alright i think i found the awnser to a new problem that got worse recently.

little background, this is on an EARLY '79 it has circulating ball power steering instead of rack and pinion, no O2 but has EGR and then some other odd stuff.

any way lately in the past oh, week and a half. if i am going down the road at about 2000 rpm its like the power cuts for just half a seccond and some times i can feel it in the car slowing down and some times i just see it in the tach but its there, today i checked things over and everything looks good except the rotor in the distributer has alot of play before it hits the vaccum advance or before it stops the other way, and i always thought the module on the side was a bit.....iffy (cant remember the name of it)

any way a few weeks ago i pulled a whole distributer in beautiful condition out of an 84' maxima wagon along with some other very nice condition peices and i was wondering if i could just swap them, i have gone over and checked everything on this distributer and its good to go. the only thing that concerns me is the module on the side.

can i use this distributer with out swapping the box on the side?
the 84 has the bladed (male) T connector on the top, same as my 79 but it has an extra one on the side that looks like the injector connector.

i was wondering if i could run it in my 79 with out connecting that extra plug on the side because well, i dont have that connector on my car.

 

So you're saying you have the Maxima one in your possession? Why are we dilly-dallying around here? Plop it on & see if it works...

 

that extra connector is also found on 82-83 Z's. you can use it. you just can't use a 1 plug(two prong) on a 82-83(if i'm not mistakin.)

 

I did the same exact thing! I ran a 1984 Maxima dizzy in my 1982 Z for a long time. I never saw any differences though.

On a side note, my '83 turbo Z did just what you mentioned today. I was driving up a hill and suddenly the engine went dead! Fan, lights, and radio were still on... then I tapped the throttle and the engine came back to life. its like it suddenly lost spark. Of course, a turbo Z has a much different distributor.

On my car it was more than a half second. I was still in 3rd gear, should be about 2400rpm and the tach dropped to zero. Since the engine was still spinning this would tell me... the coil lost power?

 

I had this EXACT problem this weekend. I am waiting for my distributor to arrive right now.

Innitially i would have the hesistations that you mentioned while driving. But then it started getting worse... all of a sudden this past weekend the car would randomly stall at idle. After inspecting it for a while i noticed that you could hear a grinding sound comming from the dizzy right before the car stalls. I checked out the dizzy and sure enough there was TONS of play in the shaft.

Let us know if the maxima distributor works out for you.

 

grinding huh?

like a rocks crushing grinding or a grinding that more like a whirr of a gear box with out any gear oil in it?
the reason i ask is because i noticed theres a whirr like gears that i can hear now that i have replaced all my noisy belts with but when i open the hood i cant pin point when i open the hood but i hear it really well while i am driving now, almost as if the car body filters out the rest of the noise but the noise i am hearing is making it through.

its only to the revs of the engine, if i push the clutch in and rev or coast i get the noise to get louder or softer so its in the engine bay and not a gear box.

i'm swapping it this weekend, i popped the cap off and the rotor shaft has a lot of sideways play and also alot of twisting play before it hits the vaccum advance and the other side.

i have to drill out the bolt that was emlers glued on for the distributer so i can tighten it down, thats why this weekend. if the maxima distrib is a drop in then the only thing thats gonna be shitty is this bolt.

it was origonally a 10mm bolt right?

 

it sounded like gears grinding. It was from the reluctor and stator actually making contact.

I got my new distributor and pulled the old one. Night and day difference between the two. My old distributor had about 1-2mm of play side to side, to the point where the stator and reluctor contact. Also it was very difficult to turn. The new distributor has zero play side to side and it turns effortlessly. The ignition modules were different so i swapped them, hopefully my old one was still ok. I am going to put it in this afternoon and see how it works. Would be in by now, but I had a set back... one of the nipples on the boot between the AFM and Throttle body broke off I am going to use silicone gasket maker to try and glue it back on and pray that it holds.

Question: the vacuum advance on my old distributor was completely destroyed, i tried to pull a vacuum on it and there was no resistance at all. The new distributor is better, however it still has a small leak. I plan on pulgging it and not using it. Will not having the vacuum advance hooked up affect what the timing should be at idle? 8 degrees?

 

When you run the later two connector distributor with the E12-92 module on an early car, you should hook up a timing light because it should retard your timing a bit.

