Mikez31ss

Just to further muddy up the topic, I had an 83 turbo and an 85 turbo, both of which had the injector cooling fan removed. I never once had a hot start issue. Both cars were daily drivers. I live in Houston, which is almost as hot as Hell in the summer

I bought my '73 from Washington back in November/December. Having an out of state title/registration, it had to pass inspection before I could get title and registration. Inspection is basic. If the lights, horn, brakes work and you have insurance, you pass. If it has an out of state title/reg, the inspection station gives you a form to take to the courthouse. Then you go to the courthouse and do the title/registration thing. They'll explain the antique/classic thing for you. That type of registration wasn't something I wanted to do. If you're in the Spring Branch area try Mayco on Long Point.

Hey Adrian...still here? Hello if you are While I was waiting for the Weber parts I decided to pull the radiator, front bumper, and airdam to get at some rust. The PO sent a new aluminum radiator with the car and now seems like a good time to install it. I have some electric fans and a controller left from my last car. I'm thinking about using them. The controller manual doesn't mention relays. I think it needs some. If you get a chance maybe you can look at the diagram I made and the pdf manual and see what you think. I've got this controller and the manual is here and here is the diagram I made with the features I'm not using grayed out.

I'm ahead of you...I switched out the parts mentioned above. I now have spark with the old dizzy. And yes it would have been easy to change the rotor shaft assembly (#9). Just pick it up and turn it around. Reorienting the other shaft would have been a major PITA plus I'd have destroyed the bushings in the process. I can now send the new dizzy back...in good conscience...more or less Now I'm at 0 degrees on the crank marks and the rotor is pointing at #1 at TDC. Should I rotate the crank to 10 degrees at TDC or just set the timing with the dizzy? I really need to install new gaskets and seals in those carbs before I start the motor again. They leak like crazy.

Arrrgggg...I'm beginning to feel really unlucky I'm a little reluctant to disassemble this dizzy because I can send it back. If I screw it up then I may not be able to send it back for an exchange. I'm looking at that diagram...is it just a matter of removing everything from the top and turning part #9 "rotor shaft assembly" around 180 degrees or do I need to disassemble the whole thing and rotate #12 "shaft assembly"? The way I see it I have 3 options: 1. take parts 4 through 8 from the new dizzy and put them in the old dizzy. 2. disassemble the new dizzy and reorient the shaft 3. send the new dizzy back for exchange Other than the obvious malfunctioning aspect, I think the old dizzy might actually be built better. The new dizzy is impossible to get the air gap perfect and when I rotate it by hand it occasionally "catches" and has to be forced to turn. It's also noisy. The old one rotates smoothly without noise. One thing I noticed when trying to set the air gap on the new dizzy...it actually has magnetic field... i.e. the screwdriver was drawn to the magnet assembly. The old dizzy showed no magnetic attraction at all.

Hey Adrian...I'm not ignoring your questions but I have a question. What do you think about this pic...you think the rebuilder installed the shaft 180 degrees off?

That electronics repair shop doesn't have a scope. Not much of a shop is it? I got the new distributor in tonight. I have spark now. I wasn't able to get it started though. This car has been very hard to start since I got it. I was hoping the electronic ignition would help that I'll try again tomorrow. The dizzy came with an e1280 module. I'm using it. I'm tempted to try out the HEI module... maybe later on I'll try it. The only things I've changed since the last time the car ran was to replace the spacers/o-rings on the carbs and added a FPR and fuel pressure gauge. The gauge reads 8psi but I can't adjust it until the car is running. I know 8psi is way too much for Weber carbs. I snapped a couple of pics to set your mind at ease about the plug wires

Thanks John, that's info I can use. I have an aluminum radiator I'm planning to install. I've got a couple of 12" electric fans and a thermostatic controller left over from an earlier project. Still on the fence about whether the electric fans have more advantage than drawbacks. I'm leaning towards leaving the old fan in.

Are you talking about electrolytic corrosion? Most of the aluminum radiators I've seen on ebay use steel mounting brackets. I guess that just move the problem to a different area

Installed the new pickup...no spark. I dunno anymore I may go by the electronics store to test it. Is there anything else in the distributor that would prevent it from making spark? Everything below the pickup is just for timing advance, correct? And I'm guessing that part 6 "magnet assembly" in the distributor diagram doesn't actually have real magnetic properties? I think I'm going to order another 280zx dizzy from the company that sold me this one. And then I'm going to return the "new" one as defective but send the old one back. Yeah, I know that isn't really doing the right thing

