I recently came into a non-driving 81 280zx, body is nice except for the hatch, motor and transmission are working, the only problem was the fuel injectors ECU, on my 80 the fuel injectors themselves are bad, all 6 were sent to be rebuilt, but 3 came back still not functioning properly.
So I am just wondering if anyone knows these 2 years enough to tell me if there would be a problem with swapping the 80's FI ECU is doable?

Also, the clutch on my 80 went out, it was stock, and the clutch on the 81 is supposed to be new or at least after market, I wanted to drop the transmission out of the 81 and put it on my 80 with the new clutch, but I was advised not to separate the tranny from the engine because both have royal purple and it would be a waste, and that I should swap the motor AND tranny into my 80.
I am not sure about that idea only because I want to get my 80 on the road soon since I need the car for school.

What do you all think?

 

royal purple is just oil albeit a very good one. Are you confusing the fuel injectors with the Electronic Control Unit? the ECU drives the fuel injectors according to the data it gets from a few sensors. the clutch doesn't come out with the tranny it is bolted to the engine flywheel. How do you know three injectors are bad? if they really are then use injectors that are good. Look at the schematic in the fsm to determine if they are using dropping resistors with your setup. I forget the years but the earlier cars did use dropping resistors. You need to explain what you want to do better to get better info.

 

One thing I can tell you, is that '80 & '81 EFI's are different. Because the '80 didn't have an o2 sensor, and the '81 did. That could cause a problem to start. But do try to give us more information on what you are trying to do. And we'll help the best we can. Good luck.

 

Well I want to take out swap the 81 tranny into the 80.
I had heard something about the o2 sensor in passing a while back and couldn't turn anything up under a search, probably my fault, but what exactly is that problem I'll encounter there and whats the usual solution??

also, I'm not sure about the problem on the 81, thats just what I was told, "fuel injector ECU", maybe he meant ECU or the Fuel Injector connectors, I was showed an ebay listing of the item priced at 80 dollars or so, but I couldnt find that again either.

I know the fuel injectors are bad cause when I first got the car It had water and sediment in the tank, so i took it out and cleaned it, flushed the fuel delivery system as best I could, took the 6 fuel injectors to a shop and had them cleaned, my friends dad was told by the man there that 3 might be bad, so we more or less had that confirmed.
We changed some fuel lines and the fuel filter plus I've been running FI cleaner as often as I can every fill up and I've just been waiting for the car to run again so I can save for some new or better ones.

I plan to try to drop the the trannys off both of them by today at least, if not get them swapped.