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it sounds like your ecu doesnt even know the car is running. do the relays click when you turn the key onto "on"?

Hi guys, does anyone know if this port takes a reference from before or after the throttle plate? r32vacport.bmp Need a boost reference for my wastegate, want to take one after any pressure drop through the i/c, and I've been told I can't take one from the manifold itself as the vacuum will damage the diaphragm. I was going to just tap into my piping before the throttle body, but then I saw this little port and got to thinking.... Cheers in advance

hi guys, my loom has had all its "unnecessary" plugs trimmed off of it... that includes the diagnostics pins that youre supposed to plug in order to get a code out of the check light. ive got the pinout so i know what pin is what, but i was hoping someone could help me through pulling some fault codes without the aid of the plug and check light. so question time, i know that theres a diagnosis transmit and recieve wire, and an engine check light wire. if i bridge the TX and RX wires, and run the check light wire through a bulb to ground, will i have recreated the check light system? thanks in advance

just digging this thread up. at a guess, they meant it outperformed it in terms of producing almost the same power at 66% the capacity. i saw this engine on trademe, i thought about buying it. then i thought about how i was crippingly poor, and wanting to eat more than noodles for the rest of the month, so decided not to

the sticky is for s30 model z's.. im not sure how different they are from s130s we didnt get turbo 280's down here, so the brakes would be pretty expensive :S

hi guys, i decided to post this here rather than the brake tech forum as theres a bit more traffic here. i'm looking for the easiest way to upgrade the rear brakes on a 280zx. not that keen on going to a 5 stud setup, or making up sets of adaptor plates. is there anything that bolts straight up? thanks in advance

hey guys, thanks for the replies.. i ended up sucking it up and paying $50 plus postage for the single hub. like i said, top dollar

just wondering if any other old nissans shared wheel hubs with the 280zx? need a new hub, dont want to pay top $$$ people seem to be asking for z bits now. cheers

ok thanks guys. i'm just waiting for my battery to charge then i'll try cranking her over. exciting times!

Hi everyone, i think ive buggered up my timing after changing my waterpump - everything was lined up, but after turning the engine over by hand a few times, my marks on the cambelt are no longer lining up with the marks on the cam gears. at first everything was lined up, then after one full rotation they were all out by about 3 teeth, then 6 teeth etc. The change is constant across both cam gears... Its the same belt that came off in the first place (not even 1000ks on it). So what I'm wondering is - should the alignment marks always line up after every rotation, or will it actually change over time (ie are the alignment marks only relevant for the time when you are actually replacing the belt) If its supposed to line up every time, what might I have done wrong? skipped a tooth somewhere perhaps? and more importantly, how do I reset the timing? Fortunatley it's not an interference motor as far as I can tell. I can set the crank pulley to TDC< but I'm unsure as to if there are any alignment marks on the cam pulleys, where tehy are, and where they shoul dbe when the engine is at #1 TDC in short, HELP!

did a search but didnt turn up much unfortunately. one person saying they hadnt heard of a 280zx tacho working with an rb20det, another person saying it should run as-is. the 10k resistor method i found on r31.com (australian skyline site) and that worked fine for the aftermarket tacho that i was previously using.

are you using the tinduck racing wiring diagram? (its a pretty common one on the net). there is an error in it with regards to the ignition and ecu relays, i had 4 volts mysteriously running to my black faced gauges until i worked around it. if you are running your fuel pump relay associated in any way with the ignition/ecu relays then you might be having the same problem

wow... so nobody here knows how to run the factory 280zx tacho off of the rb20 ecu?

Hi, 280zx factory tacho, rb20det engine/ecu i was running an afermarket tacho directly in front of the factory one, but it was pretty disorientating switching between it and the speedo, as they werent on the same plane. so i wanted to go back to a factory tacho. i've just plumbed the line into the factory tach feed wire, but no luck. what am i doing wrong? currently the line is pin 7 (tach feed) from the ecu, spliced with a 12v wire from some other place, and a 10k resistor, as this was the setup i needed for my aftermarket tach

might be able to help you out if you want, we have a tonne of 280zx's getting wrecked down in new zealand. hardly worth anything here is a pretty mint blue one http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Car-parts-accessories/Nissan/Interior/auction-250121347.htm 60$NZ but i wouldnt have a clue as to the shipping costs

Hi all, i'm looking at rigging up electric fans in my 280zx, looking at the wiring side of things, I see that i am going to need some sort of temp sensor and thermo switch to turn them on and off. but surely the rb20det should already have these things built into it? i dont recall seeing a fan control output on the rb ecu, which suggests to me that there is an independant thermo switch somwhere (assuming that not all rb20dets are viscous fan'd, which im sure they arent) so does anyone know if there is a stock skyline thermoswitch and sender (or a combination of the two built into one unit) that i can use to wire my fans, i wouldnt be suprised if the sender was already on my engine and just not being used at the moment, cheers

as soon as i can work out how to post pictures, i will scald your eyes with my rough, rough z...