Yeah pickup coils are cheap until you get to your third or fourth one I picked up number 4 today counting the one that came in the rebuilt dizzy. I bought this one locally though so if it is bad I can return it. Matter of fact I might stick one of the others in the new box and return it. They all came from BorgWarner so I wouldn't even feel guilty about it I checked the shaft and the way it is keyed offset it would be impossible to get it backwards. The wires and cap are correct too. The caps have marks identifying the front. The backfire was through a carb. I have either a bad float or the 8psi pump is unseating the valve that should be shutting off the gas flow when the bowl is full. I don't have an air box. I've got 3 Webers w/ K&N filters. That's part of the reason I wanted to upgrade the ignition system. Tomorrow I'll either take the new pickup to the electronics store to be tested or just install it and put the 280zx dizzy back in and see if it fires up. I'll keep you updated. Oh yeah, I'm going to install a 280zx alternator too. I think I can handle it but consider yourself warned lol. The PO sent a new aluminum radiator with the car so I'm going to install that too. I still have 2 12" fans and my Flexalite controller kit from my shiro so I should have no problem wiring that up. I'm not expecting any real performance benefit but at the least it should make valve adjustments easier because I'll have clear access to the crank bolt. I'll need to get a volt meter too I suppose. And get the tach working. BTW, it may just be a coincidence but the motor didn't try to start until I put the tach back in and bolted it down. Probably a coincidence. I'm not sure I can afford a good multimeter and I leaned not to buy cheap tools long ago. A Fluke is definitely not in the budget. The one I have was supposed to be decent but it was a handmedown and it is old. As far as the timing, I tried both. Now I know which way is retarding and which way is advancing though so I'm better off than I was. Theoretically at least

How do you fix a pick-up coil? If I got 3 defective coils I figure there's a better than average chance of getting a fourth one Yes it's trying really hard. It catches momentarily. I got a little backfire once. That's a little scary w/ a leaky carb I haven't had a chance to try again since Friday.

I took the 280zx dizzy by an electronics repair shop today. According to his testing the pick-up coil is bad. Apparently my multimeter sux So that's three new pick-up coils defective. This is crazy...

Test 1 was good. Test 2 failed. This is now my only car so I installed the points distributor and the old plugs. But... it won't start I have fuel and spark. I'm sure I have compression. The points gap was a little wide but I adjusted it to .020. The distributor shaft is keyed so I know it isn't 180 off. The timing is probably a little off but surely not enough to keep the motor from running. I dunno... Tried again this evening and it's trying to start.

Wow...you are on top of things aren't you I'll try those tests as soon as I can get my car's battery recharged.

Hey Adrian...thanks for hanging in there. I tried that test and the bulb lights up that way. I haven't been able to test the distributor yet. I did use the meter to test for resistance when rotating the shaft. With the probes attached to the pick-up coil wires I spun the shaft slowly. At a certain point in the rotation, the meter drops off to 0 ohms. I don't know if that means anything.

Have your battery checked and if necessary, have it recharged. Most auto parts houses will do this free of charge.

Thanks Adrian. The distributor was purchased in December. It had a 30 or 90 day warranty so it's too late to send it back. I'll see if I can find an electronics repair shop around or a friend with an oscilloscope. I disassembled part of the dizzy to look for anything obvious. I don't see anything but here are some pics if you want to take a look. That plate look more like an aesthetic part than a functioning part but who knows. It was on the original pickup coil. There was no plate included with either replacement coil. I've seen some vids on youtube with a drill attached to the dizzy shaft to turn it. Does it need to turn that fast?

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I removed the plate but it didn't have any effect. There doesn't really seem to be anything else in the dizzy that is replaceable. Timing advance mechanism, but that wouldn't prevent spark would it? The magnet looks good.

I managed to do test 1. There was no voltage. I bought the new module before sending the old one back so it's definitely not the same part. What are the odds of getting so many defective parts? Pretty high I'd guess I must be missing something obvious here but I can't see it. The circuit is so simple. Sorry about mentioning the personal situation. It just slipped out. Situation hopeless but not serious

Thanks for the diagram. I don't see the metal plate there. Test#1. I don't know if I'll be able to do that one working alone. This test is with everything connected right? 2a results...no light at all. Same for 2b. Without getting too detailed...my financial situation is bad and I'm on the verge of being homeless. I think it may be time to reinstall the points distributor to get the car running and put it back up for sale. Thanks Adrian.

Ok it's done but with disappointing results. There was no light and therefor no light pulsations. I tried reversing the pickup coil wires as well. I could get a light between B and ground but not B and C. I tried the e1280 module as well. Same results. I checked the pickup coil again and got 900-1000 ohms. The air gap is set properly. When I installed the pickup coil I put the thin metal plate between the pickup coil and the reluctor but I think that's the way it was originally. The cap and rotor are new. I can't think of anything else.

So the coil and the black/white wire are left out of the circuit? Edit: I guess so...I ran a wire from the coil "+" to the battery. When I touched the ground cable to the battery "-" there was clicking and light from inside the car I don't know what that was but I didn't have time to keep at it. I'll try it w/o the coil and black/white wire tomorrow.