[pilgrim]

Keep an eye on Ebay too. Also check Classic Zcar Club

 

[kickstand80]

FYI You can use any 1982 or 1983 ECU. It doesn't matter if you have an auto or manual, federal or cali car. The differences is just in the fine tuning of the engine. You will not be able to notice the tuning differences as the differences are for emission. If push comes to shove and you cannot find a 82-83, I can tell you how to use a 1979 to 1981 in your car.
I am currently the proud owner of 2 bad 1983 ECU's and I am currently running a 1981 ECU in my 1983 car and it runs great. It only requires the addition of a dropping resistor and a little wiring. Dropping resistors were used in 1979 to 1981 cars to limit the current draw to the injectors. The injectors are low impedance so if the current is not restricted they will burn out. The 1982 and 1983 ECU's were beefed up to handle this job so the dropping resistor was no longer needed in the 82-83 cars.
The 1982 and 1983 ECU are hard to find. They are not reprogrammable, they are a one time only burn chip. There are a couple of places that say they can repair the 280zx ECU but I dont know of anyone who has used the service. My guess is that if there is a damaged component on the IC board they can replace it but NO ONE can fix a programming issue. One thing to keep in mind as you go thru the trials of owning a 280zx, DONT EVER hook up jumper cables or battery cables or battery charges backward as your ECU will DIE! Teach your son how to recognize the - and + on the battery. Tell him not to rely on battery cable color.

 

[1-i-Z]

Everything he said, and to know if it is bad, take a 12v light to each injector plug and crank engine to see if they blink. All 6 of them of course. If they do then confirm spark at each cylinder to confirm efi module is good as well. ECU repair shops can repair, but the only time I ever seen them go bad is reverse polarity while jumpstarting the car. .......and it dont take much. I have a stack of computers and will check to see what I have in case. Make sure your oil isn't gas washed fouling the plugs instantly.

 

[pilgrim]

Everything he said, and to know if it is bad, take a 12v light to each injector plug and crank engine to see if they blink. All 6 of them of course. If they do then confirm spark at each cylinder to confirm efi module is good as well. ECU repair shops can repair, but the only time I ever seen them go bad is reverse polarity while jumpstarting the car. .......and it dont take much. I have a stack of computers and will check to see what I have in case. Make sure your oil isn't gas washed fouling the plugs instantly.

The "12v lights" referred to are called Noid lights (really, it's true) and they are test lights that you can probably borrow from an Autozone.

To use them, unplug each injector, plug each connector into a Noid light, then crank the engine. The Noid lights should illuminate to show that the injectors are getting the electrical pulse to fire.

To check whether the plugs are getting spark, unplug each wire one at a time AT THE DISTRIBUTOR. Hold the wire end just above the cap terminal, then crank. A spark should jump from the cap to the wire. If you disconnect each wire at the cap, you won't get bitten while doing this. If you unplug it at the spark plug, it will jolt the **** out of you if you hold the wire.

 

[kickstand80]

I had a 7 week fight with my 1983. I purchased the car as a "non-running reliability issue" car. I spent weeks trying to figure it out. Went thru the diagnostic procedure start to finish 3 times. I had spark, fuel and air. I got the car to run 2 times and it ran so bad it smoked and exhaust fumed me out to the garage. Wet plugs all the time. I got a spare ECU with the car and it did the exact same thing with both ECU's. Like I said there is no way to test the actual ECU itself. After doing a ton of research on the pin out of 280zx ECU from 1979 to 1983 I was able to see that there was very little difference for all years. Once Datsun placed a wire in the 35 pin ECU connector, it stayed there for all years the 280zx was in production.
My wife has a 1981 280zx so I started to swap all the engine support stuff from one car to the other. I swapped the AFM, CTHS, Distributor, Thermo-time switch ect, everything I could think of. I even pulled the entire ECU wire harness out of the 83 car and unwrapped it to check every inch of it for damage. No matter what I put from the 83 into the 81, the 81 car would run but the 81 stuff I put in the 83 would not make the car run. Air, Fuel and spark, it had it all and would not run.

After all the research I decided to put my wife's 1981 ECU into the 1983 car so I visited a local junk yard that had a 80 and 81, I pulled the wire harness, including the dropping resistor, out of the 81 and installed the resistor into the 83. I had to run a power wire to the dropping resistor and tie the 6 wires from the resistor to the injectors. I used the original ground wire from the injector plugs, so for a while I had 12 injector plugs on my engine. The original 6 with the original + wire still in them (unplugged from the injector) with the negative wire removed and the negative wire installed in the 6 new injector plugs with the new power wires from the dropping resistor.
I plugged my the 81 ECU and BAM, the car ran like new!

So here is the interesting part. I went back the the junk yard and pulled the ECU's out of both the 80 and 81 cars. Cleaned them inside and out and they both work great in both my 81 and 83 cars. Both of the junk yard car have been completely under water at least 2 time when the local river flooded! Both ECU's had mud, sand and **** in them. A couple of cans of precision electrical cleaner and they still work. The ECU's are pretty darn tough as long as you don't reverse the polarity on them.