I could not find this exact issue through search, so i hope i dont make anyone mad with this post.

Alright, so i have a 1976 280z, i have done the 280zx alternator upgrade, it has a msd 2 blaster coil, new cap and rotor, and a brand new starter. Now before it was not starting easy at all.. would take a hour or 2 of trying to get it to go. Now it starts alot easier.. but still not every time. When i finally do get it to start it revs between 800-1200rpm before finally setteling down at 1000rpm. When i rev it it does really good up to about 3500rpm and then it revs down and starts reving back up.. kinda like it is shifting but its not(it's a 4 speed). Also sometimes if i go to give it gas it just stalls out. It also stalls out sometimes right after starting up. Whats wrong with her? Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

what have you checked so far?

do you have a shop manual or FSM?

 

It can be so many things, here in this site they are many mebers with knowlege. I usually just read their answers and learn from them. I am not a mechanic, but check your boot between air flow meter and T body, ground wires, module if it has one. ECU make sure is connected well, mine was not and I can not tell you how happy I was when I found out that it was that simple. Some members will answer this post and will help you out.

 

I just replaced my boots between the intake and the air flow meter and the airflow meter to the throttle body, they had holes in them. changing out the battery cables and spark plugs tommorow and checking ecu connections.. if i am still having isssues i will let you guys no, thanks for all the help.

 

while your at it make sure all your vac lines are new and un cracked, it dosent like vac leaks so much

 

Ok, so i changed out the battery cables,(blasted things did not have the right connectors for the two small red wires had to just MacGyver it). Car started a little bit easier but was still having issues. Then changed out the spark plugs and oh wow...they where black black black... one had 2 small spots of oil on it. Car started up a bit better ... still not starting up everytime. Checked the plugs to the ECU, they where fine.. checked the vac lines.. they seemed fine. What else could it be? Maybe the ignition module?

 

Is there anything else i can check? The temp gauge in car does not work but the oil pressure does, could this be caused by a faulty thermostat?

 

Not going to get into an argument on this one, but I've made more cars fast by taking MSD stuff off than I've ever seen improve by putting it on. Far as I'm concerned, MSD stands for MIGHT SUDDENLY DIE.

 

hmm.. good to no have not heared that before... is there any suggestions you can make incase the coil goes?

 

yea, replace it with a STOCK one.

 

lol, thats the funniest worse advice i have ever heard. (i can agree with the blaster 2 coil being a pos though)

seriously though, i would go through all your electrical connection and clean them up and use a little dielectric grease on them, then i would start checking sensors, it sounds like (obviously) your running rich.

 

It was running really rich before...like you could smell it, but it does not seem to run to rich anymore. Has anyone tried that hard start cure that is for sale on ebay? Is it any good?

 

Check to make sure you have a thermostat in it. In the same housing there are two sensors, one is the temp sensor and the other is the thermotime sensor. If it is bad the ecu will assume the engine is stone cold and open the cold start injector causing a rich mixture constantly. You need to download the FSM and buy a multitestor. These are the most escential tools for the efi Z cars. The FSM shows how and what to check step by step.

 

Yeah, I'll give you an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is....

 

if MSD, accel..etc parts are worse then stock, then why do they make so much money, if they suck so much then why does virtually every race car or any car thats making a decent amount of power run there products? better yet, tell these guys that MSD produccts are a waste of money, they have been racing longer then Ive been alive, you dont even have to post your real name.

http://members3.boardhost.com/whinec...tml?1232148963

 

Well, first making money has nothing to do with making a quality product, all protests about market intelligence dismissed. Bernard Madoff has done a nice job of illustrating how far greed, self centered thieving bastards, and greed can go. I suspect he's been at longer than either of us have been alive, and at one time could have traded MSD and Accell in a poker game, he made more than either of them I'd bet. Now he'll spend the rest of his life in jail, to bad there's not much left. Thing is, getting caught is the exception, not the rule.
I'm not saying that ALL of their products don't have some worth, they do some things not available elsewhere. But their failure rate is EXTREMELY high, in fact they've been caught pedaling crap they knew was faulty for over a year before being forced to admit it.
Far as "virtually every race car or any car thats making a decent amount of power run there products?" goes, I don't follow all the races all that close, but I do know that the Nascar guys run 2 msd ign units wired in parallel because the stupid crap can't be depended on for 500 miles. Think about that, they weigh 3~4#,( I KNOW, I HAVE ONE) and cost money, and ya can hear igns crap out on tv every now and then. MSD's own instructions show how to wire 2 together, that ought to tell ya something. Those guys replace both units every race too. I don't know what you think is power(it sure as hell AIN'T 3?? rwhp) but I doubt like hell f1 cars run that junk,(1000/hp/litre at one point, all without your precious crap) and I've never seen it on any nitro burners either. I think if you pull your head out(as you would say) and look around some at the rest of the world, you'll find damn little of that crap running at Nurburgring(where americans usually get their asses handed to them)
Let's get real, we now have coil on plug systems laying around in junk yards for next to nothing. In a v8, that system, barring glaring cheap crap, should be 8x as good as your beloved chevy, simply because it has that much more time to saturate. I think you'll agree that there are, were single coils that would work in distributor a small block to 8k. A cop system at 8k is running about as fast at 8k as your chevy is at 1k. So, tell me, just exactly why is it I should have to spend money on over glamorized cheap failure prone crap??
I'll bet you that if there was a federal law that said AFTERMARKET emissions system parts had to be guaranteed, parts and labor, for 8yrs, 80k, like factory stuff, you'd see some FAST changes in that industry. Bet they'd spend lots of money trying to defeat it in congress too.

 

alrighty... completly unrealted to the argument brewing here... could someone tell me what sort of coolant to use in the 280z
?

 

I think any high quality coolant is okay, read the label.

BTW If I had a $3M budjet for a race car I would certainly have the best ingnition available. The reason for a backup system is for redundantcy considering what's at stake. 4 hours of 8k rpm will max any system to death. A 5 second run at 10k rpm is a different demand. I was at Hot August Nights last week and MSD/Accel was the norm.

 

Alrighty... a quick oil and coolant change on saturday. change out the thermostat while i am at it and hopefully most issues will dissapear.. next step is to find out whats wrong with the stupid signals

 

will 10w-40 work in the car? or is it to thick?

 

alrighty... anyone no the part number at napa or something for a termo time switch or what other name it can go by?

 

It's called a thermotime switch and they will get it for you. If your engine is original you can run 20-40 in the summer. I've heard that synthetics have a tendency to leak by the old seals, probably because of the lighter weights.

 

blast...the guy at napa had no idea what it was and could not find it

 

Well he's a numb skull. Here is a link to Black Dragon-http://www.blackdragonauto.com/icatalog/z/full.aspx?Page=81
It's Thermo Time switch item 12 =$90. Maybe you should do the ohm test in the FSM before you buy one!

 

Or MSA for $73.... http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/11-3460

Or JC Whitney for $60... http://www.jcwhitney.com/BOSCH-THERM...2049_10101.jcw