NismoPick

I can read that page over & over & never get sick of it. If only everyone did this...

jfairladyz

lww I linked your link in the originally linked post. If WTF? Is your response then, I put your link in the original post in the event mine doesn't work.

I suppose I could've picked a more reliable web server
Once I get my webpage back up I'll put it on there and change the link.

SHADY280

o.k i finally read it after i did the turbo afm gut swap years ago, and found that there may be some issues with my swap, maybee thats why its running rich. what i really want to know is what should the a/f guage tells me when im reading it, ive never had one before, what should i see and when.

jfairladyz

Unfortunately a guage that runs off a standard o2 sensor will only determine between rich and lean. Which is enough, but it wont give you the exact mixture. But it will let you know when you're going lean or when you're going rich. I keep my idle mixture as lean as I can. No need to waste any more fuel then you need to. Then run a little richer when I'm on the gas. The 14.7:1 the factory would have your running is not nearly enough fuel to make power. You should be down into the 13's or even the mid to high 12's with mixture ratio to realize optimum power. Right now on the drawing board I've got an idea for a throttle activated switch that throws the ECU into it's warm up mode through the CTS so as to shut out the o2 sensor so the computer cant correct at all for a richer mixture. Then through the AFM and ATS I can get a little extra fuel into the engine. Of course none of this being emissions legal though But thats the joy of a switch, it can be turned off.

SHADY280

cts? ats? and isnt optimum fuel at 16.5:1 ratio, maybee thats just for lawnmowers, i dont know, thats as far as my fuel ratio knowledge goes. and so what your saying is that the o2 sensor doesnt give exact ratios. ive seen them with just little led's is there one that actually has ratio on it

lww

No! That's WAY too lean. 13:1 is pretty much optimal for most auto applications. The smog ****'s here in California want us to use 14.7:1, but even that's too lean for optimum performance.

12:7 to 13.3 is where you want to be.

Boosted applications should be in the low 12's.

jfairladyz

ATS = Air Temperature Sensor
CTS = Coolant Temperature Sensor (or one bitchin' Caddy )
There are guages that use a wideband sensor and can give you a numeral readout of your a/f ratio. But for the most part a standard a/f guage is only going to use the lights. A wideband o2 sensor is a pretty expensive part though.

And if my car was running 16:1 a/f ratio I'd have holes in my pistons 14.7:1 is pushing it. But since that theoretically represents the point where complete combustion can occur that is what the OEM's strive for. lww hit it spot on with where you a/f ratio should be if performance is you goal.

SHADY280

10-4 good buddies

lww

Some times I DO get it right... Now if I can just convince my wife...

jfairladyz

Lost cause. I could say the sky is blue and still some how be wrong in her eyes. "today it's more of a greyish-aqua"

zmanofwashingto

Just jumping in and moving your afm adjustment wheel 5 knotches is definetly NOT a good thing to do. That's about as lame as taking a good running small block chev, and pulling off the 600 cfm carb and putting on a 780 double pumper. If you have a stock or semi stock engine you're going to over carb the heck out of it, shorten your engine life, raise emissions, reduce gas mileage, foul out plugs prematurely, possibly contaminate your oil, and on and on and on.
What may work ok on one particular z may not work on another. A little information can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. If you really understood injection systems, you'd realize that there are many factors involved in getting an efi system to function properly. Just throwing more fuel at it is NOT the answer. If you have partially plugged injectors for instance, you need to have them cleaned. If your injector leads or sensor leads are corroded, then you need to clean or replace them. If your engine is running too lean and all sensors etc are ok, then you need to richen up the mixture as needed to get maximum power and efficiency, they do go hand in hand. You don't just start tweaking things just because it worked on some other z, you analyze the situation properly, figure out the proper solution and then execute it properly.
Carefully moving the wiper arm in an afm, or even moving the board so that it is tracking in a different spot is a good idea, but that's as far as it goes. Moving the wheel without knowing what your doing is a big NO-NO. I can't begin to tell you how many afm's I've had to recalibrate in my 28 years on these cars because some idiot was in there moving stuff around.
Even if you're not in an emissions testing area, the emissions machine is still very neccessary. I won't adjust a fuel system on any z without putting it on my emissions analyzer, because all I'm doing is guessing about the HC's and CO's without it. A good rule of thumb is "do it right, or don't do it at all."
Z man of Washington
www.zspecialties.com

NismoPick

Did I miss something? ZMan... you should write books!

