78 280Z NA MS2 Setup

[taaron]

So I've gotten sick of attempting to fix this botched wiring job by the PO. I decided to just go ahead and completely replace the ancient efi system with something modern. I was wondering if this parts list looks complete. From scrounging various boards and posts I think I've gathered just about everything I will need. 

 

I'm a little intimidated by the whole thing so sureing this up will make me feel just a bit better. 

[seattlejester]

Very nicely organized post, well done.

 

I believe you need the DIY wheel in the distributor in addition to the coolant temp sensor (I can't recall if the stock one is a switch or an actual sensor)? 

 

You might want to pick up pig tails for the TPS, IAT, and such. 

 

For injectors if you plan on doing anything in the future with this specific motor it might be worthwhile to just upgrade the injectors now to save on buying new injector clips down the road.

 

If you are new to wiring a set of good quality ratcheting crimpers and the corresponding connectors can help put your mind at ease regarding the sureness of your connections.

[taaron]

I'm struggling to find the post but I believe I read somewhere that the Coolant Sensor already in the car can work, it just needs to be calibrated in the tuner. My only fear with upgrading to the GM sensor there is tapping the larger hole. Thats never been my strong suite and I'm terrified of messing up the block. Lol I'm already not looking forward to tapping the manifold for the IAT.

 

Is this the distributor wheel? 

https://www.diyautotune.com/product/54-mm-optical-trigger-wheel-for-nissan-l28et-or-vg30e/

This is the furthest I've ever been on a project like this so I'm not totally sure. 

 

Not a bad idea on a few sets of spare pigtails in case I mess something up.

 

Any good recommendations for injectors? I don't super trust mine, but at the same time, I'd like to not push my budget above 1500. 

Maybe upgrading just to the 280zx turbo ones so I can be sure they'll fit? (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Set-of-6-Factory-Reman-Nissan-OEM-Injectors-1981-83-280ZX-TURBO-1660302911/201317301856?epid=1739692544&hash=item2edf723e60:g:y-IAAOSw3v5Yruw6&vxp=mtr)

 

And I've got a new set of ratcheting crimpers on order, my old little crimpers just can't give me any sense of security when it comes to making connections haha. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by taaron
add a link

[Chickenman]

Yes, you can use the stock Coolant sensor. You cam calibrate it as a Custom Thermistor using the figures taken from the FSM. ( Which is online at Xenon ). Or you can use the Calibration for the Saab Bosch sensor in the Tuner Studio pull down menu. 

 

The 280ZX Turbo injectors would be perfect, and allow you more than enough extra volume to run a 250 HP NA  engine. 

 

Yes, the distributor wheel from DIY is  what you want. Makes l9ife so much simpler. Be careful when you install it. They can go in upside down, and that will really mess you ( and the ignition settings ) up. 

 

Get the Paid version of Tuner Studio. You need the Autotune feature that comes with the Paid version. 

 

I you need help with set-up and a baseline tune I do remote tuning for a very reasonable fee. Saves you a lot of headaches.

 

Hybrid member Softopz is a distributor for Mega Squirt and 14Point7 products. BTW, good call on choosing the Spartan WB. Much, much better than Innovate products IMHO.

 

One other thing that you should buy is the MS Tuning manual. Written by Matt Cramer and Jerry Hoffman. Excellent book.!!

 

https://www.diyautotune.com/shop/apparel-merchandise/books/

[Chickenman]

IAT would be better off in the air intake pipe just before the throttle body. If installed in the Intake manifold it can be subject to heat soak. If you do install it in the Intake manifold you may want to install it with a plastic insert to reduce heat transfer to the IAT body. 

 

Madkaw used a Nylon reducer bushing from a Ice making machine to isolate his Intake Manifold mounted IAT. Seems to work well.  Home Depot part. $1.25 or something like that... 

[seattlejester]

Concurred, you really want to know the air about to go into the motor, not influenced by the manifold heat retention. 

 

By all means if the stock sender is calibratable then use the coolant temp sensor. I think I'm thinking of the fan switch for the injector cooler that is a simple on off coolant temp sensor or I guess switch in this case.

 

Having someone help you with going over the base settings is quite useful. It can definitely be foreign if this is new to you (that is no doubt an obvious statement). I will say you can stumble through most of the menus though if you run into a problem you may be hitting your head against something simple.

[Chickenman]

For the Injector blower you could use one of the programmable outputs on MS. They can be configured with and/or functions.. You could configure it to run at  Coolant temp >= 180 F, with a hysteresis of 10. Then add RPM of < 250. and seconds = 600. 

