VeiledLt

Hmmm maybe I should test things first before I come on here acting like an idiot... Sorry, I pinched the air hose to the air regulator and my idle returns to normal which if I recall correctly means it is stuck open correct? I have another one which I am about to go swap in and tune the mix for the new ecu and hopefully voila' any help would be awesome though as to if the ECU could have affected my mix. Thanks so much guys for all the help so far to get it to this point! Spencer EDIT: So I swapped air regs and it helped ALOT! however my idle is still a tad high even with my timing almost all the way retarded, anyone have any idea why this could be happening now? aaaand I went to put the dash back in and broke a piece of a-pillar trim...SON OF A... thanks again

So it runs! I had a friend who has been in the biz forever come help me out for a bit and we found that the grounding strap inside the ignition relay that grounds it through the case had snapped inside... and the contacts that cycle it had arced out and become weak. So, we pulled the relay apart, cleaned the contacts, I soldered in a new ground wire and ran it outside the case and BOOM, she runs. So I took her out for a little quick test drive with the dash out and... wow. It runs like hell, an my idle is climbing like nobodies business. When it starts its fine but everytime you apply throttle the idle climbs a little bit, AND its running SUPER rich. Could this be my ECU, its not new its a reman and the place I bought it from (z-specialties) said that it WILL RUN but he said it may run poorly so I have a warranty on it and I am going to take it in and I thinks thats my running rich problem but does anyone have any idea on the idle? TPS seems to be functioning normally and I have a BCDD Deleted Throttle body? Thanks for all the help so far guys, I will be posting pics up here in a bit of what happened to my relay. Spencer \

So, update, relays and fuel pump cycle with the battery charger on 25 amps, looking at fusible links I'm pretty sure, when the stores open tomorrow I'm going to go and get one of those fuse block replacement ones as recommended by atlanticz and try that out. So spark tested, spark is good however the noid light is showing nothing, my injectors are NOT cycling and the hot wire/power to the ECU, Pin 10 coming from the EFI relay is cold. I could be wrong but nearest I can tell that's the power wire. Now I have tested and retested my EFI relay but I suppose something could still be wrong with it. Other then those two problems though it should start. Please somebody have any idea?

So I'm back with my car and my FSM. Turns out the AFM is on the wiring diagram but your right Daeron and the 78 manual lists a testing procedure so I will be trying that. Still don't have any ideas why my relays WILL NOT cycle without the battery charger on 500amps.... anyone have any ideas on that one? Please? haha, well anyway, the fuel pump control relay also shows a fusible link between B+ and the fuel pump relay, where is this fusible link? And yes NewZed you are correct, the engine uses the alternator "L" signal and oil pressure only to continue running but NOT to start, says in the FSM its to prevent the fuel pump from pumping in the event of a crash. Anywho, I'll be working on the Z all day so if anyone has any input I'd love to hear it! Thanks in advance and Happy Easter Spencer

So I'm not with the car right now but I have Sunday off so I'll be working on it then but I can tell you guys a few things right off the bat that I KNOW from working on it so damn much. So when the key is on I WILL CHECK to see if I have power at the ECU I think it shows pin 10 in the EFI bible Ill check the FSM to see if thats the same. The car has zero fuel pressure as the fuel pump is not cycling. Spark looks good from a visual gap to the end of the plug but I will check and see with a REAL tester haha. And using a noid light, damn thats a good idea, thank you! Aaand the wire to the alternator, well I know I have one, where is this fusible link your talking about though? And I think the alternator "L" signal as it is referred to in the FSM/EFI bible is only required to KEEP the fuel pump running not to start it but I could be wrong, is that what you were thinking Jaybee? Thanks for all the help guys I'm hopeful we'll get this figured out this weekend, thanks for the great ideas Nosebleedz, any more info you guys need just let me know! THanks again! Spencer

I'm not trying to swap parts blind man it just sucks.... I don't know what else to do and I feel lost as hell and it sucks... I mean it can only be the wiring or components and the wiring has checked out so far for continuity and resistance unless I have a fat voltage drop somewhere. Are there any fusible links that are covered or hard to find? and as far as components go I mean hell, I have a new ECU and the only other things on that circuit are the relays and they check out, aside from the afm which you mentioned but on the engine fuel wiring diagram in the FSM it doesn't show the AFM, I am NOT saying I dont believe or trust you Daeron lol I just don't know where/what terminals to look for and what to look for on them? Sorry for all the sweeping questions but I'm just lost guys, thanks in advance and I know I'll figure this out with your help eventually! Thanks again! Spencer.