SHADY280

all righty then, did you read the whole section. unfortunatly i havent had my zed tuned and i do need to do it properly, this section is just a baseline and he reserves the right to be wrong. ive played with my afm without a guage and with good results just to get it going. so how much does a guru like you charge an idiot like me to tune my car properly. ive talked to you on the phone before but forgot to ask. im from abbotsford so i could drive down for the day and you can tune it.

SHADY280

zman i know you know your stuff but try not to come across so rude. its a good way to spoil your buisness, your nice on the phone just not the computer

jfairladyz

Well apparently he didn't read the whole thing cause for one, it was quite some time ago I pointed out that adjusting the spring tension as I described it could have negative effects. And on my most recent write up on the procedure I dont say ANYTHING about how many teeth to move the wheel. I recommend knowing exactly what you're doing in the new article and having a meter to know what your calibrations are doing. And I also stated in both write ups that adjusting the spring tension is not neccessarily meant as part of the refreshment but as a means of performance gains. And if done correctly, it does just that. And I've also acknowledged the fact that adjusting the spring tension to enrichen the fuel mixture is not neccessarily going to be emissions compliant.

I've done the entire process to two of my own AFM's and to one other persons AFM and have not had any negative side effects. On my initial AFM rebuild I has no means of monitering A/F mixture other than hooking my multimeter up to the O2 circuit (which was enough apparently). On the other 2 I used an A/F guage to moniter the results. I couldn't give two S#!^s what my HC and CO levels are. I'm doing what I do for performance gains. For people who like emissions then by all means, hook up an analyzer. If I wanted to remain emissions compliant my Z would still be running an "ideal" 14.7. But it's not. Not even close. I'm running hella rich and I love it. I've also got my timing set far from stock. Also not emissions compliant. Oh and am I supposed to have a cat on my car

So for the last time for all the people who dont like to read EVERYTHING before posting a comment: Adjusting the spring tension without a means of monitering your progress is not recommended.

And yes, I do reserve the right to be wrong. As does everybody else I fully understand the fuel injection system. What I didn't take into account when I originally wrote the writeup was the fact that the next guys spring tension is not neccessarily going to be the same as mine. But that has since been corrected as I've already stated.

And I'm not trying to come off rude. It's just that I've already been through this before.

lww

The computer has a way of dis-emboding the user and making the message a little more terse than intended and most car people aren't the best communicators to begin with, which exacerbates the problem further...

I've bought stuff from him in the past and ZMan is a good guy with a lot of good knowledge. I'm just surprised to see you on our little 280ZX forum! I expected you would live in the S30 world!

Anyway, welcome to our little spot of heaven!

