sorry, I know it's a noob question. I'm looking at buying a 280zx and I wanna know if I'm going to need to replace the timing chain as soon as I buy it.

 

interval... as in "at how many miles" ??? Unless the chain is loose, you don't NEED to change it... Datsun was smart when designing the engine... they made the chain a double wide chain... they don't stretch much, even at 200K miles. Oh... and welcome to ZDriver!

 

A timing chain will last well over 100k miles without needing to be replaced. Odds are it can probably last twice that. Change it if you want to but odds are it wont need it. Nissan, as usual, over did it with this part of the engine.

 

ah, beat me to it nismo

 

My car has the original chain in it at 247,xxx miles and it's not loose... They will go a long time unless the motor is abused. Bob79280ZX had to replace his at a little over 100K because it was so loose it was wearing a groove in the top of the valve cover!!! Rod

 

Like they say... great minds think alike! Ok... cheesy

 

It's not really the chain that will become the problem though. It's the rails and tensioner that wear out and go bad.

 

but always remeber to install a new chain when building your motor, itll save you the headache later, and adds some saftey to the build, especially if your gonna go high performance

 

165K and still tight.

 

wow, that's great news! Timing belt changes are a pain.
Thanks for the responses everyone!

 

timing belts are for *****'s

 

im glad nissan went back to using timing chains in thier new VQ35s cuz timing belts suck .. specially if you happen to snap one... and there goes your motor!!

 

Whoever invented the timing belt needs to be shot out of sight. I mean what were they thinking putting something like that in a hot-#ss engine? And did they actually think that was going to last verry long inside? Absolute plain idiocy, if you ask me.

Oops my bad, well you see what happened was my computer glitched an error. And then I rebooted it, and had to type this post over again. Well for some reason, I typed chain instead of belt Doh! After all I am only human.

 

Wait... wha??? Did I miss something?

 

I dont think you missed anything. I'm a little confused myself WildmaN, a timing chain is MORE reliable durable then a timing belt. A reason manufacturer use belts is cost and noise. Timing chains are a little noisier then belts, especially as they wear. The timing chain unfortunately causes wear. It wears down the sprockets, guides and tensioner/s as well as it's self. With a belt its generally only the belt that ever needs to be replaced.

But for reliability It's chain over belt.

 

Yes J I know, I fixed that post a few minutes ago. Of course there is flaws with everything. But I have yet to have any problems with timing chains. And I really have not owned a vehicle yet, that had a timing belt. Minus a '87 Subaru XT. Which I didn't have verry long anyway. But everything else that I have owned, has been with a timing chain.

 

ah, it still said chain when i read it.