I'm new to the whole Datsun Z car thing I bought a 83 280zx for 450 bucks off of ebay put a new battery in it and a slave cylinder and its back on the road it doesn't run so well I know it needs new fuel system things but one thing that has scared me about the 280 is when after some decent driving say 30 minutes or more when you pop the hood the exhaust manifold is glowing red hot is this normal?

As you have guessed, no this is not normal. A couple of things can cause this.

If your catalytic converter is plugged, the exhaust temps go up and things start to glow. Your performance would be very sluggish.

If you are running extreamly rich and some of the fuel is burning in the exhaust the exhaust header can glow. A long list of things can cause this.

Some of the cheaper aftermarket headers are so thin they may glow with spirited driving. If you have stock (cast iron) headers, something is wrong.

These cars have Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection which is easy to understand and work on. Buy a Haynes Manual and start working.

could it be that he is running way lean...he mentioned needs new fuel components? the leaner it runs the hotter the EGT's

It is pretty difficult to get this injection system to run seriously lean. It is either the Bosch L Jetronic Series injection system (flapper type airflow meter) used in all but a small fraction of NA L series 280 motors or the Bosch LH Jetronic Series injection system (heated wire type AFM) used in the turbo motors and a small percentage of NA motors. None of the L Jetronic systems have a Lambda circuit (O2 sensors) and only a few of the LH Jetronic systems had them. The O2 sensors is the normal source of serious system wide lean running in the older Bosch systems. It is completely different from the injection systems used from the middle '80s on.

There are only about a thousand things that will make this system run rich.