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280zxt bigger turbo questions


7d82adz

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Hey everyone..

 

I have a 83 280zxt 5spd with 133k.. bought it all factory but not running.

 

Got it home and after a few hours I got it running.. but runs poorly.

 

It has a bad turbo and ecu. 

 

Ive picked up a t3-t4 a.r50 turbo and a stock ecu outve a good running car that someone parted out for a v8 project

 

Ive yet to install anything on the car because I want to have all the necessary parts on hand to install prior to safe daily driving.

 

I would really appreciate hearing how I should upgrade this car and whats the safe way of doing so.. thankyou for any input! :)

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If you want to get it running again, just put on the turbo, but there could be a bit of fabrication to make the t3/t4 fit.  That alone is not an upgrade, but it will make your car drivable.

 

If you want to improve the performance of the turbo engine, do some research.  This site is an amazing resource, so decide what performance level you want, then figure out how to meet those goals within your technical capabilities and your budget.  Good luck, it's a lot of fun.

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I just want it driveable and cleaned up under the hood. I thought the t3t4 turbos needed bigger injectors to compensate pushing in more air? Isnt there more to it then installing turbo and fabbing up a exhaust? Im new to turbocharged engines.. just want to go as basic as possible to get it on the road again. 

 

The parts I have came off a 280zxt but I never saw the car or it running.. so I dont know what they had for other upgrades. 

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What has lead to the conclusion that both the ECU and turbo are bad?  You only need more fuel if you are compensating for more air, if you are not running more than the stock wastegate will allow than the stock injectors are fine.  If you put larger injectors on the car and retain the factory ecu it will really run poorly.

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I bought this car 2 years ago not running.. it runs today but a mechanic looked into it a few months ago and said my turbo and ecu is bad. I think the turbo doesnt even spin anymore, and the ecu has a bad readout for continuity on one of the terminals I was told. 

 

So at this point should i just swap the turbos and see what happens? Ive been wanting to do this but was scared i would hurt the engine with a bigger turbo and not upgrading anything else. 

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Like I stated before, you need to research how these engines work.  A turbo alone will not change the performance, because the ECU measures the air flow and fuels the engine appropriately, within the limits of the factory parts.  The "upgraded" turbo by itself will not affect the wastegate setting or intake air temperature (significantly), so there will not be any significant performance differences from stock.  Those differences will only become apparent when you increase the boost level, or add an intercooler.

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(yes i do need to research more and learn more but thankyou all for inquiring) 

 

I think my plan will be to start slow and basic and put the turbo on.. and play with the ecu's i have and see what works best. 

 

In the past I bought a junk snowmobile and bought everything aftermarket all at once to try and make it fast and cool but none of the parts worked well together being so modified all at once with not even a good starting platform.. I dont want to make that mistake again.

 

So I shall see what slow, 1 at a time changes do for the car. Turbo will be first, then hopefully she runs as she should. THEN I will look into bigger and badder components to make it fast like intercooler, 300zx harness n ecu, injectors, big exhaust, etc. 

 

Thanks again for the help thus far... il keep everyone posted how this eventually comes along. 

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The stock 280zx computer can't be tuned for bigger injectors so you'd just end up running rich. If you max out the stock injectors you would need a tunable ECCS like 300zx ecu with nistune or megasquirt.

 

Check the turbo yourself once you get the downpipe and intake boot off. Minimal side-to-side shaft play is acceptable, though front-to-back movement is a bad sign. If you hear scraping or high pitched squeaking while you turn the impeller by hand it probably needs to be replaced or at the very least rebuilt. If it doesn't move at all, that's an obvious sign that it's only good for going in the bin.

 

A t3/t4 turbo will bolt on but it will probably need to be reclocked. This is also easy to do and you can find guides on Youtube etc. of how to do it. You'll also need to swap out the oil feed and drain flanges with the ones from the stock turbo. There's also a good chance that your downpipe will not bolt onto it. I've found that the old stock turbo from the 280zx has a different bolt pattern than the typical one you find on most turbos today. That means you can't swap the exhaust flange from the old one to the new one to keep your downpipe. If it does work, awesome. If not, you'll be spending some time and money figuring that out. Either have a downpipe made or possibly swap the turbine housing. I didn't try that myself. Yet another issue will be the wastegate. People have generally found that the stock wastegate will not fit properly on a newer replacement turbo. I went with an external wastegate so I didn't deal with that myself and can't offer guidance.

 

You can get a Factory Service Manual in pdf format from www.xenons130.com/reference

It will have the values for the ECCS so you can perform a pinout test yourself on the ECU to confirm that it is bad. All you need is the FSM and a multimeter which you can get cheap at virtually any hardware or auto parts store.

Edited by Pac_Man
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  • 4 weeks later...

I've only seen one "bad ecu" that wasn't directly killed by the owner by jumping the car backwards and fusing the zener diode and the injector drivers.

 

Howlermonkey.......former general manager of blue streak's ecu rebuilding facility.

 

Tell us the symptoms and maybe we can save you the hassle of unnecessary ecu appropriation.

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