Distributor wiring, L20E to L28E

[the_grinch]

Howdy. I have 1982 L20E powered vehicle which I have swapped for an L28E out of 78 280zx .

 

The L20 Dizzy has 4 wires coming out of it converging into a round socket type plug. The L28 however only has two wire tags coming off it.

 

Im new to L series engines ,wiring, engine swaps etc and need help as to hooking up the L28 dizzy.

 

the car in question is an 82 Skyline, and I have searched for

hours trying to find wiring diagram to no avail.so any help would be appreciated.

 

 

thanks.

[blue72]

Does the distributor for the L28 motor have something akin to an E12-80 unit on the side of it? If so you only need to run those two wires to appropriate places and you should be good to go.

 

Here are a couple of links that show how to wire this kind of distributor.

For carb equipped cars:

http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/

 

For early EFI equipped cars:

http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/distributor/index.html

 

The links are more oriented to Z cars so chances are it might not apply to your R30, but if it is the E12-80 type I think you should be able to figure it out.

[Tony D]

It sounds like you have formerly had an L20ET in there---that is the description of a CAS plug.

If you are converting to larger displacement N/A (about the same power as the L20ET) the computer from the L28 and wiring harness may be the quickest and easiest method to sort the wiring. It's a sub harness that detaches, and the interface between each of them should be easier to figure out.

 

Short of that, you would have to put the L20 Dizzy into the L28, including the drive spindle (drop the swaybar and oil pum---not a big deal) and then run the L20 Electronics complete. The injectors for an L20ET are the same as the injectors for an L28E, so that is no issue.

 

The L20E or L20ET electronics will fuel an L28 in stock N/A format with no issues whatsoever. I have done that swap in the past with good results. It's just omcinv the sensors and stuff from your L20 to the L28 so you have the correct inputs for your original computer. Big thing is the AFM---the L20ET will scale properly on an N/A L28 with no modification. If it was only an L20E, it would tend to run out of flow scaling a tad early, but it's workable, and a very torquey setup even wit hthe smaller AFM.

 

Good Luck!

[the_grinch]

thanks folks.

 

my L20 dizzy does look like an L20/L28et pcitured in a thread on this site. I think the L20 engine I took out was from a wrecker (numbers painted on side of block) then they must have bought a dizzy to suit seperately from wreckers , it also has painted numbers, letters look to read L20E but some are smudged so it could be L20E T, they have accessed the ecu also, so maybe it has been adjusted to use the ET dizzy on the n/a mtr?

 

 

The L28E has the slotted drive while the L20 has spline and half circle drive.

 

I had thought of swapping the main drives oil pump over, just wasnt sure the L20 dizzy would work on the L28 being longer stroke, sounds like its not a biggie.Awesome

 

things done for conversion so far

have put L20 sump on (frnt sump), altered oil pickup and relocated dipstck with the help of my 70 yo dad. hes been an engineer all his life and has been a big help with advise /welding etc.

 

the engine is in car and all ready to fireup apart from dizzy.

 

so thanks again for the help peeps.

[Tony D]

Spline drive is for sure Turbo Application--either running a Megasquirt or the Turbo stuff will work with that dizzy.

 

The Turbo distributors only gave a signal for the ECU to determine sparking interval, with the Ignitor on the coil determining dwell. It was not a direct input. The ECU was an intermediary tp delay the spark signal for the next cylinder in the firing order to enable a 'spark advance feature'.

 

The L28E had a self-contained dizzy, with the E12-80 ignitor handling dwell and spark directly off the reluctor trigger inside the dizzy. The advance function was accomplished by altering the phase angle of the breaker plate using a vacuum cannsiter and advance weights which will move it relative to the fixed reluctor's trigger wheel on the center spindle.

 

Different animals altogether! Good news is changing from on to another is easily accomplished in the L-Series. Aside from the drive spindle, all the 'other' L6 dizzies are interchangable...

[the_grinch]

cool, more info. have got pump and spindle off the L20.Am doing job out in the open and its gettin dark so completing the swap tommorrow weather permitting, will keep you posted.

 

Im looking forward to gettin the 28 running. Ive never driven or even been in one, but from what Ive seen read and been told, theyre quite torquey and fun to drive, specially with 5spd man which the r30 has.