 

That would turn the Injector fans on for ten minutes when you shut the car off and the Coolant temp is above 180F. You can set the Timer  Parameters to whatever you like.  ( 300 = 5 Minutes etc )

[madkaw]

I’ll give a nod to getting help from Chickenman and kits from Softopz to get you started. I think the GM coolant sensor will thread into the later thermostat housings that have 4 holes. 

[Chickenman]

Yes, GM does make a Coolant sensor with the same threads as the Nissan one. 12 mm x1.5   I believe. By memory, 99 to 2002 Camaro with the LS motor will work. Same calibration as the 3/8 NPT GM units.

 

Thanks for the Shout out. Steve.  Been fairly busy with Tuning lately. . 

Edited February 19, 2018 by Chickenman
Corrected CLT sensor sizing.

[taaron]

First off, just want to say thanks a ton. You guys have been insanely helpful already! I really appreciate it. Once these packages start finally showing up I'll definitely be reaching out for some tuning support. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Chickenman said:

For the Injector blower you could use one of the programmable outputs on MS. They can be configured with and/or functions.. You could configure it to run at  Coolant temp >= 180 F, with a hysteresis of 10. Then add RPM of < 250. and seconds = 600. 

 

That would turn the Injector fans on for ten minutes when you shut the car off and the Coolant temp is above 180F. You can set the Timer  Parameters to whatever you like.  ( 300 =

5 Minutes etc )

This is definitely something Ill have to add in. My "new" injector blower just arrived yesterday and I've been already planning to try and wire it in. 

 

17 hours ago, Chickenman said:

IAT would be better off in the air intake pipe just before the throttle body. If installed in the Intake manifold it can be subject to heat soak. If you do install it in the Intake manifold you may want to install it with a plastic insert to reduce heat transfer to the IAT body. 

 

Madkaw used a Nylon reducer bushing from a Ice making machine to isolate his Intake Manifold mounted IAT. Seems to work well.  Home Depot part. $1.25 or something like that... 

Thats good to hear! I feel like its definitely going to be a lot easier to get that in the intake pipe than in the manifold.

 

 

1 hour ago, Chickenman said:

Yes, GM does make a Coolant sensor with the same threads as the Nissan one. 12 mm x1.0 I believe. By memory, 99 to 2002 Camaro with the LS motor will work. Same calibration as the 3/8 NPT GM units.

 

Thanks for the Shout out. Steve.  Been fairly busy with Tuning lately. . 

I just checked autozone, it looks like the one my car uses is a 12x1.5 but the one the Camaro uses is also a 12x1.5, so that should work! Assuming autozone is correct haha.

 

 

 

So  I've been tracing out the wiring diagram to figure out everything thats going to be removed from this car and its definitely starting to seem like a lot of crap. Does this seem about right? I know some of this stuff will be going back in upgraded, ie TVS with TPS. 

 

Water Temp Sensor
Thermotime Switch
Cold Start Valve
Air Regulator
Throttle Valve Switch
AFM
Dropping Resistors
Altitude Switch
Fuel Injection relay
Fuel pump/control relays
Transistor ignition unit

 

 

[seattlejester]

Basically short of the headlight, turn signal, side marker, horn, wiper, main power cable, and maybe the brake failure switch thing, you would pull out the rest of the harness.

 

Don't throw it away by any means, but the megasquirt should be able to be wired in pretty much standalone with what you have on the list with just an input from the ignition signal from the key and a power supply to the relay board. 

 

If you pull the harness for the lights away and the wiper, you should be left with the power cable and such going to the alternator, and an ignition signal that goes to the coil that you will want to save. The only thing you need to reuse I think would be the coolant temp sensor wires if you planned on using the stock ones.

[Chickenman]

Keep the dropping resistors if you get a MS-2 and plan on using the Stock Nissan Low-Impedance resistors.  From experience, the  the Pulse Width Current Limiting algorithms don't want to play nice with the Stock Nissan Jecs injectors.  It works well with most injectors, just not the Nissan Jecs for some strange reason.  PWCL in MS-2 can be a bit " Hit or Miss". 

 

MS-3 is an entirely different matter. The PWCL works very well in that, but MS-3 uses entirely different Firmware and program coding than MS-2

 

If you do want to change injectors, I would recommend going to Hi-Impedance injectors. Much less problems as PWCL   Get a Pallnet fuel Rail and injectors with 14mm Top and Bottom O-rings. That will give you the most choice in injectors, including most Bosch EV1 or EV6 injectors. 

[Chickenman]

Fuel pump and FPR. Not as critical on a NA motor as a Turbo motor. But if you do upgrade to a Higher Volume FP such as a Walpro 255 or Bosch 044, be aware that the stock Nissna FPR cannot properly regulate the Fuel volume put out by a higher performance pump. The Internal return orifice is simply to small.

