wr-ecks

Hey guys. I just became the proud owner of a 78 280z today. I dont know a whole lot about these cars since my expierence with Nissans is very little. I thought id get you opinon on whats wrong with the car. The PO (my grandfather) took it to a shop near his house and without doing much diagnostic work said it was probably the fuel injectors since this is a common problem with these cars.

This is what the car does: it fires right up and idles perfect maybe 1/2 of the time. The other half of the time it idles all over the place and wants to die when you give it more than 50 percent throttle in neutral. When it does start up and run right it will rev and sound really good then when it kicks down to the normal idle it runs like crap again. once the revs get up over 2-3000 rpm it sounds a lot better but it kinda sounds like its missing on some cylinders. no matter what it doesnt like to drive. very underpowered and it wants to die under any kind of real load. When its daylight out im gonna check the plugs and see what they look like, and their is a coolant leak i have to fix as well.

Thanks for any advice.

oldschool280

Have you checked your fuel filter(s)?

The po for mine put an inline filter right next to the tank and it got stopped up. Kinda showed the same symptoms.

just a thought.

NismoPick

A basic tune up and check over will help narrow down the culprit.

snwbrderphat540

do a full tune up its probably due for one and by full tune up leave nothing out of the question, new airfilter new fuel filter while doing that you can blow out the fuel lines incase there is garbage in any of them drain the gas if its old get new stuff in there and try some seafoam in that new stuff. get a new distributor cap and rotor get new plug wires and new plugs make sure the firing order is correct on those plug wires while your at it and dont mix them it can create headaches since it all starts to look the same haha. welcome to the site btw. also if any of the vacumme lines are looking old and cracked look into replacing those as well. you can also check make sure there is a vac line to the distributor advance. little diaphram on the side/bottom of the distributor. you should be able to get all those parts at a local auto store i suggest NOT using autozone they over price on spark plugs and their distributor parts suck my cap from them would always get the contacts eaten up on the inside and the rotor would tarnish/rust fast.

wr-ecks

Thanks for the advice. I should have said this but it recently got a tune up done. plug wires/cap and fuel filter look brand new. My grandfather is VERY good about taking care of his cars. This motor has 330000 miles on it and has never been pulled apart to have any work done internally. However.....


The car has sit a lot lately, he got a lexus and hasnt been driving it. Im gonna yank the fuel filter and see if it seems pluged at all as well. You never know what kind of crud can build up in a gas tank and plug up fuel filters. Then i think the fuel regulator is getting swapped out cause if nothing else it looks like its been there a long time and its not very expensive to replace.

snwbrderphat540

pretty good start. thats also ALOT of miles you should look into a compression test see where the engine is at.

wr-ecks

yea your right, i think my friend has a compression tester i can use. thanks

wr-ecks

swapped out the injectors and regulator. runs a lot better now. still kinda rough but def. drivable. im hoping the roughness is the old gas. lucky there is less than a quarter tank to burn through. i put in used injectors from a junkyard car so hopefully they all work ok. either way, it drives

260zturbo

why not just drain the gas also check to see if you still have good grounds. it cant hurt if you check on what you gf mechanic did. people do make mistakes. welcome to the z world. rember just take ur time and have fun.

wr-ecks

yea, i have found some weird stuff already. somebody rewired the injectors, maybe to put new plugs in or someting. all the electrical plugs that plug in are missing the clips to hold them in, but they seem to be stayin allright. i just got to find some of those, no big deal. and lots of missing bolts, the whole fuel rail had 1 out of i think 5 bolts holding it down.

im also wondering if the exhaust is kinda plugged up. with the injectors leaking i bet it would get a lot of extra fuel through the cat. and the exhaust is very old and leaky anyways so i might have that to deal with as well.

still just excited to have it running. always wanted a z car.

theramz

Yeah, drain that old gas out and add fuel injector cleaner to the new gas. Since it has 330k on it you should drive it like your gf did. Gradually break it in to your style of driving. Enjoy, you are now hooked on Zcars.

wr-ecks

Yea im gonna drain it tonight and i will throw in some inj. cleaner as well. next step is to go through the steering and make sure everything is good there. Some struts and lowering springs are gonna get ordered pretty quick as well. i think i might put in a different motor before this one craps out on me. my particular style of driving is quite abusive, not to mention ill probably leave my STI at home and take the z car with me to the next RallyX if i get it running good enough. Rallyin in a rwd car sounds like fun.

thanks, i will enjoy it.

280zx2by2

they are like crack man!!!! and welcome to z-driver

replacing the old clips are no problem and you will be glad you did it

had an good link to a pic of the replacement clips but cant find it

wr-ecks

Well maybe i havent got her running yet. Sitting in the driveway it sounds halfway decent. I even drove it around the block yesterday. It didnt run real well but it was better than when i started or so i thought. I just drained all the gas out, put fresh stuff in with injector cleaner and tried to drive it again. It ran as crappy as when i first got it. Then it died about a block away and refused to start again or even sound like it wanted to start. I had to push it back to my house. Luckily its mostly downhill.

So to recap, its got new wires, new cap/rotor, newish plugs, new fuel filter, new fuel pressure regulator. Different injectors and new gas with injector cleaner.