 

ok ,next day. wethers fine so have just swapped pump and all over. hope this is alright. The pump in the L28 was an H30? The one out of the L20 is H32, being as its Turbo drive and dizzy Im hoping the pump is also turbo which I presume will be higher flowing/pressure?

 

Job was easier than I thought, didnt need to drop the swaybar, cool. anyways abit sidetracked now, my son has just txtd wanting me to suss some mags out for him on trademe.Hopefully get the engine fired a little later on this evening. thankfully its daylight savings.

 

 

cheers

[the_grinch]

succsess, installed h32 pump and drive unit off the L20 into the L28. Bit of playin round with tang position ( which was 180 degrees out at first) and also the lead postions seemed different on the L20 dizzy.

 

I have a datsun rebuild book, a reprint of quite an older manual, it has firing order for L20A which apparently was not sold in the states, it did not however have anything on the L20E or L20et engines. Im wondering if they are slightly different setup.

 

Anyways, as the oil had been drained for shipping, I had changed to new filter and filled with oil , I cranked for about 30 seconds without power lead to coil, the oil light didnot go out, I put coil lead in and the engine fired up, no rattles smoking or anything, Im pleased about that as it was a $150 engine off trademe. I only ran the engine for about 10 to 15 seconds, but the oil light remains on. Should I be worried, or does it take some time for oil to circulate from acompletely drained engine?

 

thanks again for help with the dizzy /drive swap.

[Noddle]

The oil light should go out very quickly (even on cranking),

here's something to try, pull the coil lead off (so it doesn't start), undo the oil filter, and crank it over.

Oil should come out, if not, did you notice if any oil came out of the oil pump when you had it out ?, if no, you may need to prime it.

Take the oil pump out, put some oil in one of the holes, turn the pump gear with a flat blade screw driver till it pumps oil out the other hole,

put it back in, also it should have a very thing gasket. make sure it's not ripped

 

I hope this helps you out.

 

edit.. if this is a new pump, you must prime it before installing.

 

Nigel

[Daeron]

Before doing any of that, I would pull all the spark plugs out of the motor, pull the fuel pump fuse, and crank the engine for at lest 30 seconds without spark plugs in it a few times and see if the oil pressure builds up then. Also, do a cicuit check on the sending unit; grounding it should turn the light off (it may be the other way around.)

[the_grinch]

Got home from work, str8 to the job at hand. Pulled both the filter and sensor off, found my gearbox filler, it prbably has a techo name, its like an oversized bike pump. pumped oil into galleries till it started coming back out, 3/4ths filled the filter and replaced along with sensor. cranked for awhile, the light still no go out. my dad came up and said to put plugs back in and fire it up, and whataya know, light went out almost str8 away. I am wrapped, engine runs quite smoothly . just a new set of plugs and the dizzy adjustment to do 2morrow, and I,l be on the first test drive.

 

I would how ever like to know how many of the vacum hoses I can saftely block off without adversley affecting performance.The L28 (naps) manifold that came with the engine is alittle different than the L20, I might change back to the L20, what do you think?

 

Anyways, Im greatfull for the helpfull advise I have recieved on this site.

Thankyou.

[Tony D]

BAH-NAPS!

 

If it's an L28 manifold, read the post by "Oz Connection" in this forum about 'small port heads' and the discussion about L28's with L20 EFI manifolds on them is covered pretty well.

 

If the results are sounding like something you might like, then proceed. For a street car not running above 5500 the boost in low end torque is prodigious by the butt-dyno when you put the small runner manifold on, but it's all in by 5000-5500. You loose some top end compared to the stock L28 Manifold. Even the NAPS. If you do swap, and you have the two-barrel T/B, make sure you use the larger L28 unit on the L20 Manifold---it will fit, and the drivability will be a bit better than the dinky L20 Barrels. There is a considerable difference in primary and secondary bore sizes. In US Money, the L20 has a 'dime sized' primary barrel, while the L28 has a 'nickel' size.

 

Roughly the difference between saddling up behind a newborn Ewe and her Mother, to put it in Kiwispeak! LOL

 

Morocco dementia strikes again! I'm Baaaaaaaaa-d. Baaaaaaaaa-d I tell ya!

