name "hitachi" without thinking. It still shouldn't be too difficult to pull apart, and if you have to zip tie the cover back on, or glue it with a light bead of silicon or something, hey.. you still might be able to make that part work until you can get another one cheaply and easily (read: junkyard, on a lucky day) I know how its worded in the book makes it seem like there is more to that, but seriously.. thats it, just three possible conditions. sounds like you got the (a?) problem traced, in any case. That book was written for technicians who had grown up in a world where computer controlled EFI did not exist.. they "jazzed it up" a bit in some places

he never said pre modification.. he said, "before I started Aeromodding it" He also said that the worst mileage he had gotten was with snow tires, in the snow, at about 35 mpg. Something is telling me this is one of those guys who drives like he has precious eggshells between his foot and the accelerator pedal. And for the love of mike, tone it down, brother! TeamNissan pointed out plainly and simply that these guys have computers that are telling them ON THE FLY numbers for their fuel mileage.. I somehow got the impression that the ~90mpg figure was a maximum figure attained on a digital readout, NOT an average from a 500 mile trip. There is no reason to "call BS" on these guys; if you would read through the thread impartially, instead of letting your experience blind you to the data they are trying to present, then you might notice more details.

first test it for proper function; read the bible for details, but there are three terminals. at zero throttle, there should be continuity between A and B, at part throttle there should be no contact, and at WOT there should be contact between B and C. I cant recall which wires are A, B, and C, but thats the basic version of the test. If it functions appropriately, then its good. if it doesnt, get a flat screwdriver and pry the black plastic cover off. Its glued on. ALOT of hitachi FI components are assembled in this same way; it WILL just come off. If it doesn't work, what do you have to lose? Once you get the cover off, you discover how rudimentary this thing is; its so blatantly obvious i wont even describe it. More modern vehicles use a throttle position SENSOR (not switch) that is essentially a "volume knob" (potentiometer) indicating the position of the throttle.. but this is literally just two contacts. One indicates idle, no contact indicates "running" and the other contact indicates WOT-Full Enrichment.

CRX HF Aerocivic FTW!! if he did THIS to a standard civic hatch, then the HF engine and driveline, combined with that ultra low weight vehicle... and all these mods? That was all I could think of the first time I went through the pictures. My little bro has a CRX HF that was his first car that he has turned into a ratty autoX/street machine with an SI engine/trans.. that thing is about as quick as my stock 280Z was, and DEFINITELY quicker through a turn. To me, the CRX HF represents a pinnacle of "on-the-market" automotive engineering.. a very humble and minor pinnacle, but its one of the more significant peaks in the mountain range IMHO.

Oh, there were most ASSUREDLY chassis upgrades between 240 and 1975 280.. I am a sponge. I havent actually WORKED on *my* Z in over three years. I read and regurgitate; usually with this disclaimer if I have any doubts. I cannot detail changes, but I know that the vast majority of the "significant*" differences between a 1972 240 and a 1978 280, will be shared by a 1975 280, and the differences between the 75 and the 78 will be far fewer than between the 72 and the 75. *significant, as in, what I think you seem to be concerned about.. not little things like heavier bumpers and different turn signals, etc. Now, if someone wants to shove my foot in my mouth, I am all for it.. This sponge can handle correction but 25 years of riding, 17 years of in depth tinkering, tweaking, wrenching, and 5 years of constant background reading and research (along with 5 years of DDing) have taught me alot, and I try not to go this far out if I think theres a decent chance of eating my own words.

you should check your throttle position switch for proper functioning. MY favorite way of finding a vacuum leak is to use a mechanic's stethoscope (less than ten bucks at harbor freight) or a piece of tubing with one end in my ear, and listen around anywhere air flows or vacuum pressure is established, listening. I know it must sound strange, but i trust this method MUCH more than I trust haphazard spraying of combustibles.. not over a safety factor, simply far easier to reproduce results, and cheaper in the long run than wasting can after can of carb cleaner or starting fluid. The mechanic's stethoscope is a GREAT tool.

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well, I thought it was a fairly cut and dry subject. I was under the impression that no 49 state car had a cat until 76. I know my 75 280 has no cat, no EGR, no emissions equipment whatsoever. To the best of my knowledge, the only "chassis" differences between my 75, and a 78 280, would be in the door and door frame, and are minimal. The door restructuring was more an impact-related thing than a performance related thing, and in the grand scheme of things the difference made wasn't very extreme. It sounds to me like you want a 75. I know I do; it seems to me, to be the best compromise between "old" and "new" S30s.

Personally, the EFI Bible published for the L-series EFI is, IMHO, the single best primer for EFI ever written. All the sensors are the most rudimentary type, so they are the simplest to understand; once you understand the rudimentary system you can relate other, more subtle, modern components to their primitive counterparts (MAP to AFM, for example.) Eventually, those simple and primitive components (all of which can be considered to have a complementary job on a carbureted induction system) become simple and archetypal concepts, and suddenly you find yourself understanding all this standalone hogwash that has such an annoying tendency to crop up in these forums. In the meantime, it sounds like this is a car that is still being born; that being the case, scrap your current computer, stick a carb on it, have fun and read about the stock 280Z EFI. Then read about how megasquirt does its job. Maybe get out the haynes book for a TBI chevy, or if you want I could link you to part of the FSM for my TBI 87 subaru.. EFI is EFI. I think that anyone who gets the foundation mentioned by Ron, and then expands that knowledge by exploring other, less simple systems, should be able to understand standalone EFI well enough to own one and get help "setting it up right." I say this never having done it myself, and feel obligated to specify that.. but three years ago I knew nothing about EFI, and read the Bible one day. It made everything click, and since then everything has made more sense every day. I posted this to HIGHLY recommend that piece of reading to you, if you havent already gone through it.

heh, no. If you can't find a shop that will do it, find a shop to scope out. Figure out who the "top guy" in that shop his, follow him to his favorite bar after work, buy him a beer, spend six months getting to know him, then ask him what he does. Act surprised, and mention that you HAPPEN to have this project...... Thats about the only way to get this done if no one will take your money for it straight up, and you cannot do it yourself.

your "parts" Z has a 1970 hatch on it, may be worth some money. At the very least, the glass is from a 70.. hence the stripes going up and down. In case you didn't already know. Nice hoard; youve got more Z cars than MY family. Once you add in my uncles roadsters, though, we've got you beat hands down. Regretfully, you have more cars in GOOD running shape right now.. but with an ITS car, a 78 thats struggling for rebirth, and a 72 that we need to convince my uncle to change the cylinder head on (stock N47 on a 9.5:1 comp block and he wonders why he has pinging ) and my car that MAY get started upon soon... I love being part of a Datsun Family.