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Trans is definitely whiny - but it does have 250K on it. I only have to deal with it for a year or so, after that I'm doing a 350Z drivetrain conversion with the 6 speed. Should be all good after that.

This product 3M tape eliminates the need to use the barrel clips. The barrel clips can chip the paint and cause rust. Keith

Very cool! Just ordered one

The trim panel is not going to do you any good unless you seal the metal opening behind it as the piece won't be airtight even when bolted down. Get a bunch of duct or painters tape and seal that opening in the hatch then poke holes in the tape where the trim screws are going to go - that's the only way to be sure its air-tight.

From Hallmark for 2023.

The motor feels strong as it is. One reason I changed the TPS WOT setting was I could see the AFR's get really fat just revving the motor in the driveway. After driving around & coming to work today, about 20min local & highway- the enrichment values seem pretty good under load. I reduced the ECT resistance value a touch as the cruise AFR was a touch rich. Now I have the wideband I do see that the system goes kinda rich right off idle before it levels out, but my old Volvo does much the same. I think I should just put in the 250A breaker, as the first couple revolutions hot cranking with the 125A seemed slightly sluggish before it blew, and less so with the 175a, so perhaps the initial starter draw is high enough to strain the lower amp breaker, and actually induce the slow crank, I dunno. It just seems to crank better now than yesterday. (EDIT - excessive draw was due to faulty rebuilt starter, replaced) I do still need to redo the compression test, as the one I did back in the Spring prior to any valve adjustments had one cylinder well over 10% deviation - 140ish vs. 165 range on the others. Valves were very tight on that one. Overall engine feels pretty darn smooth now it doesn't have a lean condition, for sure.

Yep, my compression numbers were good but oil rings were bad. Fouled plugs and lots of smoke. You have to know that ignition is good and carbs arent too rich. Does it smoke?

If you're worried about the contact, you could remove the heat shrink and stock terminals, and crimp the new terminals like these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314175912098 on with heat shrink. I have to admit that I haven't been following the rest of this thread much. There are too many rabbit holes. For hot restart, look at what can be affected by heat: Fuel rail. Test by parking with the hood open. If the problem goes away, then you could be boiling your fuel. I would install a fuel pressure gauge to verify. If the fuel pressure goes down (FPR leaking down), the chances of boiling the fuel goes up. TIU. Test by having a can of dusting air. If the problem happens, hold the can upside down and spray the TIU. If the problem resolves, replace the TIU. This also applies to the matchbox if you have done the 280ZX distributor swap. ECU. I think I saw someone suggested percussive maintenance. If the problem goes away after you rap on the ECU a couple of times, replace the ECU. I am not sure what you mean about not being able to rev about 20%. If the car won't take load, that's usually a fuel problem. (I looked back on the thread, if the car can't maintain speed, it's likely a fuel problem.) It can be a spark problem if you have a weak spark on 1 or more cylinders. A friend couldn't figure out why his 240Z wouldn't go above 3000 RPM under load. He didn't have an obvious misfire problem, either. He's a very good Z wrench, but he was too close to the problem so he couldn't see the forest for the trees. I started working from the coil down to the plugs. Once I got to the distributor, I pulled off each plug wire, one by one. On #2, the plug wire was not fully seated into the cap, though the insulating boot was firmly over the cap. I got the wire seated against the metal, and the problem went away. Without load, the weak spark wasn't manifesting itself. However, under load, the weak spark from the extra gap caused poor combustion in #2, and the car was running on 5 cylinders. I have a short form video on Youtube at myZcarlife about that.

I've referenced the modern tires that I could find for offroad rally use on the link below. Hope this is of some help. There are very few options out there, from what I've been able to find.

My car has no adhesive whatsoever. The OEM hardware works just fine.

I looked around a little bit and it seems like the manufacturers generally went to computer control of a simple fuel pump relay instead of integrating the timer. But it is a hot topic, so of course, people have filled the need. https://www.ebay.com/itm/174274213748?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=NmzUBVTDRzy&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=bBzFtXzvTQO&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY This on Amazon, below. The words in search should find it. I don't like to copy their links they seem full of extra stuff. Could probably be made to work.

I got one too. My wife and kids saw it at Hallmark and bought it for me.

I think I'll break out the FSM and go over it, I know I remember seeing the page for testing the ECU pinouts with a multi meter, I just have to find it again. Edit: Yeah, I did read that the ECU's are the same and the extra pins aren't connected to anything. Much appreciated! I do remember coming across that thread and I think someone suggested they were all compatible, but I was skeptical because the earlier ones I believe distinctly lack pins on the ecu side plugs itself.

I've always had the best search results by typing simple keywords and ending with classiczcars.com. If it's something I remember reading from a member I put their name next to last then classiczcars.com. Most of the time I hit IMAGES and go from what I've seen in threads. Our forum is fantastic but searching within the database is lacking for sure. I'm about to start using duckduckgo.com. Google has gone to the dark side where the money is, assholes. Maybe I'll use Ask Jeeves on AOL. Sorry for the detour.

The forum's search engine is terrible, if you've been trying to find things using it. Go straight to Google to get better results. I know that Fastwoman had discussed it in the past. It's not hands-free but it's close. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aclassiczcars.com+fastwoman+momentary+fuel+pump

This surprises me. When we do smoke testing at work, we seal it up tight. We cut cardboard to fit the driver's door window and that gets taped on tight. The inside guy then climbs into the trunk/hatch area with a flashlight and a 2-way radio so he can direct the smoke machine guy to all the possible leak paths. In our case, we are dealing with very small leaks, so it takes a bit of time to make sure everything is sealed tight. Even brand new cars with modern sealing will still leak around tail light gaskets, trim holes, and wiring grommets. I can only imagine how bad the average 45 - 50 year old car leaks.

