Wangan280 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Hey guys, currently working on a 83 na to 83 turbo 280zx swap, and I'm having a real tough time with the wiring. The motor is turning over and getting fuel, we just can't get a spark We switched to the HEI module, and there are 4 wires from the bottom of the turbo distributor that I have no idea what to do with. can anyone tell me what they are and what they hook to? obviously one of them is a ground, and I think there is a red, green, and white. They don't show up in any diagrams and I really need help. Thanks, Jordan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billseph Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 The wires you're referring to are for the Crank Angle Sensor inside the turbo dizzy. They plug into the turbo engine harness and go to the ECU from there of course. The NA zx's did not have a crank angle sensor so if you're using an NA harness them I assume you'll have no place to plug it in. The FSM for the 82-83 turbo zx shows exactly where each of the 4 wires for the CAS go to (ground or ECU) I haven't done an NA to turbo swap...but I have swapped an L28ET into my S30 so I know the CAS communicating with the ECU is CRITICAL to getting spark. My limited knowledge based on your post leads me to believe that you perhaps do not have a turbo ECU and/or wiring harness, but I'm just guessing about that. Download the FSM from the xenon website and look at the wiring diagrams for the ECU pinout and you'll find all your answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wangan280 Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 The wires you're referring to are for the Crank Angle Sensor inside the turbo dizzy. They plug into the turbo engine harness and go to the ECU from there of course. The NA zx's did not have a crank angle sensor so if you're using an NA harness them I assume you'll have no place to plug it in. The FSM for the 82-83 turbo zx shows exactly where each of the 4 wires for the CAS go to (ground or ECU) I haven't done an NA to turbo swap...but I have swapped an L28ET into my S30 so I know the CAS communicating with the ECU is CRITICAL to getting spark. My limited knowledge based on your post leads me to believe that you perhaps do not have a turbo ECU and/or wiring harness, but I'm just guessing about that. Download the FSM from the xenon website and look at the wiring diagrams for the ECU pinout and you'll find all your answers. I have everything, the harness and ECU and such, we just don't know what's going wrong. We don't know how the distributor is getting its signal from the HEI module, which probably equals no spark lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billseph Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Good to know you have the proper harness and ECU. The HEI has no wire that goes to the dizzy. The HEI is connected only to the coil, ground, and ECU...as stated, the FSM will show you exactly which pins on the ECU that the wires coming out of the dizzy go to. You gotta look at the FSM to get all the wires hooked up right. I have the HEI swap too, because my ignitor was not working. I was having a "no spark" situation as well with motor till I went with the HEI...figure out where those CAS wires go and I bet you'll be in business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wangan280 Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 Good to know you have the proper harness and ECU. The HEI has no wire that goes to the dizzy. The HEI is connected only to the coil, ground, and ECU...as stated, the FSM will show you exactly which pins on the ECU that the wires coming out of the dizzy go to. You gotta look at the FSM to get all the wires hooked up right. I have the HEI swap too, because my ignitor was not working. I was having a "no spark" situation as well with motor till I went with the HEI...figure out where those CAS wires go and I bet you'll be in business. We're currently in the garage with the laptop lol hate to sound like a dumbass but what exactly are the CAS wires? We're currently working on wiring the wire from the HEI to the ecu. so do those wires on the distributor continue to send the signal to the ECU without any additional wiring? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billseph Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 CAS---Crank Angle Sensor. The 4 wires coming out of the dizzy are what I'm referring to. And yes..they'll end up going to the ECU, or ground...depends on which wire. I'm at work now so I can't look at my car, or diagrams I have printed out...otherwise I could essentially just tell you exactly. Keep at it for now, I had to spend several hours looking at and thinking about the wiring diagrams, and I was a rookie, so it can be done Hope you get it soon. I'll take a look at my wiring diagrams later, but hopefully you'll have her fired up by then. Oh and laptop in the garage...been there done that technology is soooo helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nizm0Zed Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 There is 4 wires, Looking at the plug it has a raised notch on one side. If that were oriented to the top, you'd have Top left - Signal wire (white wire) (inner band of 6 slots?) Bottom left - Signal wire (green wire) (outer band of 360 slots?) One of these signal wires is for the outer band of slits, one is for the inner band of slits, Sorry i dont know which is which. Top Right - Ground (black wire) Bottom right - +12v Power (red wire) hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowlerMonkey Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 (edited) From the thread... http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/77165-82-83-l28et-distributor-plug-pics-please Had to use google search using the "site:forums.hybrid.org" command