Just had a conversation with one of the other techs at work and we were thinking it sounds like excessive resistance somewhere between B+ and maybe the EFI relay or the Ignition relay since it goes from there to the fuel pump relay AND the EFI relay unless I'm reading my diagram backwards? Im just curious as to what could cause that excessive resistance? Is there a fusible link I could be missing other then the 4 under the covered boxes attached to the relay cover and the 2 wire combo that clips to the other side?

Is it possible your dist. drive spindle is clocked wrong? Like maybe a tooth off? Try setting your motor at TDC 1 and removing the distributor and looking at where the spindle comes up in that housing, I'm not with my FSM but I believe spec is like 5* from the center line with the smaller portion of the spindle facing towards the front of the car? Hope that helps! Spencer

So I got a new ECU, it was around $150 for a 3 month warranty. Plugged it in andddddddddddd nothing. Lame. Well on to the next thing. However, when I was cranking it over it got a little tired from spinning the starter motor so I hooked the battery charger up to it and put it on START so roughly 500amps to the battery. And, all of my relays cycled! So I am thinking excessive resistance on the positive side maybe between B+ and my relays? But where? I have checked all the fusible links and the wiring between the battery and those relays is.... 18 inches long....maybe? I feel like I am missing something super obvious, thanks for the help so far guys I feel like Its almost there! Spencer

Hey thanks for the help so far guys. Daeron as to what your talking about with the AFM I believe you are indeed correct and I wanted to see so I continuity checked the start signal to the relay wire (pin 4 at ECU) and the relay back to the ECU wire (pin 10) and had full continuity and avg. resistance readings at both and I THINK that if I were sending a signal to the relay I should be getting something on one of those wires and they are both getting zero voltage. I am currently in the process of attempting to track down an ECU for the car to try it out, any idea on a ballpark figure for whats reasonable? I was thinking $350ish for a new or $150ish for a used? Thanks again for the help guys hopefully I can get this figured out today I have to go back to work tomorrow haha. Spencer

So I know everyone has L28 efi questions and I'm sorry for troubling everyone with another one but I am stumped honestly. I have the EFI bible and my 78 FSM on my computer and have been pouring over them for the better part of two weeks and working on my car when I have days off, like today. Anyway, originally my car had no spark, I ended up replacing the ignition pick up sensor in the dist, the coil and the transistor ignition module. As soon as I had spark, my fuel pump stop cycling. I know this because it is quite loud and I heard it every other crank except for the crank when I got spark, now, no fuel. I have found that my fuel pump relay if fed by my EFI relay and the EFI relay is NOT cycling, it is making no audible noise whatsoever, I have however tested it based on procedures found in the FSM for energized and non energized testing and it is fine as are both fuel pump relays. Now as I understand it the EFI relay feeds the fuel pump control relay based off of a power directly from B+ and a "on" power from the ignition switch (key). My signal from my ignition switch is not making it to the relay. Power is coming from the switch and to the sub harness that runs along the firewall to the relay but not THROUGH the harness. Now I find it strange that randomly my harness would fail after being fine for so long and as soon as I get spark it fails, possible but seemingly HIGHLY unlikely. As far as information goes the car is ALL stock, wiring has never been touched. So I am curious is there a fusible link I am missing? Does this signal go through the ECU then to the relay? I have measured for "start" signal at the ECU 32pin connector and gotten it but I am getting NO signal on the pin to test the fuel pump relay circuit. Did I perhaps test my relay wrong? I have a new one on order but it seems odd that a relay would fail as soon as I get spark. Anyway... Sorry for the novel everyone but I just need some fresh ideas! You guys have always been a huge help and I would like to thank all of you in advance for any input you might have! Spencer Also I work at an Audi dealership so if anyone needs Audi help, let me know! EDIT: Just jumped fuel pump wire at the air regulator and the fuel pump cycles. I am leaning towards needing a new ECU? Does the start signal from the ignition switch I referred too run through the ECU?