It runs rough and runs worse when under a load. Any ideas?? I noticed that if i unplug the Throttle Position Sensor it makes no difference to how it runs and the idle surged a little bit this last time i drove it. Would a TPS sensor cause the car to die and not want to start back up again til it sat for a little bit?

I had a 4runner that had a bad TPS but would run halfway decent with it unplugged. someone called it open loop mode i think. Do Nissans not do this when its unplugged? Just thinkin out loud.

Im still tosing around the idea of just doing a motor swap, i dont really expect this engine to last much longer anyways the way i plan to drive it. Have any recomendations on where to buy a complete 280zxt engine? Ive done a little searching on craigslist and ebay but not much luck yet.

i found an complete turbo 280zx engine. wiring and everything included. i can hear it run and its 850 dollars. is this a good deal? not sure how many miles are on it.

snwbrderphat540

is the turbo motor a complete car? if not i wouldnt put out more than 500 for just the motor tranny and wiring/ecu stuffs a dime a dozen. also these electrical systems are so old a tps would make it run that ****ty. however if i were you i'd get some great electrical cleaner spray all the electrical connections down scrape em out and re-bend the female ends so they will clamp a little better on the male ends of the connectors. also, its possible you have clogged lines who knows how old that gas was or what was in it! i'd take that fuel filter out get an air compressor blow out the lines back into the tank with it then just try a new filter they are pretty cheap. or first things first now that it wont start crank it and check for spark. gotta take baby steps

wr-ecks

Yea, it wont start now at all. i think the line/filter is clogged. The gas i drained out was dark orange. lots of rust. ill try to blow out the lines too. but i dont know how far im gonna go with this engine since id like to swap it anyways.

I thought 850 was high. And no its without the car. This is without tranny too. ive heard the n/a tranny is better then the turbo one. is this true?

snwbrderphat540

not true its all opinion. theres no distinct answer, theoretically the T5 should be stronger but from what i hear they both hold about the same amount of power.

also i was offered a motor and tranny and harness and ecu for an 82 turbo shipped to my door for 525. also check for spark while your out there when you crank

skittle

850 is way high unless it was fully rebuilt with a turbo cam and upgraded turbo.

theramz

There is a very small filter screen in the inlet port of the fuel pump. Often overlooked you have to pull the pump and remove the end cap to get it out. Hold it upright gently in a vise and mark the orientation of the parts cause it only works one way. If you can use a fuel pressure gage check to see if you have 36 psi to the fuel injector rail.

wr-ecks

Cool thanks. Got to wait until this weekend now till I have time to work on it again though.

Nope totally stock. The guy was weird too, like a used car salesman. Him-"This is the best running 280zx ever! you'll never hear better" Me-how many miles are on it?? "I dont know since its not my car, im selling it for a friend, but it doesnt matter since this is the best running 280zx anywhere around!!"

theramz

It doesn't matter how many miles are on it, it's 25 years old. Buy one for $200 complete, you don't need the pos harness. Put it on an engine stand and rebuild it. Buy a MegaSquirtnSpark. For about $1500-$2000 you will have a fresh screamer. The same goes for a V8 swap. In the meantime you will have your daily driver.

wr-ecks

I see what your sayin but i dont really want to put that much money into the engine. To be honest i already have a race car. I dont need another. I just dont want it to be boring so id like to put a turbo engine in it. The difference in price for a non-turbo engine and a turbo one is only a few hundred bucks. other than that it will stay pretty stock under the hood.

snwbrderphat540

why is your screen name WRX or so to speak when you dont even own a WRX. i see an impreza im guessing an RS and an STI but no WRX.....

wr-ecks

Dont know much about subaru's eh? An STI is actually a Subaru Impreza Wrx STI. STI is just shorter to say. The car my Wife normally drives is a Subaru Impreza. Not a RS. thats an Impreza RS which i believe is a little more sporty but the same 2.5l that is'nt so fun. so basically

An STI is a way faster way stronger WRX. While a WRX is a way faster and a way stronger version of the impreza.

rex, wrecks and wrx are all worked into my screen name. Rex is a common nickname for wrx and i have this funny habit of wrecking cars while pretending to be a professional rally driver. NOT on public roads before you get the wrong idea. I do a lot of RallyX and i have roads that go WAY back into the mountains nearby.

snwbrderphat540

i know what the rex is its also used for the CRX (being called rex that is) to subaru technica institute or w/e nahhhh i know w good amount aboot the scooby's. id rather have an evo :P haha. most i ever got to work on one though was help putting on a cat-back and putting in some guages for a kid. but he was a tard haha. and i will refuse to put them together the impreza and wrx with the STI all those words dont belong together, its like calling an evolution by its full name, mitsubishi lancer evolution (insert number here up to 10) haha. or a ford mustang shelby cobra gt500 supersnake and etc. just, callin it what it is. but really, i know they are all based off the impreza platform and the STI being the best the WRX being the middle bastard child, never heard ANYONE combining the WRX and STI phrases into the subaru impreza WRX STI only the subaru impreza, subaru impreza WRX or subaru impreza STI. kinda always figured the STI would negate the notion of adding the WRX. im no stranger to them though.