line after "distributor plug". Edited March 6, 2012 by HowlerMonkey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wangan280 Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 (edited) From the thread... http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/77165-82-83-l28et-distributor-plug-pics-please Had to use google search using the "site:forums.hybrid.org" command line after "distributor plug". I'm not quite sure I understand that, but I have the signal wire and stuff hooked correctly and i have spark. The injectors aren't pulsing, I'm not sure if it's getting a signal from the distributor or the relays by the battery. This is driving me insane. I guess I should say that my HEI is stand alone from the distributor. There are no wires hooked from the distributor to the HEI besides a ground wire. Edited March 7, 2012 by Wangan280 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaito Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 (edited) Why are you trying to add the hei when you don't have the stock setup working correctly. Do you have the stock zxt ignitor? what I would do first is a conductivity test with the four wires at the dizzy plug and the plug to the ecu. If those are good you can rule out faulty wiring to in the harness. Edit: I'm confused, first you say you don't have spark and do have fuel, now it's the other way? What's going on? Edited March 7, 2012 by kaito Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wangan280 Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Why are you trying to add the hei when you don't have the stock setup working correctly. Do you have the stock zxt ignitor? what I would do first is a conductivity test with the four wires at the dizzy plug and the plug to the ecu. If those are good you can rule out faulty wiring to in the harness. Edit: I'm confused, first you say you don't have spark and do have fuel, now it's the other way? What's going on? My swap didn't come with a coil or ignitor. That was the only thing I was missing. I have no @#$%ing idea whats going on, one thing will work and the other will fail and vice versa. I'm so pissed I'm ready to burn it, I've spent hours and weeks with this thing not working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaito Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 I can certainly understand your frustration. You should step back, take a deep breath and pull the harness out for inspection. Something sounds intermittent and needs to be fixed. If it looks tampered it is. Try to fix/test/cleanup the whole harness then try again. If you have spark then fuel and vice versa then you are close!!! Just to play around you could spray carb cleaner in the intake if you are getting spark. It should fire up! Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 There is a blue wire that went from the coil back to the ECU. If that is not hooked up, you will get spark, but no pulsing of hte injectors. Also, if you aren't getting spark, you won't get pulsing of the injectors. The CAS sends a 5V signal to the ECU for crank position and for spark. The ECU processes this, and sends a 5V pulse to the Ignitor/HEI module to fire the coil on the yellow wire. The function of the HEI is to gate the switching of 12V power(ground) of the coil which allows primary side charging the gating action on the primary side is brought back to the ECU to act as rpm input (every third spark generates an EcU pulse of the injectors - so if the ignitor isn't working you get no pulse). When this gating occurs (flipping the switch on and off) through a transformer action the induced field in the 12V primary windings of hte coil collapse across more windings on the second side of the coil stepping up voltage dramaticaly (35,000 volts+) which is then induced to the iron core of the coil, and goes out the top post, to the DISTRIBUTOR center tower on the cap, through a carbon button to the rotor, across the brass strip on the rotor to jump an air gap to a terminal hooked to a high voltage lead that goes to a spark plug again jumping a smaller air gap, to the ground electrode and through the engine block, ground straps eventually back to the battery negative terminal. You got two things going on in what you call a distributor. In the bottom under that cover is an optical sensor that does the signalling of the ECU for spark pulses on the three-slot input (120 degree separation), and determines resolution of crank position through the 2 degree slots using trailing and leading waveforms to give 1 degree of resolution. On the top where the cap and rotor are, that is your distributor. If you read the text in the FSM, it would explain all this. The wiring diagrams are well laid out, and tell you exactly what wire goes to where But I summarized it above. Most people do not wire the four wires from the CAS (they are 5V, so they come from the CAS) to the ECU, they just re-use the wire from the ZXT Donor. Even if that isn't the case, there are diagrams in the FSM which call out these wires and diagram explicitly where they go (what pins on the ECU) Unless someone was TERRIBLY INEPT and went directly to the ECU to eliminate all traces of the characteristic CAS lead into the ECU you should be able to trace from those stubs where the wires have to go. Low Voltage Section= CAS High Voltage Section= Distributor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowlerMonkey Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 You can go pick up a coil/igniter combo from the local upull. I've pulled them from most any VG30E single cam equipped nissan. I also find the condensor and the diode that is spliced into the harness nearby. Just make sure you get the connector that connects to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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