 

Buy a GOOD quality FPR such nas Aeromotive or Fuel Tech. Both made in USA. Do NOT buy some cheap Chines junk from E-Bay. They are crap and can't maintain accurate fuel pressures. An Aeromotive 13129 EFI regulator is a very good Product.  Available from Summit or Jegs. On sale about $130.... and worth every single penny. Don't cheap out on the FPR. You can't get a stable Tune without  accurately regulated Fuel Pressure.  

 

Also, do not buy Liquid Filled Fuel Pressure gauges. They vary with underhood temperatures. Buy a regular non-liquid filled gauge from Marshal or Stewart Warner. Reda the attched Technical article from Aeromotive on the problems with most Liquid Filled FP Gauges 

 

TB_903_Liquid_Filled_Pressure_Gauges_01.pdf

[softopz]

I can supply you with pretty much most of that list

I do have the TPS 240sx plug
injector plugs ( crimp style pigtails are ugly) ev1 + denso + ev16
GM and Air TEMP sensors with plugs this week I should be getting metric ones
14Point7 wideband with or with out gauge
and MS2 ECU ! 

Plus you can save on shipping getting it from one place
 

[taaron]

On 1/26/2018 at 1:33 PM, seattlejester said:

Basically short of the headlight, turn signal, side marker, horn, wiper, main power cable, and maybe the brake failure switch thing, you would pull out the rest of the harness.

 

Don't throw it away by any means, but the megasquirt should be able to be wired in pretty much standalone with what you have on the list with just an input from the ignition signal from the key and a power supply to the relay board. 

 

If you pull the harness for the lights away and the wiper, you should be left with the power cable and such going to the alternator, and an ignition signal that goes to the coil that you will want to save. The only thing you need to reuse I think would be the coolant temp sensor wires if you planned on using the stock ones.

 

So I basically gutted everything this past weekend. It was an incredible feeling. I figured I could attempt to salvage some of the harness, but in the end I decided to just redo everything. Its not that hard to wire in a few brake lights. 

 

On 1/26/2018 at 8:52 PM, Chickenman said:

Keep the dropping resistors if you get a MS-2 and plan on using the Stock Nissan Low-Impedance resistors.  From experience, the  the Pulse Width Current Limiting algorithms don't want to play nice with the Stock Nissan Jecs injectors.  It works well with most injectors, just not the Nissan Jecs for some strange reason.  PWCL in MS-2 can be a bit " Hit or Miss". 

 

MS-3 is an entirely different matter. The PWCL works very well in that, but MS-3 uses entirely different Firmware and program coding than MS-2

 

If you do want to change injectors, I would recommend going to Hi-Impedance injectors. Much less problems as PWCL   Get a Pallnet fuel Rail and injectors with 14mm Top and Bottom O-rings. That will give you the most choice in injectors, including most Bosch EV1 or EV6 injectors. 

I kept the dropping resistors. Thanks for the advice! A Pallnet rail and hi-impedance injectors are on the list, but thats going to have to be a later in the year upgrade. Have to let my credit card recover a little.

 

On 1/26/2018 at 9:00 PM, Chickenman said:

Fuel pump and FPR. Not as critical on a NA motor as a Turbo motor. But if you do upgrade to a Higher Volume FP such as a Walpro 255 or Bosch 044, be aware that the stock Nissna FPR cannot properly regulate the Fuel volume put out by a higher performance pump. The Internal return orifice is simply to small.

 

Buy a GOOD quality FPR such nas Aeromotive or Fuel Tech. Both made in USA. Do NOT buy some cheap Chines junk from E-Bay. They are crap and can't maintain accurate fuel pressures. An Aeromotive 13129 EFI regulator is a very good Product.  Available from Summit or Jegs. On sale about $130.... and worth every single penny. Don't cheap out on the FPR. You can't get a stable Tune without  accurately regulated Fuel Pressure.  

 

Also, do not buy Liquid Filled Fuel Pressure gauges. They vary with underhood temperatures. Buy a regular non-liquid filled gauge from Marshal or Stewart Warner. Reda the attched Technical article from Aeromotive on the problems with most Liquid Filled FP Gauges 

 

TB_903_Liquid_Filled_Pressure_Gauges_01.pdf

There is currently a little shitty eBay FPR on it. I've been meaning to get it updated to something more reliable, maybe now is my excuse. 

 

 

16 hours ago, softopz said:

I can supply you with pretty much most of that list

I do have the TPS 240sx plug
injector plugs ( crimp style pigtails are ugly) ev1 + denso + ev16
GM and Air TEMP sensors with plugs this week I should be getting metric ones
14Point7 wideband with or with out gauge
and MS2 ECU ! 

