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I recently completed a headlight relay upgrade, but I did it differently than the traditional approach. It's a little more complicated, but I think the results were worth the effort. Basically, I used four relays instead of two so that each filament has it's own set of contacts and high currents are not shared on the same set of contacts. While I was at it, I also modified the headlight switch to connect to ground instead of connecting to power. This enabled me to reduce the number of wires needed run to the relay block. Advantages are: Uses the original fuses in the fuse block and does not require additional wires run from the battery. Original fuse block lid printing still accurate. Original fusible link still accurate as well. Independent failure modes. One blown fuse or relay fault won't turn out all the lights at the same time. Each filament has it's own relay minimizing losses in the relay contacts. High beam currents are not shared. Fewest number of wires going to the relay block (six). Disadvantages are: More complicated than the traditional approach. Not plug-n-play. Have to modify headlight switch and jumper around headlight switch under steering column. (Much easier than it sounds!) Have to run additional R/B wire out to one of the headlights. Here's a schematic of how my headlights are now connected: I took some current and voltage readings before and after the upgrade and I'll get them into presentable form and post the numbers. The results were illuminating.

first real road report: drove her to work this morning (16 miles) and i'm pleased to say i'm extremely happy with the carbies!! cold enrichment about 50 degrees this morning, not exactly frosty but definitely cold enough for the efi system to have needed the csv and temp sensor enrichment circuit. half choke, no pedal and she started instantly - actually startled me. revved up to 2000 so i tapped the choke forward a little till the idle was at about 1500 and pulled out of the driveway. interestingly, the choke enrichment does a better job of cold-running than the efi systems ever did. used to be, it would start right up on the csv but run like a dog until the temp gauge started moving. wouldn't rev over 2500, stumbled and stuttered, sounded awful, but i was used to this and just limped the first few blocks until she warmed up. with the chokes engaged, she ran just fine from dead cold - revved fine, ran pretty much completely normal and as she warmed up i just tapped the lever down. idle rock-solid steady at 800 rpm and silky smooth. the efi would hunt a bit, kind of a 100 rpm drift which i could never pin down to a specific condition or fix. performance pretty close to where i was with the efi - i didn't get too crazy on my morning commute, so i'll need to rip around my local test roads to do a better butt-dyno comparison. in normal driving, it's identical to the efi - smooth, no stumbles, burps or farts. when i get the dual-lambda setup in place i'll be able to really check on the needles (using the sm set sent with my zt rebuild kit) fuel economy it just so happens that i had a full tank prior to the swap, so i should be able to check by the end of the week and report back. have to say i'm impressed with these little buggers!

Hey gang, just ordered and now installed a complete set of Precision weatherstrip on a 71 S30 purchased from MSA (the weatherstrip, not the car, sorry...) The door weatherstrip was the big surprise. They seem to have gotten it right finally, the doors close exactly the same as they did with the old stock weatherstrip. No slam, no protruding doors, no drama. Just a decent fit. The bulb size is equivalent to the Kia weather strip, in fact, the precision strip is a U, not a closed circle like the Kia strip, so is more flexible, and more like the stock cross section. Might have to go back to ordering this stuff instead of the KIA part again.

Couldn't resist John! Just a few hundred meters north of the hotel.

If you want to go with an L28ET, I would suggest buying a runner, drive it home and then do the swap. Anything else is truely high risk. All these EFI systems are getting old and you shouldn't compare them to any EFI system today. I wouldn't limit my search to an L28ET with a manual transmission. If you buy an FS5W71C you will have enough parts with the 71B to do the swap. There are some modifications, but there is plenty of forum information to help you through and you can always ask. The 71C is considered by many to be a better transmission than the T5, even the one out of the 300ZX. Mmmm. Why not a 300ZX twin turbo...... Now where thinking out of the box. Chas

great info blue - couple questions (in red) below:

I know that this has been beat to death, but back when I put my car together I replaced the fuel tank sending unit with a new one, and like everyone else the gauge read 3/4 full with fuel all the way up the filler neck. I was replacing my electric fuel pump this weekend, and drained the tank so that I could replace all of the hoses. This gave me an opportunity to pull the sending unit back out and "tweak" it a little. I started by bending the arm slightly, to get the Empty reading a little higher. Then I noticed something strange about the position of the rheostat when the arm was in the Full position (See the picture Rheostat_1) With the arm on the travel limit, the wiper of the rheostat was not at the full travel of the wire wound resistor. Measuring it with an Ohmmeter the reading for Full was 14 Ohms, and empty was 85 Ohms. (Which was full electrical travel.) By bending the travel limit slightly as shown in the picture SendingUnitTravelLimit, I was able to get the wiper all the way to the end of the rheostat. In that position the resistance reading is around 4 Ohms. (Note that I have drawn a rectangle around the Full travel limit for clarity.) When I put everything back together, the gauge now reads E when there is no gas in the tank, and slightly above F when the fuel level is all the way up the filler neck. It isn't very linear in between, but given the shape of the tank, I wouldn't expect that.

Yes, the shifter thread is 8mm. Can't help you on the availability of any extenders though.

That plug doesn't look bad. The ground strap is getting hot and burning off deposits like it should and the center ceramic looks clean even though it has some color. Why don't you describe a typical situation where the idle starts to drop. "Stuck in traffic" doesn't have any detail. Are you driving down the road just fine, then hit a stop light, and the idle drops immediately? Or does it take 5 minutes of slow driving before the idle drops? Does the engine temperature increase as the idle starts to change,or is it steady, and the idle changes just from sitting? Tell a story about driving in to traffic and what happens, with lots of detail. Don't tell what you've done to the engine, just what the engine does from your view, inside.