Which module are you referring to the one in the interior under the dash near the fuse panel? And mine just started yesterday so hopefully I can limp it to and from work this week until I can get to a pull apart on the weekend how long did yours hold out? Thanks for the help guys!

Yeah, sorry about that... I really didn't mean to do that, so I have a 78' 280z and yes everything works fine, cranks I can hear everything as usual, compression builds perfectly, plugs are not fouled, fuel pressure is good, fuel filter has only around 10k or less on it. I work on cars for a living but the Z has been...difficult for me and being my daily driver I can only afford so many extended repairs on it. And when it starts it runs fine, no hesitation or bogging of any kind. Again sorry for being short in my original post and thank you in advance for any help anyone can shed on the subject!

Just went out and checked the car has source voltage at the positive terminal on the coil even in a no spark situation. Could an ignition coil cause intermittent starting? But as I understand a coil to operate the only malfunction that would cause no spark would be a break in the wire and I would not think that problem to be intermittent?

So I've been searching all of last night and most of this morning and have decided that I may need some help from the best, you guys. Yesterday my car chose not to start on the first key on, not surprising as I have been having an issue with vapor locking as of late and I just assumed it was the same, so I let the car sit for another ten minutes or so and tried again, no luck. However with repeated attempts it did start. It did not sputter to life it came right on. So I have been looking and think it is either a faulty ignition relay, ignition switch or primary coil because the problem is hit or miss sometimes the car starts right up (rare) and some times it takes 20 key on procedures to hit spark. I've checked for spark at the plugs and back and I'm getting nothing all the way back to the coil. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance guys! Spencer

Did this problem just start or you bought the car like this or...?

Well I found it. Id really rather not say because it sounds completely unrelated but I swear it sounded the same to what I described and my ear is semi well trained. I'll post it so in the event of someone else having this problem they will have another thing to check. I pulled my car into the shop and since it was with the rotating of the engine to check exterior components first, water pump, fan etc. When I checked my belt tension I realized it was loose so in hopes that would fix it I went to adjust the slack out of it only to realize one problem, my alternator was adjusted as far out as it could go. I looked at the pulley on the alternator to realize that the pulley halves had separated from each other because... well the adjusting nut had come loose. I didn't touch the alternator during my rebuild but I suppose now I will always check it. Thank you guys for your response and hopefully this helps someone out some day.

So I was driving my Z home on about a 60 mile trip, motor has about 400 miles since its new valves, but the motor itself has about 3000 total when I hear a loud clatter out of no where. I pulled over and let it idle, from in the cabin it sounded like a clutch spring had broken or come free and I could feel it through the shift knob and being very close to home I limped it home. Now that I am home and have had time to somewhat inspect it is unfortunately not from the clutch. Its definitely in my engine. It sounds to me like the intake ingested a bolt and it is to big to pass by the intake valve and is clattering around in there but honestly that seems unlikely, but I'm hopeful that's all that it may be. I pulled the valve cover off and nothing seemed amiss, all rocker arm springs accounted for, no extreme cam wear that was noticeably and no gouges in the valve cover like something is getting thrown around. I'm now thinking maybe something in the water pump or in the timing cover getting brought around by the impellers or the chain? I pulled the plugs out and fished in the cylinders with a magnet to see if maybe I could find anything and nothing. A little more info on the sound, it had NO effect on the motors running, at all sounds great other then the REALLY loud clatter, and after about a minute of steady driving it gets really really quiet but doesn't go away then if you vary the rpm range it comes back. Thank you in advance to anyone who can maybe direct me where to start or if you have had this problem before I will be eternally grateful, thank you again, Spencer

Hey thanks man I'm working on it! Gonna do it up and watch the seahawks today, hopefully good updates by the end of the day!

So the leaks are fixed, thats all good news. New issue though, noticed it was misfiring relatively bad, in fact very badly, hadn't really noticed before because of the high idle. Found to be cyl. #2 after doing a power balance, neat. It was getting spark and fuel, noted because of the unburnt fuel on the plug (not fouled), and the timing was correct... hmm so I decided to do a compression test, that would be a big 0 psi on cylinder 2...awesome, anyways so put air in it, leaking intake valve, not ever closing, sweet, so pulled the head off and the valve, bent, neat so now ordering a new intake valve and a head gasket and that should HOPEFULLY be the last of my issues. Thanks for all your help guys, realize I'm now kind of using this as a build log so I might delete it and move it... Anyways thanks again! -Spencer