Plus you can save on shipping getting it from one place
 

Unfortunately I've already got just about everything sitting at the house but appreciate the offer!

 

[madkaw]

Should of went high impedance injectors IMHO- would have mounted in with a Pallnet fuel rail easy. 

I know someone who has the dizzy if you need it. 

You are going like the MS once you get it going. Some good help available here

[taaron]

15 minutes ago, madkaw said:

Should of went high impedance injectors IMHO- would have mounted in with a Pallnet fuel rail easy. 

I know someone who has the dizzy if you need it. 

You are going like the MS once you get it going. Some good help available here

 

I considered it. And itll happen eventually. But I didn't want to wait for the rail to get in to get the car running again. And I needed to pause the spending for a little while. But I will be upgraded. And I am still looking for a dizzy, I was just going to pick one up from Autozone if I couldn't find one this week. 

[Chickenman]

I got mine from Rock Auto. A1- Cardone. Was a reasonable price at the time. Do spend some time checking it over. I found the trigger disc was rubbing on the CAS LED. Assembly error from manufacturer. 

 

They often use the later Maxima CAS in the 280ZX dizzy. The Maxima CAS has two plastic  alignment " Tit's " on the bottom that have to be filed off,  so that the Module sits flat on the mounting pad.

 

Also, on the 280ZX dizzy, the 3 mounting screws fro the CAS go in from the top and thread into the dizzy housing. So the 280ZX CAS module has smooth holes in the CAS body and threads in the dizzy body. The Maxima CAS is slightly different. It has threaded " Bosses "  in the CAS body and the screws come up from the bottom. Through unthreaded holes in the Maxima dizzy body. 

 

When you combine the Maxima CAS with the 280ZX dizzy body, you have two sets of threaded holes. In the CAS module itself and in the 280ZX dizzy body. This doesn't screw together very well. 

 

What I did was drill the threads out in the bottom of the 280ZX dizzy. Then I installed the 3 mounting screws from the bottom of the 280zx dizzy housing and into the threaded bosses in the Maxima CAS. That worked perfect. Something to check with Re-man dizzys;. 

Edited February 1, 2018 by Chickenman

[taaron]

So finally started making some progress! Pretty stoked, got the engine to tdc, put the new oil pump shaft in and it lined up! Now I'm a little stuck. A bolt holding the old dizzy on sheared off so I need to figure out how to extract it. 

 

I do just want to double check I got the right parts. Does this distributor look right?  It looks pretty completely different. Also I bought this optical trigger disk, I'm guessing I still need to put it on.

https://www.diyautotune.com/product/54-mm-optical-trigger-wheel-for-nissan-l28et-or-vg30e/

[Chickenman]

Yep. That is the correct distributor. Be careful with the Optical Trigger disk. It can be installed upside down and that will mess you up. DIYAutoTuning has pictures of the correct way to install it. 

 

Rotor phasing is a step that a lot of people miss, and it is quite important. Here are some instructions and a Picture to help.

 

 

Quote

Phasing of the distributor rotor must be done on all L-series engines that run A Distributor with HT Leads and a single coil. It does not have to be done with WasteSpark Coil Packs or COP. 

To " Phase "  the distributor rotor:
 
1: Disable ignition and injectors. Easiest way is to disconnect the 4 pin terminal at the Dizzy.
 
2: Note where #1 Spark terminal is on the distributor cap. Grab a Sharpie and make a mark on the distributor body that lines up with #1 plug terminal. Remove dizzy cap.
 
3: Bump the engine over till the Timing mark is at 25 BTDC.
 
4: Note the position of the distributor rotor in relation to the Sharpie mark you made on the distributor body. You want the distributor rotor to be centered on that mark. Loosen the two 6mm ( 10mm hex ) bolts at the bottom of the distributor. Rotate the dizzy body until the Rotor Tip is centered on your mark. Tighten the bolts.
 
5: Replace distributor Cap and reconnect terminals.  Congrats. You have successfully " Phased " your distributor rotor. This step is necessary on all programmable ignitions that use a distributor. 
 
Important. Phasing the distributor will alter your #1 Tooth Angle. So follow the Sync distributor steps and Lock you timing to 10 BTDC under Trigger wheel settings. With a timing light, adjust your #1 Tooth Angle to get the Timing mark lined up to 10 BTDC. Change the Fixed Timing back to " Use Table " Burn the settings. Then Cycle the ignition Off...wait 10 seconds and then back on. Any changes to Trigger Wheel settings usually require a Burn AND an Ignition Cycle to take effect. 
 
 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Chickenman