Welcome aboard!! Car looks great! I'm near Philly with my 77. Let me know if you're in the area!

That mp4 file is huge.  I'm writing this while I wait for it to download.  Youtube might be better for sharing.

77 is a change year, with the last of the external regulators, and AFM pump contacts, and rear brake design.  Beware, not all 280Z advice will apply.

Non sequitur note to rcb280z - do you realize how big your sig picture is?  It takes up 2/3 of a page.  Just sayin...  I can see it.

Almost downloaded  11 seconds...

That is an odd noise.  The exhaust note sounded great and like all 6 cylinders were balanced and working properly.  But definitely sounded like a mechanical issue.  Could be a rocker arm beating the crap out of a cam lobe, or vice versa, I guess.

18 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

do you realize how big your sig picture is?

Yep, and haven't figured out how to change it. Really don't know why it is that big. Was thinking about just deleting it.

Resized it for you. Merry Christmas!

ok, how? So I know.

Still the same on my side.

Just now, rcb280z said:

ok, how? So I know.

Go to your profile, double click the pic, then change the width & height.

I did it it photoshop. You can drag the small one to your desktop and then upload to your profile.

I'm having no success at it. I'll look at it tomorrow.

Could be head noise or rod noise. Either way take it apart before you start it again to check everything.

Nice 280Z !

Thanks for the welcome, everyone.  I'm looking forward to playing with my new toy.  I spent most of the evening going through the stack of maintenance paperwork.  It goes back to 1990, so I'm guessing the previous, previous owner resurrected it then.  There is plenty of evidence that the previous owner was chasing driveability issues with the injection.  New AFM, new TPS, then $1000 at a mechanic to diagnose it back in 2008 and it still isn't right.  I'm intimidated by it but I'll do my best to dig in.  Great advice on downloading the manuals!  The FI manual is very informative.

All advice on the tick will be taken.  I'll be investigating pronto.  I won't get too carried away because I'm strongly considering a rebuild by Datsun Spirit anyway.

Thanks again.