Swami's Orange 260z

[Swami]

Stoked to finally be in a Datsun again after close to a decade without. (more on that here)

 

Purchased this beauty from another Hybrid Z member. This thread will be devoted to continuing the build history that he started. =)

 

Edited August 18, 2014 by Swami

[Swami]

My friends and I have always said that a Datsun is the only 30+ year old car we'd buy and instantly take on a hundred mile drive. This was no exception. I bought this beautiful thing in San Bruno and drove it back to Sacramento that night. After an oil change and general once-over, I decided to take it to my job in Mountain View (approx 125mi... luckily I work from home full-time, and i only have to drive in to the office once a month.)

 

After this initial test, I got my top priorities list together. 

1. Rear hatch seal would need to be replaced. I got a significant head rush on the drive to mountain view, so I pinched a blanket in there to tide me over until I could replace the seal.
2. Fuel pump gasket leaking pretty heavily. 125 miles resulted in losing almost 1/2 a quart! 
3. Head gasket appears to be leaking a tiny bit on the passenger side between cyl3-4... no chocolate milk in the oil... no oil in the water either. So this doesn't appear to be a huge problem for now.
4. Driver's side headlight out. (pretty wicked HID setups from Dapper Lighting)
5. Find and fix exhaust leaks
6. Transmission output shaft seal

 

Near-term fun (2014)

1. Roll bar came with the car. Bolt that sucker back in =)
2. Delete distributor and unimportant wiring (since the Megajolt setup is just fantastic)
3. Get the tachometer working with the Megajolt system
4. 240z bumper conversion. My friend has a 1970 with a body kit, and says he'll give me his stock bumpers for free.
5. Get a usb-to-serial adapter so I can start messing with the Megajolt software. 
6. Tighten/shroud the Megajolt wiring

Longer-term fun (post new year)

1. MSA coated 6-into-1 headers and a good single pipe setup (considering the sebring muffler my friend runs on his. nice sound)
2. Acquire L24/e31 from friend and get it up on a stand. 
3. Contact friend-of-friend for port/polish work. Get THAT convo started =)
4. Contact Sacramento Driveline to get aluminum driveshaft built.
5. Seek out stage 3 isky cam (probably NOT going to try Schneider again after flattening 3 lobes on my last one) 
6. Rods and ARP studs
7. Camber plates (AZC? TTT? not sure yet)

Not sure what the final goal is yet but I plan to take my time with this one. I really enjoyed the destroked L28 I had before, and I'm not a fan of big-bore engines just due to how much that ends up costing a guy. My friend has an e31 he's holding for me, but it's likely warped. I'd rather pick it up and check the straightness myself though instead of jump to conclusions. 

Edited August 22, 2014 by Swami

[Swami]

Trunk gasket arrived from MSA! 

 

 

As soon as I had a free evening, I started scraping the old seal out. (ouch... my fingers!)

 

Since I didn't have any weatherstrip adhesive on me, I decided to use this opportunity to bolt the roll bar back in =)

 

I'm not as tall as the previous owner, so my head isn't at risk of being hit by the thing. Probably ought to put the foam shielding back on it anyway.

 

Removed all the interior panels in the back and ordered a new set of 30 plastic rivets from MSA (a few extras, just in case)

 

I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the fit of the new aftermarket option from MSA. I guess the old ones were hard to fit right, but this one fit like a glove and was only $69.95. Before the plastic rivets arrive in the mail, I might consider slapping some sound-deadening material on the metal surfaces behind them. 

[Swami]

Engine compartment day!

 

Tracked down the exhaust leak to the smog port plugs in the manifold. Squirted some water around the gasket to look for bubbles, and it quieted right up when i squirted it on the plugs. A few turns of an allen wrench, and things are sounding pretty nice. Previous owner pointed out that there are some pinhole leaks around the collector welds... but nothing as terrible sounding as a manifold leak. Since I have a header purchase on the horizon, I'll probably ignore the pinhole leaks for now. 

 

Next up, Distributor removal. 

 

Before

 

After

 

Looks like some of the excess wiring was starting to hit the radiator fan, so I opted to delete all of this stuff too. 

 

End result is looking pretty nice! It might be my imagination but a tiny bit of engine noise may have went away too. One less moving part to deal with.

 

Moving on... time to deal with the fuel pump gasket leak. You can see evidence of it here on the underside of the hood. An hour of scraping with a razor blade, and a pair of new gaskets, and we're good to go.

[Swami]

So the tach adapter is turning out to be harder than I thought.

 

According to what I'm reading online, the 3-wire tach (260-280 style) uses a negative trip lead... so this diagram on the Autosport website seemed like the right way to go. I picked up the diodes in question and started looking at the wiring to the coil packs. Problem is, the Motorcraft EDIS coil pack doesn't seem to have a voltage negative connection like what is shown in the above diagram.

