280zwitha383

I understand everything up to this point. It's just comfortable right now for the single pipe and when I last talked to the exhaust shop that I usually take my stuff to they didn't even want to put a 3" pipe through there and gaurantee it wasn't going to rattle....

I started looking at getting two pipes out the back of my 280ZX and I just can't see it happening. I've thought about side pipes a lot but after looking at everything I think I can make an extremely simple exhaust by one single bend going behind the front tire, through a dynomax 12" 2 1/2" I/O muffler (per side) and out the fender right behind the front tires but not cutting into any foot room. It does not contradict Texas laws but I'm afraid it's going to be too loud. Any thoughts?

Haha, it's only slightly amusing that you know what an AFM and a TPS is but didn't know what that one thing was. Once you get the thing timed right again make sure and fill it up with oil!

IMO, never trade in a car that's paid for (if you like it) for a car that you're going to have to make payments on unless they are miniscule, which they're not going to be on a new car. You can make a car reliable and more fuel efficient with a lot less money than you can finance a new car. Well, atleast you can make a Z more reliable and fuel efficient, you might not be able to say the same for other cars. Also, consider multiple, cheaper cars over one new car. Variety tends to make a person more content. CAR PAYMENTS SUCK

Pictures?

maybe it was groundhog day

I don't know, get rid of all that pinkish purple crap and it wouldn't look too bad. Atleast not as bad as they truck.

MAN! Start a post and then step back.... '82 280ZX (primer black)- The one with the 383, needs new headers and some sort of dual exhaust. Doing body work slowly but surely. '81 280ZX (Grey) - My most fuel efficient car (yeah isn't that sad). Daily driver, has low (to no) oil pressure after warming up at idle but good pressure after about 1k. I just hope it holds up until I throw something else together that gets comparable gas mileage. Occasional body work. '82 280ZX (Ugly A$$ faded yellow) - I haven't bought it back from my friend yet but it's going to be my guinea pig for a single turbo 350 with my first solid rearend (atleast in a Z). First turbo engine for that matter. Uhhh, yeah, it's going to be a long-term project. '85 Silverado - My old standby. 350 vortec 3.73 rearend. NEEDS OVERDRIVE!!! and fuel injection while I'm at it.

I really like all the custom work you've done. What octane gas are you running? Is that the stock radiator? and what's going in the hole in the hood?

Very nice project! What kind of compression are you running and how much boost?

Here's a neat story I thought I would share with you. When I got my first Z, an '82 280zx, it didn't have a hood, passenger front fender, bumper, back glass, and the passenger door was bashed up pretty bad. I bought it for $300 because I liked the dash layout, the talking lady, and it ran. I thought I was buying a go cart and had plans of taking the doors off and pretty much stripping it down to nothing and tearing it up. I had no idea what the car was really supposed to look like as far as the front of it. So one day I'm out tinkering with the engine and one of my neighbors that I've never seen before or since stops and shoots the bull with me a little telling me about his 70 something Z he was building for his daughter. Then he tells me that there's a guy about 15 minutes away from me that has all the Z parts I could probably ever want! So I get excited and call the guy just to see what he had and maybe get some body parts off of him which I did for basically $100. He tells me about some of his cars (I think he called one of his cars a Corzette actually because he said it had basically a Corvette looking front end and looked like one from a distance) and we go over to his buddies who has two beautiful 240z's in his garage which really got me excited about the car. Anyway towards the end of our initial conversation he tells me that he's planning on putting a 327 in a 240z that he has and tells me about Jags That Run! Like I said, I had no idea about anything about the car and I especially never thought about an engine swap. About a year and half passes and something in my 5 spd gave out so I pulled the engine and tranny and went full ahead with my engine swap. It took me about 3 months to get it on the road after having the engine in the machine shop for about 3 months also... So, in all, probably a little over two years passes and I call the guy (John) because a friend of mine wanted to buy a Z. I told him that I swapped a 383 into my Z and he got excited and told me he wanted a ride. I told him sure and said that I wanted to go for a ride in his 327 Z. To which he replied that he never did the engine swap! I was shocked; after all, he was my inspiration. He told me that he sold almost all of his cars to someone in Dallas (I think) and pretty much got out of Z's. He still has a few but I haven't been able to get ahold of him in a long time. I wish I could but I think I've lost his # and I know he doesn't have mine. Anyway, that's my story

