tick tick tick...

[tweakinZs]

Hey every1. Ive had my car now for about a year now. Though I havnt posted in a long time. I have a 76 N/A 2+2. I have almost taken it down to bare essentials as far as emission control and A/C go. Blocked off heater and yada yada.

 

I have just bought a great urethane bushing kit for it, havnt gotten it in yet due to cappy weather! And I wanna get a new rack and pinion, tie rod ends and ball joints for it. Workin at a part store now so go-figure..

 

Anywho to my point, I already have every gasket beside head gasket for this car including sleeve for the main. None installed yet. My question, I have this ticking from the top-end, cant tell if its injectors or valve train. It its constant and increases and decreases with engine RPM and gets louder when the car warms up. Other symptoms are it starting to bogg-out, missing, oil pressure loss, and really rough running.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on what may be causing this, and will it be easier/cheaper just to buy a new motor, or pull this one and rebuild it, or buy a new on really cheap rebuild it with some flat tops, cam, and a couple bolt-ons and see how many sets of tires this engine will burn through before it dies??

[datsunlover]

Sounds just like my 75 when I got it. First off, the ticking may just mean it needs the valve lash set. Specs are in the manuals, and probly HERE somewhere.. (hint, uhm... search? lol) As for the bogging/mising, it could be many things... My solution? Throw the FI away, and replace with ROUND top SU carbs. Even on a stock motor (assuming good compresion and ignition are there) they will spice it up a bit and are a breeze to tune. I'd also look for a 280zx distributor (with the little black ignition box on the side) to replace the stock 280z unit. Very simple to wire up, and much more reliable IMO.

[Mr.INSANE]

Sounds alot like those crappy hydraulic lifters, Although i doubt its that becuase i dont think they started using those until later years

[Teekass]

For whatever it's worth, I have a '77 2+2 and just recently put new poly bushings up front, and used my old rack. I did replace the tie rods, ball joints and wheel bearings.....but the old rack still works great. Before I started, I had 270 degrees of steering wheel play . Now the steering is tighter than....well I'll just say it's really tight .

 

As far as your rough running symptoms....I recently went through what might be the exact same thing.

 

My gas tank was so clogged that the engine would run for about 30 seconds before the fuel pump began to starve for fuel. The pressure would start around 30 psi, then drop to 20 after about 30 seconds (thats when it began to run rough). The pressure would drop a couple pounds per second until around 10 psi where it would finally quit (Around 1 minute of total run time). After I cleaned the gas tank out, the engine would idle great, but not have any power.

 

Next, I cleaned all of the EFI connections with DeOxit, and now the engine runs like a top. There's not a DeOxit dealer where I live, so I bought the DeOxit at Radio Shack. It's more expensive that way because their cans are much smaller).

 

This guy has a great write up on the EFI connections to clean ("Common 70-83 problems"). It appears the link is bad for some reason. Keep checking back, or try to email him if you can find an address.

 

http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/misc.htm'>http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/misc.htm

 

http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/

 

He also has some good info on the bushing upgrades.

 

 

As far as the top end noise....my injectors make alot of racket, maybe yours do too? I took a long 3/8 drive ratchet extension and held my ear to it, and put the other end on one of the injectors. Then I moved it to the valve cover, and it was pretty obvious that my noise was coming from the injectors.

 

Hope this helps....now I'm off to the search engine to figure out how to get my heater valve to open....arrgh.

 

Chris