Think of that extra connector as the nissan version of ford's spout connector in which the ecu is able to affect timing advance through this connector.

Like the ford spout connector, you should fall back to base timing when it doesn't see the ecu's modified signal.

If that is the case, you might want to loosen the two bolts on the underside of the distributor that allow for more radical adjustment of timing.

 

well i have been busy a while but the distributer didnt help my problem at all, better spart and over all running condition but i am still having the problem where the power will cut for a split seccond.

while i was gone i had to get my girlfriend and i across town in a hurry so i hoped on the I-5 south and cruising at about 70Mph at about 3100-3200Rpm it would happen at random, the tach would twitch down a little bit and you could hear the car bump and cause you to lean foreward a tiny bit like it was slowing down durring that split seccond.

i am confused.

its got the '84 distributer, i put a coil in it a while ago, plugs were good last time i checked em out but i'll check again and see, oils fine.

some one told me that it could possible be the canister behind the passenger headlight, said it could also be the reason that when i drive for a while shut the car off, and come out a few minutes later the car doesent run on all cylinders for a couple of secconds like partial vapor lock.

something about it not venting back to the gas tank when the gas gets hot in the hard lines

 

Unless it's 100F+ outside and have a blanket over the hood, I really doubt it's vapor lock. Fuel injected cars don't have a big issue w/ vapor lock due to higher fuel pressure. It's the old school carb'd motors that had the issue.

I suggest looking for wiring issues, double checking the TPS, AFM, coil & ignitor, timing, dizzy & rotor, etc.

 

They do if you live up north because they formulate "winter gas" to have a much lower vapor pressure for easy light off at low temps.

 

no its only after i shut the car off and come back a few minute and start it up again.
the heat is rising up into that fuel maze causing that fuel to heat up because its not going any where and if for some reason its unable to vent its going to vaporize in the lines and its hard to move that vapor when i try and start it up again, it makes sence

this is true "oxygenated gasoline" or small ammounts of alchol of some sorts, makes for some pretty shitty milage some times

any way its about, ohh.... 6:45 am and i got NO sleep last night so i am gonna go work on this ****.

AFM Coil Igniter Cap Rotor timing are all fine, i'm gonna check injector connectors (if you look at some the wrong way they stop workin) mabe dump some soda into the connectors to get rid of corrosion and bend the metal inwards a little bit to make a better connection to the injector it self and tps, check into the canister vent to see if all is well on that

probally check resistance on the injectors while i am at it, i have 5 nice new ones ready to rock some of mine are alot louder than others.

you can check resistance with out pwer applied right?

 

ooook i am stumped now. injector connectors are fine

TPS is fine, TPS isnt Throttle Position Sensor, it Throttle Position Switch.

the top popped off and its guts are exactly like that of a 300z or maxima or the like with the 3 pin.
round thing that fits over the stem on the throttle body turns while 3 tabs hang down inside and the middle tab has an extension and moves in this slot in the round thing that has a groove in it, the only time it touches another connector is at no throttle or full throttle.

i did find a vaccum leak, one line fell down by the exhaust and melted but this happened before i changed the distrib and this is one of the lines that tap off of vaccum that is on the way to the advance, i remember having to re hook it up.

it only does it when warm

water temp sensor mabe (CHTS Equalivant)?

 

oook i am getting pissed at this:
i changed the water temp sensor finally, checked injector connectors and replaced the fuel filter and all is fine.

it cuts out when its cold or warm i have figured out, does it at random, could do it a few times in a row, once, or go whole days with out doing it.

i'm thinkin it might be the fuel pump or regulator, thats all thats left

unless some one else has some ideas.

i really want to fix this before next weekend because i am moving (via train) to washington with out my car and i am going to come down and get it some time in the near future, it would be a much nicer and better traffic avoider/mover than the 500,000mi toyota camry wagon i am going to be driving in the seattle area but i need new tires like a bitch.

 

i realize this is an old post but i am having the same problem. Did you have any luck later on?

 

I'm having a similar problem where EVERYTHING dies - I suspect it's the fuseable link which I rebuilt and started installing in July but the car is up at my parent's place and I can't even begin to list the other projects I've got going on that has prevented me from doing this lol. Hopefully I can get to it soon. It's time to move some cars over there for storage for the winter.... so make sure it's not a bad power connection as well...