Well I got kind of excited when I saw this socket (at powerhouseproducts.com) but then not so much when I saw it was $45. I've got angle plug heads and huggers on my 280zx and it's such a pain to pull the header off just to look at a plug. So I'm kicking around the idea of rigging my own with a bolt welded to the end of a socket (and I don't know what to keep from breaking the plug) when it hits me that a spark plug socket already has everything I need (imagine that) but it's just too long and doesn't have the slot on the side. So tomorrow I'm going to butcher some old sockets I have and see if I came make something that is as functional as this: Any suggestions?

Really? What are you going to sing?

pictures would be nice

That's a pretty nice bathroom for a shop!

Does anyone else look at those pictures and hear the theme song to knight rider playing in their heads?

I was thinking one of the bolts went in kinda funny. Man I'm getting some bolts asap. I guess parts stores would have them?

Wouldn't you have some funky backfiring problems if your cam was off that much? When are you going to tear it down? I'm curious to see what you find out because in what you just said your logic is sound. Also, I can't figure out how the side gapping plugs would make it run right. Did you take them out?

LMAO, oh so you're one of them..... Seriously though, when did the car stop pulling to 5500? The thing that gets me is that you say the car will run all the way up to whatever rpm you want it if you do it gradually and not open up the secondaries. To me that rules out all ignition and timing and still brings you back to fuel delivery. [Edit: I don't think it's something as minor as jetting and I don't think the carb is too big (atleast not to the extent of cause this problem)]. Lastly, with the whole collapsing fuel line bit, it is possible because in the beginning you were pushing fuel and now you're pulling it. With that said I don't think I can be of any more help (if I was any in the first place). Plus I would probably get into trouble if my fiance found out I was talking to a side-gapper this late at night on the internet.

I obviously need to reread things before I post.... When you were running the engine with the stock electric pump it behaved the same way (except a little worse) than with the mechanical pump? You said it didn't run right but I don't know if that means you still had "the wall" or if it was something else. You might have messed up your carb with the high fuel pressure. I can't remeber off hand what you mess up with too much pressure, I would think it's the floats. If your carb is putting way too much fuel in your engine that would cause you to lose fuel pressure and cause your black smoke (which sounds like a pretty good hypothesis to me). In diagnosing the fuel pressure problem we might be trying to get rid of a symptom rather than the cause.

Hmm, looks like the "similar thread" function works a little more efficiently than the "search" function. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=71345 I think you may be right! (edit: the bolts I have are shouldered but I'm guessing not enough)

You got me on that one. How is your fuel pump hooked up? I know you said that you had a mechanical fuel pump but is that what you're using now? Is there anything else that could be constricting flow? Are you trying to pump gas through the in-tank pump?

My 383 keeps moving my starter away from the flywheel (I think). It's a new mini-reduction starter and I didn't have any stock bolts to put in it so I went to the hardware store and got some. After a while of using it, the starter will move away from the flywheel so I can loosen it and move it back and tighten it up again and it will work fine for a little while. The last time I repositioned it I was curious what was going on so I crawled under the car and watched it crank a few times and it was moving side to side while it was cranking but the bolts were tight. So what I'm wondering is if the shoulders on the bolts are not big enough to keep the starter in place would that make it move side to side. I'm assuming it's not supposed to move at all. Thanks for any advice.

Uhhhh, I would have used all of that information to argue that it is fuel pressure! Does it not make sense that your fuel pressure drops off as you reach higher rpms so you don't have enough and when you don't use the secondaries you have enough fuel pressure because you're only feeding two barrels? How about this, if you don't believe me try hooking the gauge up again and use only two barrels (disengage them if you like). If it reads higher than 3.5, please stop playing around with your cam idea.... haha. 3.5 psi is awefully low. How low do you think too low is?