ah, sorry guys, was waiting on an automated response to let me know that people had replied, didnt get one, whoops i will try to get some pics. its not that pretty but it does work one other thing you will have to look at is the dipstick - if you remove the bump from the front of the sump, the stick won't clear all the way down. theres a blank further towards the back of the block that can be turned into a new dipstick hole, or you can cut your dipstick down. it more be more useful if i'd snapped a pic of the windage tray as thats where a lot more modification had to be made (too late now). just make sure the fins clear the rotating assembly! and yeah im on zclub.org.nz, pretty sure i'm gibbon over there too

i cut the whole flange off mine and braised the entire sump on backwards. had to cut out some of the windage tray and knock a few of the fins down to clear the rotating assembly. cost me $20. its not the "proper" way to do it, but I've been driving happily for 6 months now. same deal with the oil pickup. cut, turn, weld. done. edit; kiwi303, whereabouts are you from? i'm a Hamiltonian

hi again, cheers for the reply. the engine doesnt have pcv lines - it came with little baby filters on top of each pcv valve - im sure they do nothing to keep air/moisture out but surely the valves would manage that. (unless theyre buggered too - havent tested that) i havent run the engine since i noticed the foam buildup, so i cant say if theres more buildup there. it seems odd to me that i never noticed anything all the times i ran it up, and then all of a sudden theres heaps of foamy stuff, but no other symptoms. perhaps it does require a certain amount of running time/temperature to really starting forming borrowed a pressure tester off of a mechanic today, he told me that if anything it should be oil getting forced into the water, not the other way around, that water that enters the combustion chamber will get sent out the exhaust via steam, it shouldnt really be able to get into the sump or oil galleries. so yeah, it sounds like i might get lucky with a couple of engine flushes/cleaners etc and an oil change. will have to keep an eye on it

hi mate, thanks for the reply -since my last post i've pulled the inlet manifold off, and yeah its all water lines on that side. the oil feed lines on the turbo are both on the exhaust side of the engine. so doesnt look like its a case of stupidly mixing lines up. not sure what you mean by a 'vent line'. like the rocker cover vents? or something else? aside from the new oil, the engine has sat for a few years in various states of dismantled-ness. its entirely possible that moisture had built up inside, but i would have thought that the 2 or 3 oil changes ive done during that time would have negated that? ive also had the engine running for short periouds of time previously, and never noticed any oil/water mixing. (this was the first time i really ever ran it up for an extended perioud though). how long does it take for the oil and water to turn into that froth? also, the oil was nasty but there was hardly any oil in the water at all, just the slightest bit of discoloration at the top. which argues in favor of moisture building up in the sump.. looks like it could be either at the moment i guess, going to borrow some bits and pieces for a leakdown test this weekend. cheers

Hi everyone, my oil sure is watery all of a sudden. here's the back story; having to move house, but not very far, i decided to risk it and drive my project RB20DET 280zx to the new place rather than tow it. thought it was time for a road test anyway. at the last minute i realised i'd forgotten about the numerous water lines on the inlet side of the block. So I looped these pipes into each other, with the belief that this would stop all the leaks. No problem, right? Anyway, I make the drive, the car runs well (hooray). I leave it at the new place for a couple of weeks and dont really drive it again until now. Decided to change the oil and WOW. I've got caramel oil and a milkshake brewing under the rocker cover. It's all the symptoms of a blown head gasket - I know. But I can't help but wonder if I had accidentally looped an oil line into a water line or something like that when i was rerouting all that piping. So long story short - Are there any oil lines on the inlet side of the block, or are they all water? Cheers in advance.

found one... first guy i asked on the local auciton site has a whole non PS 280zx for wrecking, about an hour north of my house. what are the chances?

oh, really? for some reason i'd been given the impression that they were all power steered.. hope that holds true down here in new zealand (although odds are that most of ours are japanese imports rather than NZ new anyway) sorry, but its 'stupid question' time - could you or someone else explain to me exactly what parts i need for the conversion? i'll probably have to strip it all out of a donor myself, dont want to leave anything behind. i've really done nothing like this before, so i would appreciate any help cheers.

Hi everyone, I was just wondering how plausible it is to remove the power steering from one of these. As far as I understand, they all came out with PS factory, has anybody mucked around with fitting an s30 steering setup? I've got an rb20 powered 280zx and the power steering pump is fouling on my inlet piping, was just hoping to get rid of the whole lot (prefer the feel of non PS anyway). Cheers!