There is one on the ZCCA page but all it is, is me opening the door and having smoke pour out. It really is as simple as throwing the machine in the back of the car with all the windows up/hatch down and waiting. I didn't dangled the cord out of the window and rolled it all the way up, then sealed the rest of the area (maybe an inch) with painters tape. Sucking smoke in from inside the car arguably works better. I had someone hold the fog machine near the hatch, and placed the shop vac hose in the trunk area and squeezed my way back there as well with the vac on. You do not need to seal the car, just having the vacuum on is good enough (my doors and windows were open for example). I hope that helps!

I ran into this problem of the engine hitting a wall. I was on the freeway when the car slowed to 45 mph, Wouldn't go any faster regardless of which gear it was in. It would free rev to 6000 with no load. It turned out to be a partially plugged fuel filter. The fuel pressure (mechanical pump) was fine but the fuel volume was restricted. Have you tried a fuel volume test along with the pressure test?

As your engine is such a mistery i would do a cold and then a hot compression test on it .. you may see some strange differences? Also.. just a thought! 🙂

I installed a leather steering wheel cover today. It was $15.99 on Amazon and it looks great. My Z had one of those terrible 1970's foam/vinyl wheel wraps. I left it in place to add a bit of thickness and put the leather cover over top. Ideally, I would have removed the old wrap and added foam padding to get the thickness I wanted, but then it would have been much harder to get the correct leather size. I removed the wheel and used a baseball stitch. It took a few hours to stitch it on and I'm happy with the results. The old wrap prints through a bit in the photo, but it's barely visible in person and it actually gives the wheel a bit more grip in the hands. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0989MRSDV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I bought a M3 size and it was perfect with the foam wrap under the leather. I'd guess the M2 would fit a stock 280Z wheel.

Did a number of things today. Replaced the ECT with a new Beck Arnley 158-0134 sensor. With that, (ambient temp 50ºF) it started well (after the initial delay with priming), and during warmup. AFR's stayed nice & fat, which was not the case with the old ECT. Once it got closer to normal operating temp, the AFR"s went lean again (16's). So, I put in the 1.1K ohm resistor in series with the ECT. With that, warm AFR's are to rich (13.4-13.7) - so I don't even need 1.1K resistance added to the ECT circuit Pushing very slightly on the AFM lever fattened it up a touch, and smoothed the idle quality So, I lessened the wheel tension by 1 tooth Also adjusted the WOT enrichment TPS settings - the factory position brings it on around 30º opening, so I moved it to closer to 50º Stock adjusted Reset (lowered) the base idle closer to 800rpm, with those changes the AFR was sitting around 14.2 So, I installed the 2.2K potentiometer, wired the 1.1K as well, but decided the 2.2K would give me more range. Since 1.1K puts AFR's at idle around 14.2, I need somewhat under 1K to get the AFR's in the 14.7-14.9 range at idle. Bolts to the left dash frame support Used a 2pole HD090 series connector to join the pot to the ECU. Removed #13 wire from the ECU connector, now that goes into the pot, pot output goes to pin13. Set dial on POT so that 1K ohm is with #1 at 6 o'clock where I can see it Full value (2.2K) puts dial @ just over 5. Unlikely I will ever need to use that end of the scale. Connector tucked up above ECU Warm engine, setting dial to 0 brings AFR's to 14.7-14.9. I'll see how it starts & warms up with that setting tomorrow after work. Still can't drive it to see how it performs on the highway cruising, due to the blown out clutch slave.

Oh well.. remanufactured and REMANufactured.. there are a lot of differences.. I can't tell from that pic if it's any good.. missing a lot of parts.. sigh.. About the video.. can't tell as i never seen those testers at work.. (Never had a ignition problem ... i wonder why? )

I agree it doesn't seem to be oil fouled. I still think it's ignition related. I would replace the whole ignition. Even if just to diagnose. A leakdown test would be good too, because it would tend to rule out a compression or valve sealing issue

I don't know of any way to definitively determine the health of the oil rings without disassembly

After knowing you have good compression, I would be looking at ignition. I know you dont want to go there, but this simple tool may give some insight as to the offending cylinder. https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-20610-Inline-Spark-Tester/dp/B0002STSC6?th=1

Oh well that's your good right but tell me have you ever then tested another ignition system on your engine? (sorry if you have i didn't read the whole text as i'm tired.. and to lazy haha) Now you don't/can't know if it's any good... Do i need to tell the story of the guy with the Mercedes block allover again, he was also convinced it was a good block.... NEVER EVER go out that some parts are okay because you bought them new.. they can't be a piece of S**T.. The most important thing in finding a mall function is to check everything. And never asume something shoud be good because it was a new part. (Lesson i learned not long ago.. Few years ago i installed a new clutch slave cylinder.. on my 280zx.. And a week later i tried to use it as i needed to switch the direction of the car on my lift.. the clutch worked no longer! (There was a puddle of oil under the car! There was a crack in the slavecylinder!! Then i took the old box out of the "round archive" (wastebin 😉 ) and saw on the box: made in Italy.. I already had a giant dislike to italy parts and stuff but now i really hated them.. Makers of JUNK! )