[Noddle]

Roughly the difference between saddling up behind a newborn Ewe and her Mother, to put it in Kiwispeak! LOL

 

So the sheep loving thing is not just a Aussie thing that we use on the the Kiwis, I didn't realise it was a global thing... LOL

 

sorry, I just had to.

 

Nigel

[the_grinch]

I will go read the inlet manifold thread. I think I read a thread here that says no Zcar came with naps , saw 2 280zs other day, both had naps badges but not cast into manifold like my engine does. My engine is N42 head and block.

 

Just back from maiden voyage, have big grin on face. I put new plugs in and tuned dizzy in by ear, way better response than were I first had guesstimated it. Runs very smoothly, again very pleasing as was $150 Trademe buy. Only took it up to around 4/4500 rpm. at 3/3.5k it really starts pullin, I am impressed. Guy I was tlking to the other day has 2 78 280zx, he said both will pull 200kph, and do it easy. Will be takin it easy for a while to make sure no leaks etc.

 

 

 

A kiwi was on holiday in Austrailia. he came across an Aussie standin behind a sheep caught in a fence. the Kiwi asks the bloke, " hey mate, are you gunna shear that sheep?"

the Aussie answers "share it, get ya bloody own"

 

 

cheers

[Daeron]

If you do swap, and you have the two-barrel T/B, make sure you use the larger L28 unit on the L20 Manifold---it will fit, and the drivability will be a bit better than the dinky L20 Barrels. There is a considerable difference in primary and secondary bore sizes. In US Money, the L20 has a 'dime sized' primary barrel, while the L28 has a 'nickel' size.

 

Roughly the difference between saddling up behind a newborn Ewe and her Mother, to put it in Kiwispeak! LOL

 

 

What about the secondary throttle plates?? Kennedy half-dollar? Golf-ball?

 

I can't tell you how many times I have come close to strangling Google for not being able to find me any information on those throttle bodies that doesn't come from you, Tony.

 

 

As far as the other "ewe..."

 

Whats the difference between The Rolling Stones, and a drunken Scots farmer?

 

The Stones sing "Hey, You, Get offa mah cloud!!" and the Scotsman shouts, (assume thick scotty accent here) "'Eyyy!! MacCleod!! Git Offa Mah Ewe!!!!

[Tony D]

The Lament of MacTavish....skip to the punchline: "But you get caught screwing ONE sheep!"

 

But back to pressing issues, none of the Z-Cars had the "NAPS" Intake manifold, those were for Saloons. All the Z's got the non-adorned manifolds, even though they DID have the NAPS technology incorporated into the ECU.

 

For instance, I have a 1978 HS130. This car has NO cold start valve, and uses a stepper-motor idle air controller for idle kick-up and stabilization. Full EGR compliance as well as having an O2 Sensor---something none of the US spec cars (INCLUDING CALIFORNIA) got until 1981!

 

From the years 1976 to 1981 at least, the Japanese Emissions Criterion were still in-line with the original 1967 Clean Air Act guidelines and did not deviate from them---as a result, they had a car produced in the home market that was FAR cleaner emissions-wise than even CA-Specification Vehicles. In the US the EPA backed off the regulations because of pressure from the Big Three who apparently 'were having a hard time of it' getting their cars to comply.

 

I'm not going any further down that road...

[R-vin]

hi,

i have read some of the threads and i see you have a lot of knowledge on the datsun sports car series,

 

i have a couple of junk yard engines i have started experimenting with, but as with everything nothing came complete, currently i am trying to sort out the engine control / ECU harness that came with a L20 ET engine(6cylinder 2.0L), this is the only EFI engine i have, all the others are carburetted.

it was in a toyota vehicle when i bought it, it was converted over to carburetion with a points type distributor i also got the EFi system but the harness was butuchered, the coil and igniter was replaced with a toyota unit and only 2 of the 4 wires were connected, it has the distributor with the can/crank sensor......

 

would you have a pin out for this engine, specifically the function of each pin allocation on the ecu harness, because i currently have 7 wires that are out of the original connectors.......

 

if you also have the time, i can send you pictures of the EFI manifolds/exhaust manifolds, heads & blocks i have and advise me on the best combination for every day street use/ fuel economy, racing is sort of out of the question with this project car, but a fairly powerful/economical engine is what i am looking for...

 

cheers

 

R-vin