 

Now THIS diagram seems to have some answers. I need to wire it to the Tach hookup on the Megajolt module itself, but will that work with the 3-wire Tach? I can't seem to find any info about this. Getting tired over here so i'll have to pick this up later, but i'm thinking that i first need to find out the polarity of the megajolt tach output, and then figure out if i need to revert to a 240z 4-wire tach. And in either case, I still don't know if these diodes will work for this setup at all. 

 

Anyone else deal with marrying a megajolt system to a 3-wire tach? =)

 

[Leon]

Great detective work! Those pesky little things add up and you did a great job of solving a good bit of them.

 

Regarding the MJ tach tap, there are 3 coil pack ground wires and a power feed to the coil packs. When the module grounds one of those wires, that coil fires. This means that in order to create that tach adapter circuit, you'd tap into those 3 wires going to the coil packs. At least that's the way I remember thinking it worked. I'm not sure whether the MJ tacho output can drive the Z tach, I don't remember the reason why I thought it wouldn't.

 

In any case, Clive (aka "EvilC") has Megajolt on one of his Zs but I don't think he's had a chance to work out the tach yet.

[Lazeum]

Hello,

I've seen your message on Autosportlabs forum to check how to hook up your megajolt system.

Unfortunately (for you, not for me ), I've got a 240z with originally a coil triggered from the minus side. My wiring does not apply to your 260Z then.

You should check how people connect their stock tack to their megasquirt ecu, you should reproduce what they've done with success.

 

Good also to see Leon's car going to a good home ...and welcome to the board! 

[Swami]

Lots of little things have happened since I last had time to post. Figured now that I'm on vacation, I should take a moment to update/curate this thread.

 

I scored this nice sway bar upgrade from another Hybrid Z member (thanks Dan!). 1" up front and 5/8" in the rear. Spent an afternoon stripping and repainting them, and then mounting them up with new energy suspension bushings and end links from Amazon.

 

I know 5/8" is basically stock diameter, but the rear sway bar was missing entirely, plus this one was made to bolt up to those sexy Suspension Techniques uprights that were already installed. Body roll has been noticeably reduced.

 

Additionally, I slotted the bolt holes on the mount bushing brackets in order to install them in the stock location. My engineer friend and I debated for a while about whether this would have any impact on the overall integrity. In the end, we decided that the sway bar torsion wasn't enough to tear these hardened brackets, or the class 10.9 fasteners I used... at least not the way I drive. I opted for allen headed cap screws since the large bushing size interferes with the rotation of the stock fasteners.

 

side note: while shopping for fasteners, I found this cute little dialogue between employees at the hardware store. =)

 

And now for some cosmetics...

 

 

I've always longed for a set of Euro tail lights, so when these were posted by another Hybrid Z member, already LED-converted, I jumped at the opportunity. The combo of classic exterior and upgraded internals felt like a good match for the HID headlamps too. Nice balance. Previously, these were installed on a 260z with an RB26DETT under the hood. I figure this is as close as I'll ever come to driving an RB powered Z.

 

Nice and bright when I step on the brakes. The only thing that irks me is they're awfully dim when the brakes aren't depressed. I'm guessing a diode swap would take care of that, but I have yet to pick the epoxy out of these things and see what's in there. For now, this will do. (that'll do, pig... that'll do.)

 

Also, i decided to chop a few inches off of the twin bayonets that were jutting from the rear of the car. I had already cut my shins twice on the things, and I figured it was only a matter of time before my wife got hurt too. A few minutes with the angle grinder, and the exhaust feels much better matched (visually) to the car. =)

 

(here are the leftovers)

Edited November 8, 2014 by Swami

[Swami]

(Cont...)

Finally, I got my rewiring plan together. Spent some time putting together a comprehensive wiring diagram, that also gives me some idea how much wire i need to buy, how many weatherpack connectors, and which wires can be bundled and routed together. (pro-tip: never let a graphic designer make a wiring diagram. I literally spent an hour on this thing before drawing a single wire. "ooh that fender could use a little shading")


Careful... this image is HUGE (4526x2398 ... 1.8MB)

It dawned on me last night that i didn't take the fusible links into account when drawing this up. Would love to hear your feedback or thoughts on this. Am I missing something in my thinking here? Should there be a fusible link in this starter circuit somewhere? Admittedly, I've never fully understood the role of those things in a Z. Why can't they exist as standard fuses? What makes a fusible link special? Thoughts?

In any case, I'm looking at starting the rewiring project in the 2nd week of December. Mouth is already watering over this project =)

Edited November 8, 2014 by Swami

[nullbound]

Great work!  I love the wiring diagram.  That's looks really well done.

[Leon]

Loving it! She's definitely getting the love she deserves.

