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To say it mildly.... i'm not a fan.. I still have the orig. points and renew them every 20000 km (last time was even more) and my engine does not want to stop rev'ing.. i'm always surprised how easy it go's into the red.. (1971 240z orig.engine no revision yet!)

Is there a "Z sighting" thread? Not sure.

The GM HEI is a cheap reliable option. I've not heard much negative feedback about reliability. But before you consider my opinion, know that I still like points and a condenser. I like mechanical things.

This thread has made me rethink my engine restoration. I have old Nikki and Ampco fuel pumps. I believe both are the originals to 240s. After reading a bunch of threads I decided to order a NOS Nikki that according to others has all the same internals as the one for the 240. I will attempt to rebuild one of my old originals and do away with the made in china knock off.

I’ve been on a bit of a roll lately working on the car. It feels really good to actually be making some progress. 2/3 more days and the car will be ready for the blaster. today I wrapped up the bracing. I added reinforcements to the rocker panel and tied that into the main brace, then tied the roof corners to the main brace. It might be overkill but I already paid for the steel a long time ago so figured I might as well use it…. the blaster is gonna hate me though… i hope he’s a skinny fellow… also had a bit of extra time so started unpicking the dodgy bros repairs on the rear slam panel. Mmmm crunchy….

It might be handy to have a few of these on hand in case you need a fuse and don't have the correct glass fuse on hand. It will also be handy to use with a fuse buddy to track down issues with popping fuses. https://www.thingsnotable.com/

My project combining one complete rust bucket with one no rust, but missing stuff 78 Z isn’t running yet, but in both the OE electronic ignition were making a strong spark. Tested it by powering up the system and spinning the distributor. Their idea of putting the control box in the cabin make have been a good one. For now I’m going w the OE and time will tell if I made a good choice. I grew up with 60’s vehicles when break point ignitions and carburetors were the standard and both are not without their problems. It almost seemed like a miracle to me when I bought my new 76 Z with it’s ‘advanced’ systems.

I communicated your concern with the manufacture. Note that I have no relationship financially or otherwise with him. He said that he would get back to me with a price break for club members. I'll post the details at that time.

Great responses gents, thanks, ZedHead and Captain Obvious regarding GM HEI. Yes, I agree the placement of the HEI under the distributor cap was a bad location causing premature heat failures. Heating and cooling of electrical components over time isn’t good nor the constant vibration. I know people,have successfully put these in. There are so many manufacturers of these. Unfortunately, you never know what you’re getting anymore. So many companies rush off to China to save money and end up with inferior products. The problem is you can never tell what you are getting. Even the Delphi ones are probably made there in the same couple factories. Go on Amazon and look at the review for these GM HEI modules….they are not good. ZedHead, I did some research and you’re correct. MSD was bought out and now has moved its production from El Paso to China. Many unhappy customers with the later Chinese models. Same reasons stated above. It’s hit or miss it appears. I can go on a long rant about what Chinese production has done to America. The bottom line overseas production has benefited companies balance sheet while killing US jobs and undermining our national security. I resist to say more. So after some research I’m considering another option. Pertronix has a product called the Digital HP module. Saw only one short thread on here from 2017. Again, I’m not trying to get power increase. I’m looking for reliability. ZedHead commented on the 2017 thread but the price had just hit the market and there was little to no feedback from car owners. After 5 more years the reviews are good. This product is made in the US, had good reviews and wires up exactly like the MSD at almost 1/2 the MSD cost. Amazon sells it and had free returns. I might test it and report back my findings. 95% 5 star reviews on both Amazon, Jegs and Summit. Haven’t read a bad review yet online, Right now I can’t confidently drive the car any distance from my house and while it’s running fine now if I drove 25 miles from home and I had another failure again i won’t be happy and it would be a major inconvenience . If the car is not reliable then it defeats the purpose of what I’ve done to this point. I’m willing to be the 280z Guinea Pig. If it’s not good I’ll return it.

Just before 2000 i put in a new pair of contacts and capacitor and.. last year after about 25-30000 km i renewed the contacts just because it was time, they still worked and looked good.. I like that very much, a lot more than all that stupid electronic $^!# that you find in today's cars hahaha.. I still have to put my 280zx engine back.. and if i have any trouble with the electric stuff.. then i throw it all out.. put some carbs in it and a 240z ignition, it's much more reliable then that '80's ignition stuff!

Yup, my dyslexia was showing - got that backwards. Good thing I don't have SU's! I left carbs behind in 1981 and you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to go back to them... Or EMP me I guess...

Yeah I set mine like the DVD from ztherapy shows, however the DVD uses Grose valves which are much stiffer than the new needle pin valves they sold me. I turned the lids upside down to get the 9/16" space the DVD shows. My tangs looked like the ramps Evel Knievel used to jump the Bellagio fountains. I finally got wise/bored and put the floats and lids on top of a glass, hooked up a low psi fuel pump and set them to 23mm down. Then the tangs look like speed bumps instead of ramps now. I believe it was the fountains at Caesars now that i think about it. I's just a puppy when I saw that.

Do you have a caliper that you can use to measure the outside diameter of the threads on your damaged nut? That would be the easiest way to talk about them. Length is confusing. Thread diameter is not. And about your gland nut wrench... Not long ago, I did exactly that and had a peototype wrench head laser cut for the KYB nuts and I have the CAD file I created if you're interested. Mine was just a test part cut out of thinner material (too thin to be really usable), but the outline fit great.

I don’t think so, I believe they are the original floors, the line you see is the line where the sound deadening finished

no one has seen the car in person and how damn rusty she is. I’m removing a lot of the main panels that provide structural rigidity to the body before I send it to the blaster, so I don’t see it as unnecessary, I see it as insurance. Cheap insurance. No one can say what the strength is of the chassis currently and that the rear quarter panel will remove 5% rigidity to the RHS. No one really knows. So if I waste some 25mm SHS and a couple of days so be it. im not very optimistic about what will come back from the blaster…

I concur that's a long time not to talk.. back on topic, I recently had a shop local to me use a similar machine to the above to set timing on my 240z (E12-80) Hitachi Distributor. They have told me to set 16 degrees of initial timing when I install. And it will have another 16 degrees in mechanical advance. No vacuum. Since I'm running Triple Mikuni 44s. The car has an L28 (E88 head from 71/72 with bigger valves), port work and 10:1 comp ratio (or just abouts). I was having issues with it pinging and advance going all the way out to close to 40 degrees with the current distributor that was recurved many years ago (at a guess by a friend at the time). I haven't tested the new distributor yet, but I'm told it shouldn't 'knock'. We shall see. I also had another distributor rebuilt at the same time for my 71 auto 240z (another Hitachi E12-80 distributor) but we had the vacuum advance kept for the twin SUs + stock L24 engine. It is also set with 16 degree initial but a mix of vacuum and mechanical advance, think that's set for a total of 30 degrees from memory. Again haven't tested it yet, car is still on points distributor and I toyed with keeping it original, but good chance that distributor is worn out and I hate cold starts with points.