So I got it all torn apart tonight and cleaned up the bolt holes, didn't need to do any filing or anything like that but the metal did seem to be causing a clearance issue. More bad news, mocha oil and oily water, haha awesome. However, there wasn't very much in either, maybe a 1.8/th quart, and a few drops of oil on the coolant after I drained the radiator, leading me to assume, hope rather, that the bent out hole and sub-par gasket job was making a gap where the water ports are in the block and splash oil from the timing cover was getting into the water pump and vice versa? Or am I maybe being too hopeful? I just can't think of any other place oil/water get that close that I did anything with, sorry just thinking out loud, any advice or input would be greatly appreciated, I'll be back at it tomorrow with updates, thanks in advance for anything! -Spencer

Haha yes and thank you to everyone that answered, I did indeed do a really dumb thing and forget the block front freeze plug so I guess I did do something painfully obvious, oh well fixed now, however I have a new problem, one of the bolt holes for the timing cover bolts stripped in the process, the big dog one that goes through the far left water pump hole, and now I have a oil and water leak out that side of my timing cover... I think I can clean the threads up with a tap but I'm a tad nervous. The worst part though was that in removing the cover to find the missing freeze plug my buddy pryed, ( I wasn't present for this unfortunately) the case off not realizing the top water pump bolt went through and into the block and tweaked the hole out so now I think it's causing a clearance issue which may also be the source of my oil leak. Curious what to do with this, though maybe file down the metal sticking up then drill and tap or... any ideas? Anyone done that before? However, on the bright side, the motor ran, quite well too other then a pretty high idle, (1200 on a MT) but I have my dist. vacuum advance run straight to the mani instead of the air canister so I think that's why, or maybe I'm way off base? Last thing was, I swapped my 78 TB onto the 76 manifold and I have 2 air barbs on the bottom of the TB, now I think one of them got T'd off of the hose that ran from the vacuum canister to the distributor and the other went directly to the manifold via that water bridge type deal that the air reg. is bolted too, am I right on that one? Thanks alot for all your quick responses guys, helped out alot! Sorry it took me so long to respond and sorry for the novel but any help would be awesome! Thanks in advance to anyone who answers, I'm off to go rip the timing cover off...again haha check back in a bit -Spencer

So today, after a week solid of 18 hour days in the garage and 3 months of parts acquisition and seeing my car sit, I finally got the new L28 in my 280z and was going to make all the final checks and what not and went to pull my dipstick tube one last time and... I had just filled the radiator but apparently I filled the crank case as well and coolant came spewing out the tip... I am not sure how this happened but I do know I didn't do anything painfully obviously wrong to get that out of the way, so some things I was thinking of was something with the timing cover? Or maybe the oil pan gasket where it wraps around the timing cover? Anybody else out there have this issue before or have any idea what it might be? I'm off to pull the cover off I"ll check back in a few.

Hey guys first post here, never had to before because I've always found everything in needed via searching but I finally have found something I could not find and thought maybe someone could help or lend their insight. I'm currently building a l28 up since the one in my Z decided to seize the oil pump. Anyways, so I'm building the new motor and its going along smoothly other then today I measured the free length on the stock spring and found it was not too spec, not overly surprising, however I put in over-sized flat top pistons, did a port and polish, 5 angle valve job, took .004" off of the head and balanced the rotating assembly. I have another set of l28 springs that I believe may be the proper free length, (according to the FSM spec is 1.968 in. Outer and 1.766 in. Inner and mine measured about 1.94 for outer) but I was concerned maybe with the work I have done I should look into heavier pressure valve springs? But I cant seem to find spec for after market springs and the only ones I can find are the ones on 'TheZStore.com' but they say for aftermarket cams only, however I thought maybe with the work done and higher reving capability of my new motor I should look into them? So if someone could direct me in the way of which springs to look into (Z-oriented or other) or if the stocker springs would do just fine with a new set I would be much abilged. Thank you very much in advance to anyone who answers I appreciate it!! -Spencer

Hey I'm located in Kirkland, Washington and was looking for any 280z for between the $3000-$5500 price range, only requirements are need to be relatively clean (no huge dents) lower mileage (nothing over 200k) and MUST ABSOLUTELY BE MANUAL. Thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing some cars.