Oh, and not having EGR will not make your car overheat. It doesn't cool the temp of the air coming into the combustion chamber. It lowers the temp of the combustion itself, and the exhaust coming out. Won't affect cooling at all. Turbos actually thrive on high exhaust temps. They spool faster. That's why they have exhaust and turbo wrap, to keep em hot.

 

Also, the temp gauges in these cars are not always precise.

I would get another temp gauge and test it to see what the water temp really is. I've seen gauges read 20 degrees above or below what the factory gauge indicated.

I noticed this on my '80 Z when I added a thermostat controlled electric fan. My fan would come on when my stock gauge read ~175 F which meant it was really closer to 185 F.

 

nice thank you all for all the info iam going to get a new temp sen.. and see if that fixs the problem... iam still a worry wort and dont like seeing the rize and fall of my temp gau .... if i can find a stock egr tube iam going to rehook it up just to see if it changes anything. but temp sen frist

 

the exost gass in the cylender is inert, meaning that not as much air gets in. lean mixture is what make the engine run so hot. not as much air, not as much heat. nox ocure at 2500 degrees f. and up. This is a simple consept, I don't really understand why it is such a big deal to people. If your county dose emission test why take the damn thing off? By the way not all the 280zx cars have 02 sensors. take my car for example 1980 none cali, and my 1979 non cali. I love californa, I have never been there, but there are a bunch of stupid fruits there when it comes to emissions, and nature. A bunch of try hugin hippies if you ask me. I don't have anything against the emission devices, just the people who make it law.

 

You're right, it's not worth taking it off.
The HP went up in 81, and if I'm not mistaken thats the year they added the O2 sensor. That way they could run the cars leaner and have more control over engine performance. Prior to that, they probably ran a little rich compared to the o2 cars and kept them on the safe side ot tuning for emissions purposes.
Emissions in CA sucks. I can understand controlling things like Nox because it's pretty nasty stuff, but their a little too stringent for my tastes. Cars are the least of our emissions problems in CA. And if they ever decongest the freeways SoCal, maybe cars wouldn't be on the road so long poluting up the air. That should be their focus, not making our hobbies less fun.

But enough preaching, that's just my 2 cents if anyone even cares.

 

The power went up for the 1981 models because of higher compression and better head design. 81-83 have flat top pistons.

 

Well the soul perpose of the egr was to prevent, or should I say lessen the nox. that was what it was designed for, they didn't know about the gass milage thing till later. the egr only opens at cruse levels, or off itle if you like that wording, wich is about 40-65 mph. so you think about it and you see it dosn't realy work that much, unles you cruise alot.

 

Unless the things stuck open, it ain't even worth replacing unless you got an emissions test to pass. And it's definitely not worth removing altogether. Extra work for no gain, sounds like a lose-lose situation if you ask me. Buts thats only if you're asking. And EatmyDust is right, that is the only time the egr works, so it doesn't even affect high performance driving.