H3lic

Hello all on Zdriver! I am brand new here, and to the world of Z cars as well as working on cars in general... Just made my first vehicle purchase ever back in May from a small local dealership, and its definitely a fixer upper.

Some random Specs: Manual 5 Speed, New Distributor, MSD Blaster II coil, somewhat new alternator, new NGK plugs and wires non-turbo, 87000 miles.

The overall condition of the car is flawless but whoever owned the car last from the dealership tried making several repairs in the engine bay and failed miserably. It only took a few minutes of looking under the hood to see how intelligent the previous owner must have been...

First off there were about five sets of clip-on wires going every which way (They looked like miniature jumper cables). A Few of them were hooked up to nothing at all, and some went from the engine bay into the car and were hooked up to what appeared to be the radio power wire, but I have yet to figure out exactly what was going on there... (Dealership guy confirmed radio doesn't seem to work)

Also there was a small 2.5 inch by 7 inch metal box that I took out near the Ignition coil which was also hooked up to nothing. The Dealership Guy said it was an 'aftermarket security alarm system'. It was obviously junk so I removed it. (After reading the Haynes manual/FSM I've found nothing indicating any security system in the '82 280zx's)
On top of that it was clear that the wiring to the Ignition coil had been tampered with... Considering the harness was unwrapped, wires spliced, and the connections weren't even soldered, they were twisted together and wrapped in scotch tape...

Lastly, I bought a Haynes manual and downloaded the FSM and EFI bible. Did plenty of reading, and corrected the wiring to the Ignition Coil via the wiring diagram in the back of the Haynes manual. (Ignition Coil is a MSD Blaster II). After looking at my fusible link box I also noticed that one of the male pins and fusible link wire is missing...
I did all of the volt/ohm meter tests at the 32 pin connector as such from the EFI bible, and the only test that didn't clear out was the Auxiliary Air Regulator Circuit test. Which read no voltage instead of being at battery voltage.

A few questions that I have are:

1) All of the wiring diagrams have a picture of the ignition coil but it doesn't clearly state which side of the coil is positive and which is negative in the diagrams, it just shows that one half of the IC has a coil winding while the other half does not. Which side of the Ignition Coil, positive or negative, has the coil winding like that in the wiring diagrams?

2) The FSM shows the BW wire going to coil winding side of the IC, while the Haynes Manual shows the Blue (L) wire going to the coil winding side of the IC. What is the actual correct set up?

3) Could accidentally switching these two wires on the Ignition coil and trying to start the car damage anything? Like the IC module on the dizzy perhaps?

4) Does the Ignition Coil need to be grounded with the bracket to the frame of the car? And does the condenser (which also has a small bracket attached) need to be screwed to the frame and grounded as well?

5) In terms of how I re-wired the circuit from the IC module to the Ignition coil.. Is it okay that the Blue (L) wire from the IC module, the ring terminal wire from the Ignition coil, the condenser wire going to dizzy ground, and the BW wire going off to yondersuch, all converge at one spot? Or should they be spread out like in the diagram? I figured since they were all in one straight line circuit anyways that it wouldn't matter.. But with this car I would prefer to do the job the right way, instead of an easy way if you know what I mean.

6) How do you put a new male pin in the fusible link box? <---n00b

After I redid the the wiring to the Ignition coil, and replaced the sparkplug wires I am getting absolutely no spark. My neighbor brought over a timing light, and we confirmed that there is no spark occurring at the spark plugs. I haven't tested if there's spark at the coil because I don't know which fusible link is the EFI fusible link to do the test as told in the FSM.

I've included photos of the fusible link box, Ignition coil area, and wiring schematic so you can see what I've been talkin about. Keep in mind that there is no male pin underneath the missing wire in the fusible link connector.

NismoPick

Welcome to ZDriver!

Black w/ white stripe (+12v switched power) goes to coil positive, blue goes to negative (tach signal). A pic courtesy of Bleach:



Possible.

The bracket does not need to be grounded on the n/a, but on the turbo it does. The n/a ignitor is on the side of the distributor. The condensor is just an RF reducer.

Converge meaning connect together? NO. The black w/ white stripe is +12v switched and will fry the other wires. If you mean converge (run) in the same wiring sub harness, yes, that is how they should be.

There are white holders for both connection sides of the fusible links. If one is missing (big hole), you can either bypass it, or find a spare fusible link box and use what you need.

H3lic

Hey guys!! I know its been forever since this thread was active... But I figured I'd post my results and share what I've learned just to put some closure to this particular problem in case anyone out there is experiencing the same thing.

The reason for the car not originally starting was due to a blown ignition switch which got fried from the crap wiring job to the ignition coil... The last guy who owned the vehicle cobbled together a horrible pigtail that was basically three wires twisted together wrapped in clear scotch tape... Not even soldered...

Amazingly even in this condition the car ran fine, just wouldn't start on command.

While rewiring the coil using the diagrams provided in the FSM and Haynes manuals we ran into an issue with which terminal (+ or -) the condenser went to. You can see my frustration and superior lack of knowledge in the posts above when I asked Nismo about accidentally flip flopping the wires on the coil and it potentially doing damage to the car.... Well Nismo was right we did some damage alright. The car still started, and after running for 10 minutes it began sputtering and misfiring horribly. This is because the ICM (ignition control module) and possibly the ECU got fried in the process. We started out chasing an intermittent no-start problem and ended up making matters a lot worse...

After getting the wires how they should be, and replacing the ignition switch and ICM the car starts every time without fail and can be driven. She still doesn't run the best, and I have done almost all of the tests in FSM/bible to ensure its not a random bad sensor. Everything except the Aux Air Valve checks out. This leads me to believe that I fried my ECU as well.

New ECU is on way along with a new ignition coil just for good measure. I will post the results as soon as new computer is in the car. Should only be a couple days away now.

So let this be a lesson to all you new z-mechanics out there! Condenser goes on positive side in an ignition system!! hahah