[Swami]

whoa this is weird. I lost a bunch of content on this thread somehow. I know I posted about solving the tachometer issue, with pics and everything. people even responded. boooooo! ='( 

[88dangerdan]

^^ coming along real nice. I see you didn't wait till after the first of the year to get your taillights. I bet your "Honey Do List" doubled in size after that one. ......lol. ....

[Swami]

This is true. I have my work my cut out for me around the house.

[Leon]

whoa this is weird. I lost a bunch of content on this thread somehow. I know I posted about solving the tachometer issue, with pics and everything. people even responded. boooooo! ='( 

 

Yeah, there was a site crash a while back unfortunately...

[Swami]

Gah. Nothing like the pain of rewriting a lost post. Gonna keep this short since it's out of chronological order. But just to be thorough in my record-keeping:

 

Got the tachometer working again. Wheee! look at it go!

 

 

I learned a LOT about how the EDIS system works. There are a lot of wiring diagrams online regarding how to adapt your Z tachometer to work with this setup, and I find that there are actually quite a few misleading diagrams and descriptions. In the case of the 260z NEGATIVE trip-lead setup, I found the most accurate information HERE: http://www.bgsoflex.com/mjl/mjl_edis_summary.html

 

I can now testify that this is the most accurate wiring guide for the EDIS6 / MJL combo... 

...but only for positive-trip-lead setups like in the 240z. 

 

The "tach conversion" mentioned in the diagram (and here) WILL get your 260 style tach to work, but it's a fairly complicated procedure and (imho) not really worth the effort. Instead you have two options. Get the autosport labs tach adapter or simply install the diodes as shown here:

(obviously for the z, you need 3 1N4004 diodes instead of 2)

 

The tach adapter appears to do exactly the same thing, and you still have to splice into your coil wires, so it's not really saving you that much work. So the diodes were purchased and soldered in-line and heat-shrink was applied. 

(Apparently butane soldering iron = ameteur-hour. Got the job done, but i struggled with it.)

 

Hopefully this is helpful for anyone looking to adapt their 260z tach to work with the megajolt system. =)

Edited November 15, 2014 by Swami

[Mikey303LSZ]

Nice looking car.  Like the orange paint!

[nusevad]

nice progress!  Where did you get those black plastic rivet things that hold the rear taillight cover? 

[Swami]

Hey thanks! Orange car owners gotta stick together =) I got the plastic trim fasteners from Motorsport Auto. Not the cheapest way to go, but i didn't need too many. 

[Swami]

THE GOOD NEWS:

 

This weekend is almost upon us... and I'm just about ready to begin my "mother-of-all-wiring-projects." Perfect time for the (supposed) mother-of-all-storms to be hitting us. I guess that means it could suck if i have to leave the house to get any hardware or wiring odds + ends. But dang, I'm so ready to begin it's all I can think about. 

 

• Fuse block, weatherpack connectors, terminals, grommets, and power post courtesy of Waytek Wire
• Fuses courtesy of my friend the automotive electrician (thanks, Deelan!)
• Automotive stripe wire courtesy of EFI Connection 
• Sheet aluminum courtesy of Blue Collar Supply in Sacramento
   

 

My goal is for this install to look and feel as professional as possible. Amazing how hard it is to find bulk wire near me, in all the colors and stripe patterns I need. Ended up finding most of what i needed on eficonnection.com. I really wanted to honor the color-coding of the original EDIS wiring (as closely as possible), and I even ordered some brand spankin' new EDIS harness connectors (coil and module) from a company called Miller's Mule. Not sure if they've even shipped yet, but that shouldn't stop me from at least starting the fabrication process for the bracket that everything will mount up to.

 

 

Got plenty of extra metal here too, just in case I screw this up. I made a paper jig, but knowing me I'll either luck out or need to start over twice. Hopefully I'll have some winning photos to share by Sunday.

 

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and now THE BAD NEWS:

 

Drove the Z to Berkeley last Saturday to hang out with a friend who is visiting from Budapest. We decided to grab a few slices of the best pizza on earth before driving back to Sac. We parked across the street from the restaurant, fed the meter, fed ourselves, returned to the car and holy crap... Some unbelievable jackass KEYED MY CAR! WTF is WRONG with people!?!       

 

 

Granted, this photo looks WAY deeper/worse than it actually is. Leon, you called this car "a good 10 footer" and it still is. At that distance you can barely see it. But it's the thought that counts. My blood is still boiling. I guess with the Ferguson protests about to begin, and the city about to turn into a war zone, things could have been a lot worse. Tensions were already high. Just prior to this happening, we saw an angry pedestrian at a crosswalk SLAP a car that was making a right turn. If we had hung out a few more hours, who knows what could have hit my paint job? Tear gas cannister? skateboard? Someone's head? No Bueno.

 

Moral of this story. Don't ever leave the house. EVER. Just turn your wrenches and then go spin donuts in your back yard if you have one. Order pizza delivery.