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Thank you @grannyknot, very kind of you to say. At the age of 15 and 8 months old, I got my first car, a Datsun 510 4 door. My dad chipped in $500, which was the amount that he had given my brother for his first car a few years prior. That $500, plus every dime I had ever saved came to about the car's purchase price of $1200. As a single mother, my mom worked two jobs to pay for what was needed and little else. Needless to say, we were not a rich family. My dad convinced me to take it to the shop that worked on his car to go through it and "do everything it needed". That cost another $264, and my dad started to record what I owed him in a little black ledger. A couple months later, one of the rear wheel cylinders developed a leak. That cost another $100 to fix at the same shop. With each additional repair, it became obvious to me that I was going to either have to learn how to do some things myself, or I would just keep incurring a larger amount of debt with my dad. So, I asked for a Haynes manual for Christmas (1985). With that, my learning how to work on cars began. When I was in my early 20's, I partially restored/modified the 240z that I now refer to as my track car. I experienced a lot of firsts restoring that car. And I drove it for a lot of miles. Over many years, I upgraded and reworked several areas that I had previously given attention. For this 240z, my goal was (and is) to apply to a complete restoration... all I have learned from my prior experiences of working on my first 510, "restoring" and modifying my "track" 240Z, and repairing a few wrecked Honda S2000's. And, in addition to a full restoration, I would like it to be to a level that makes this car worthy of consideration by those who would know, those who are experienced with rebuilding and restoring cars... that this is "one of the nicest" 240Zs around.

Dave takes his first drive,

My 71 speedo was always steady. I'd check the speedo cable and sheath for defects. The flexing of the sheath when going over bumps may be related.

I figured there was a good chance the tach would work. I learned about disconnecting the TIU a long time ago from reading about the ZX distributor swaps. It's common knowledge with us old farts who have been on this board forever. I actually had that come up about 10 years or so ago. A friend did the ZX distributor swap on another guy's car, and it ran like crap. He brought the car over to my place, and one of my first questions was about the TIU. He quickly disconnected it, and the problem was gone. I don't know how you have the CAS signal wired to the MS or what you did with the wires that the old distributor connected to, but somehow the TIU was getting a signal to ground out. That was what was messing you up. The tach doesn't really care too much about what device is grounding the coil negative to fire the plugs. It's basically just looking for that pulse.

I’m not 100% certain all of these relays are good (still testing), but I cleaned up the best looking pieces from my pile assembled them today. 🤞🏻

Possibly but it could also be a frayed cable that catches on the inside of the sheath when it flexes. I'd remove the sheath and inner cable from the car. pull the cable, clean everything, lube, and reassemble if there's no damage.

You could also check were the cable attaches to the transmission.

Just as a follow up, I removed all of the wires going to the TIU and hooked up the tach and all is working. I know that it is pretty hard for an aftermarket FI manufacturer to include every bit of info in their instruction manual but somewhere at their tech line info center there should be a note that the TIU should be completely disconnected when switching to the turbo distributor.

I had a similar problem with mine. It was the fuel pump relay portion of the combined EFI/pump relay. I posted about it long ago and posted a picture too. The solenoid coil looked cooked, I took it apart. It was actually a "spare" that had come with the car, that I had put back in to test. I guess that's why it was out. I was able to get home because I had already installed a relay bypass and power control switch under the dash. Because I didn't trust the old electrical stuff.

If air is flowing through the AFM, the flap is open. If the engine dies, the flap closes, and the car kills the power to the fuel pump. Are you sure the tank is clean. I have read about people having rust in the tank, and a flake blocks the outlet. The car dies and the flake falls down. The car starts, but when the tank is stirred up, the cycle repeats.

I've now listed mine on Hemmings Auctions. Be gentle. https://www.hemmings.com/auction/1973-datsun-240z-bains-la-602827

Just in awe of the detail that you are putting into this build, by far the best restoration I've ever seen. If it were mine, I would be afraid to take it out on the road.

Brain fade. I've spent the last week working on my brother's 31 Model A Hot Rod with a 350 Chevy in it.