NewZed

Not uncommon for the headlights switch itself, on top of the column, to get hot. All of the headlights current flows through the switch. There are relay setups out there. You can go halfway on the relays, just the current through the switch but not the grounding circuit at the dimmer, and just save the switch. Check the wiring diagram to see. You didn't say what year your car is, I think there might be some changes over the years. I have a 76 280Z and put a relay in front of the switch after the solder joint let go a couple of times.

The basic question is whether it's better than the stock L6 intake, not if it's the best intake ever. And some of the people with the strongest opinions here don't have any verified expertise in manifold design, just years of stuff they read somewhere. Like me. If you measured the length of those runners you'd probably find that they're shorter than the stock gasoilne L6 runners. So that comment doesn't fly. As far as distance from the intake ports, it's closer than throttle body injection. You wouldn't know the benefits over the stock manifold without measuring though. Which is the problem with most aftermarket manifold designs. They look like they should be better but actual measurements are often non-existent.

You said it fully disengages. But grinding in to reverse says otherwise. Search "throwout collar" and various other clutch words. Use Google and "site:hybridz.org" and you'll get better results. If you didn't measure the stack height (another good search term) of the parts before installing you might need to start over.

Could be drag. Push brake pedal to know for sure.

Here's the sketchy part, along with much of what the guy writes in his ebay ad - "The lift is .535 Don would never tell the duration of his cams. If your the lucky winner, I will let you know the duration." Pretty easy to replicate a machine part, duration would have been easy to determine. Power comes from the combination of parts, not just a cam profile. The guy's selling snake oil and magic.

The clips are hard to get locked on. Press harder. I was being ironic about the picture. It's hhuuuugggee.

It's a 73 distributor. The cap only fits one way, with a square locating piece by one of the clip areas. Maybe you had it backward. "Slightly too big" doesn't tell much about how it doesn't fit. Can you make that picture any bigger?

Good luck. And you believe wrongly. 78 got the N47 on N42, Mid-80 or 81 got the P79 on F54. P90 came in 81, on the turbo. If you really want to go directly to what the ECU sees, check the coolant temperature circuit at the ECU plug. That way you won't have to determine if it's a CHTS or a thermostat housing based sensor. All that matters anyway, is what the ECU sees.

Check the coolant temperature sensor. Sounds like it's running super-rich, with the blackish-smoke. That engine is a 280ZX engine, maybe a turbo engine, so whoever put it in might have used the CHTS instead of the coolant temperature sensor. Either way, they need to be connected and indicating engine temperature, otherwise the ECU sees an arctic-cold engine and dumps lots of extra fuel.

Where'd you get the frame rails? And why'd you weld the engine mount on before verifying proper fitment? You seem to be combining two things in to one. An engine mount for some as-yet unidentified engine, and frame rail replacement. Not really connected to each other. You wrote like the engine mount is part of the rail replacement, but it's not. Seems like you might be on the start of a trail of errors.

Oops. That's the Mega documentation for you. These discussions all need good definitions of terms as they proceed otherwise people think that they're talking about the same things when they're not. There was a conversation about sequential ignition a while back that made little sense to me, since a spark out of sequence really isn't worth much. But the word was used to distinguish from wasted-spark. Which is still sequential where it matters.

Links without words attached aren't really worth much. No offense. Here's one that offers about as much, maybe more actually than the MSextra link - https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=dq5PVNe5B8j8igLU9ICABg&ved=0CAMQ1S4#q=sequential About the same as posting the word "search". Edit - point being, what's in that msextra link that is relevant?

Here's how the factory defines it. Literally, the word only means that injection happens in order, or sequence, of cylinder actions. Doesn't say anything at all about when injection happens, within a complete cycle. But each cylinder sees the same type of charge; well-blended, inhomogeneous, straight in to the open intake port, or whatever. Unlike batch where the cylinders see a different type of charge since there are six possibilities, each cylinder seeing two of the possibilities.

This thread covers a lot - http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/50208-the-ultimate-l28et-guidewhat-you-need-for-350whp/ Worrying about whether the distributor in your seized engine is still good and the clean look of COP shows a little bit of unfocus. For the money you're spending on other parts you could consider one of the damper mounted sensors. Probably more dependable, maybe cheaper in the long run. And a clean look. Looks like you're still early in planning. DIYA has tried to make sense of the mess of options and MS variations. Even they get sucked in to a vortex of possibilities but still worth reading their articles - https://www.diyautotune.com/support/tech/

As I understand things, sequential was devised almost solely for emissions purposes. Probably gives a smoother idle too.

Nice. Hope it keeps working for you. You were doing all the right things.

The Nissan u-joints are very high quality, precise and accurate machine parts. A 100,000 mile Nissan u-joint with the proper thickness retaining clips is probably tighter than a brand new parts store u-joint. Don't assume that new is better. Those Nissan joints are good stuff.

Everything in 35 looks right. You didn't show that you have a good grounding of the case though. And you didn't show the values with the engine running. But the measurements shown look correct.Not sure what's happening.

There doesn't seem to be much point except confirming that it started life as an L28. You know that "stoker" means the crankshaft has been replaced with a longer stroke crankshaft, right? Often bored over-size too, to increase displacement even more. And pistons replaced. Unless you're actually trying to say that you got a spare engine with the car which makes the striker stuff irrelevant. The N42 block was used in 1979 ZX's.. Maybe some 1980's (not sure, 80 seems to be a transition year for other parts too, ,like transmissions), before they switched to the F54. Beside that, a matching transmission doesn't tell you where the engine started life. I've had four different transmissions and two engines in my car. They mix and match.

Apply power and confirm pressure. Isolate.

Since you did say earlier that you saw battery voltage at the bottom leg of the T plug and everything else looks good here's something that happened to me a few years ago - the T plug connector was loose and dirty. It wasn't making electrical contact. I found that I could wiggle it to a new spot and the alternator would start charging again. It was an odd thing. A quick squeeze with some needle-nose pliers fixed it. Make sure the T plug is making good contact with the alternator terminals.

And all of your measurements in Post #25 look correct. Your comment in #26 doesn't fit what you saw. Everything looks fine. BUT. You didn't show the measurements at the T plug.

It seems to me, based on the way you're writing, that you might not really understand how to measure voltage. No offense. But your word usage is not the way a person experienced in these things would write. Voltage is not gotten. It just exists across points in a potential circuit. " earth on the alternator is getting 12v from the positive on the battery". It looks like you put one probe on E and the other on the battery positive terminal and saw 12. That would be a correct reading for proper wiring.

Are you sure that there is continuity to the battery positive post from the alternator's charging wire, the BAT terminal? Follow the path. You can test if it's charging by measuring between the BAT terminal and ground, directly from the back of the alternator. You can test continuity by measuring battery voltage at the BAT terminal directly with the engine not running and key off. The BAT terminal is always connected to the battery positive post, normally. Did you check those fusible links yet? You might just stop, now that you've been working on this problem for a while, and think about how the system works, and what should be connected to what. Could be that you've been assuming that the charge wire is connected to the battery, but it's not.

Seems like the only information you might get would be if it's flat-tops or dished, or if it's a turbo block or not. But since it's a stroker, the crankshaft and pistons have been out so the first is irrelevant. The second might be knowable, but that number is lower than my 1976 number 71155 so, if it is an L28 it's probably a 75 or 76 N42 block. Nissan put the engine number on the ID plate by the strut tower, up to about 76-77.