Hi all,

I have a 1981 280zx n/a that has been causing me a world of problems ever since I got it. Right now, it's sitting on my lawn with basically no spark. When I try to start it, it sounds like a really really bad misfire, but no backfiring, and smelled like it was running very rich. Then it dies and I cant start it again for the rest of the day, sometimes longer. It basically doesn't even run anymore, I can't drive it. The positive and negative wires to the coil were switched, after fixing that, I got a steady spark out of the coil. But when I checked for spark at the plugs, I get either no/very weak spark from all plugs but the first one. I've checked the cap, only finding that the rotor is touching the middle of the cap. I don't know how to check each individual wire. Besides the cap being the problem, I've also thought about the bottom half of the distributor. It could also be flooding the cylinders from the injectors, at least that's what my dad thinks. It also only runs when the distributor is all the way advanced.

I also seem to have a weird intake, how would I adjust idle fuel/air and idle speed and all that stuff. I think that it could be part of the problem. I think that so many things on this car are messed up that I don't even know where to begin.

I think it is a spark issue, but I honestly don't even know. Does anyone know how I could get this thing started? Would I be able to figure this out myself or take it into a shop?

 

Well if you're getting good spark out of the coil but not out of the plugs, I would look into replacing the cap and rotor and maybe even the spark plug wires and the spark plug themselves.

Alot of time the timing are off on these cars. That is something you definitely want to check. Also check if you have the firing order correct.