Cheers,
LWW

zmanofwashingto

Thanks for the comment lww, you are correct. Sometimes it's very easy to jump to the wrong conclusions about what you read on the computer, as is the case for a couple of you in regards to my earlier post. My intent is not to insult or bash, but to help open some eyes and to educate people in the best way to fix and/or mod these cars, and let them benefit from my decades of experience. If any of you feel offended, I apologize, so chill or I'll sick my dog on you. She'll tear the socks right off of your feet. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion about that, check her out on our website.
Just so some of you might learn to know me a little better, and possibly prevent you from jumping to wrong conclusions about me or my intent in the future, I would suggest possibly reading my bio on our website at www.zspecialties.com A couple of extra things that I will add about me here are: I don't have an ego to feed so don't ever take anything I say or write as egotistical, or confuse the confidence that I have about my abilities with a fat head or ego, they dont' exist in me. If I suggest buying a product that we just happen to sell, never assume that I'm telling you that just to make a sale. I'm telling you that because it is going to be in your best interest. Granted I like to make money just as much as the next person, but the dollar is not my motivation, z cars and helping people in need gives me my motivation. I've just been fortunate enough to turn one of my hobbies into my life's work. One more thing to remember, the all mighty dollar is not my master, my master is the almighty.
Just for the record jfairladyz, I didn't call you an idiot, nor was I trying to insult you. I was referring to many idiots that have played with afm's in the past, that didn't know what they were doing, including many professional mechanics. That was merely an example to demonstrate what I see on a regular basis. I've seen too many people in the past that jump into the afm without knowing squat about what their doing. While they might not normally be an idiot, messing where they shouldn't be messing is an idiotic thing to do. Perhaps that wording could have been a little less terse sounding. It is a pet peeve though. Now in regards to your statement about emissions, you should always be concerned about HC's and CO readings from your car. I didn't say anything about making your car pass an emissions test. There is a big difference between the two. Even when I tune a radicalized z engine, I still pay attention to the HC's and CO because that is the only way that I can be 100% sure about how that engine is running, and it's a great tool for analyzing problems as well. For instance the 75-79 non converter cars can produce max hp at .75% CO max, or less, unless there is something wrong with the engine or it's systems. Unless you put a fairly good sized cam in one of these injected engines, they should never run over 1 to 1.5% CO and 250 ppm of HC's max. If you put a good sized bump stick in them, then the HC's will definently climb, but you still need to monitor it as well as the CO, to get the best efficiency and HP. Just throwing more CO's at the HC"s to compensate for it isn't the answer either. A little balance between the two (provided there aren't any other problems in the system) is ok, but it isn't always the best solution neccessarily.
You're not on the wrong track at all in what you're doing to afm's, you're just not doing a complete job besides missing my point. Just throwing more fuel down the throat isn't the answer for more hp. It can be part of the solution, but it is not the complete answer by any means. Getting max hp as effeciently as possible should be your main concern. Isn't it better to use your fuel as effeciently as possible, and still obtain max hp, especially with the cost of fuel these days? I even put my CO machine on a carbed 240 if I want to dial it in perfectly, even though it is exempt from testing. FYI, all cars 81 and older are now exempt from emissions testing in our area. We have smog ****'s here too, they're just not as **** as the ones in the two states to the south of us.
LLW, I don't have a lot of time to visit these forums, it's usually just a quick scan, maybe a comment or two, and then back to work. I definently don't have time to visit often or check every topic. This one caught my eye because injection systems are usually a weak spot for most people, and more often than not a lot of bad info is given about the topic. Thanks for the welcome, and while I do prefer the first gen z's, the second gen is still an awsome car, and one of my daily drivers is a somewhat modified 82 zxt. We'll be adding it to our website later on this year after I throw a little more time and money into it.
shady280, I don't think the administrator would appreciate me giving quotes on the forum, so you'd have to call us for any pricing, and I don't really think you're an idiot. It's just an expression on my part. For instance I also use the phrase "idiot factor". It applies to people doing stupid things to their z's, even professional mechanics. I've seen some very intelligent people and some competent mechanics do some pretty stupid things to z's in the past, (myself included). In some cases yes the people are idiots, but in most cases it's just a general expression that I use and put it all into one group to simplify it.
Sorry about being so long on this post, but previous comments deemed it neccessary.

Oh and one last thing for NismoPick, your pic of the zx doing donuts makes me dizzy, doesn't it ever stop? If I look at it too long it almost makes me fall out of my chair.lol
Z man of Washington
www.zspecialties.com

NismoPick

Donuts 4 life homie d! Long live the ZMan!

jfairladyz

I get what you're saying about using an analyzer to tune for power. But I have neither the money nor the resources for such an endeavor. For me, making a little more power by tuning via a/f mixture is the best I can do at this point with what I got. I wish I had more to work with, but unfortunately, I dont.

SHADY280

alright zman, its all cool, and it dont matter about the quotes, that what we have private messages for, just click on my name and it drops down to give options, like j said most of use are the working poor and can only go on luck and an a/f guage, which i still dont have so feel free to pm, my car will thank you.

vrocious

i know it's an old thread but great guide! thanks so much i went through step by step and changed my track run(wasnt game to try changing spring tensions and fuel ratios) however like every other diy guide mine never goes to plan. i could get over how clean my plugs and internals were for a 30yo car. my main problem is the air temp sensor plug on mine is missing(see photo) is this a problem?

NismoPick

Does the motor run fine w/ that AFM? Could be something not added for the Australia model.

vrocious

car runs fine but it's a japanese import so it may be because of that.