mbhang

All,

A couple of days back, I was stopped at a red light, and my engine starting running rough (missing). I did a U-turn trying to get back to my parking lot ( a mile away) and the car completely stalled within a half mile. There was a very strong smell of gas, and it could barely crank.

Called a tow, tow truck driver came, and started the car. I struggled to crank but did eventually catch. A lot of gas came out of the tail pipe and the car started missing again and stopped.

Got the car towed home, and it can barely crank (with fully charged battery), it cranks a few turns, and then stalls. Engine never fires.

Question is - what could cause this problem - Fuel Pressure regulator, fuel injector, ECM, Ignition coil/spark plug - or some sensor.

Any ideas.

Thanks in advance.

Fakie J Farkerton

iTrader: (51)

Check your CSPS.

Maxima 97 SE

Bad fuel injectors and don't worry same thing happened to me and mean the same exact thing and my car wouldn't crank and all it would do was throw gas out of tail pipe because the fuel injector was stuck open and it would dump too much fuel. Don't change any sensors because that's not the problem. All you need is a fuel injector. At this time I would replace all of them. Plus you will need new spark plugs because they are now fouled due too much fuel fouling them, changing your engine oil becuase of too much fuel dumping down the cylinder and I would probably check my radiator fluid becuase the fuel somehow found its way there as well.

mbhang

Thanks - CSPS - is it Crankshaft Position Sensor or CamShaft Position sensor.

mbhang

Thanks - will try to clean the CSPS - and see if it helps. If not, fuel injector.

Maxima 97 SE

The csps does not control how much fuel it dumps. All it does is read the flywheel and it tells the computer which piston to fire in order and it tells it to start. I got used OEM nissan injector rail from ebay with oem nissan injectors and replaced the whole thing for 100.00 by myself. This car is super easy to work with. You can replace the front 3 injectors by getting some used ones from a low milage car like I did and see if that helps u. All it mainly control is spark. There are people selling used injectors here on the forum sometimes but I could not find any, so I guess nobody is selling them. Here's a good price on some working injectors with a working fuel pressure regulator and fuel rail http://www.ebay.com/itm/1995-1999-95-99-INFINITI-I30-MAXIMA-FUEL-INJECTOR-INJECTION-RAIL-D-43-/400690798202?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3ANissan%7CModel%3AMaxima%7CYear%3A1997&hash=item5d4b085e7a&vxp=mtr here's another one from an Infiniti i30 which is the same as a maxima with 117,000 miles with injectors plus regulator and rail. http://www.ebay.com/itm/INFINITI-I30-Fuel-Injection-Rail-Injector-Set-thru-3-96-96-/271379625029?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3ANissan%7CModel%3AMaxima%7CYear%3A1996&hash=item3f2f7c7445&vxp=mtr

Maxima 97 SE

This what the csps does and what it looks like. Here's how I fixed my cylinder misfire. I changed the crankshaft position sensor that hooked up to the transmission and the spark plug for cylinder 3 that only had 4,000 miles on it which was double plat ngk. One year ago I had a cylinder 5 misfire code and it wouldn't go away and I changed the crankshaft sensor on the tranny and it was gone. The misfire only occurred when changing gears and at highway speeds but not at idle and I even changed the maf and that didn't help and the coils were all oem Nissan brand new from about 5,000 miles ago. So the conclusion here is that its not always a bad coil, maf or etc. it could be tiny little things like the crankshaft sensor or a spark plug that could be new but still bad some how. Since the crankshaft sensor is responsible for engine timing, the driver may experience engine backfire or irregular rpm function, if the vehicle starts at all.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/about_5860665_ba...#ixzz2zTIZR81N

Fakie J Farkerton

iTrader: (51)

Crank shaft position sensor.

Our cars have two, you want to check the one under the pulley.
Might be dirty.

I had a similar problem with no code for awhile, so I purchased some injectors.

Then a code popped up much later for my CSPS and a quick cleaning fixed it.

Gotta love it when someone is so sure of your problem.

We are all obviously guessing here.

Maxima 97 SE

so a dirty sensor is going to cause raw fuel to com out of your sensor. Out of the whole time that sesnor under the pulley was dirty that now was the time to the car start dumping fuel out of the exhaust because one more drop of oil hit the sensor. By the way Fakie J Farkerton what was your problem with your car.

Fakie J Farkerton

iTrader: (51)

I already answered what fixed mine, but if you want this thread so bad you can have it.

I rather not do this back and forth with anyone but the OP to help him, not help you to figure out what my problem was; since, like I said, I already answered.

Injectors or fuel pressure regulator are likely, but something tells me to try the easiest and cheapest{being free}possibility first to narrow it down.

Maxima 97 SE

No i was asking if you also replaced the injectors. The only reason why I was saying its not the sensor because the sensor doesnt control fuel and I didn t want nobody to waste any money for no reason like I did and it ended being fuel injectors after I took it to a mechanic. Just like everybody giving advice on replacing sensors i lost over 300 dollars that i wont get back. You have to work your *** off to make that amount of money by saying replace that sensor and that sensor. But its not their fault its my fault as well as i should of made sure what the problem was and which i later did by giving 100 dollars by getting it diagnosed and then later getting hints from everybody on the forum how to take apart the intake manifold to replace the sensors. ''Gotta love it when someone is so sure of your problem." That line kind of made me a little mad because i knew what i was talking about as I had stated that i had the same problem as him which was raw fuel out of tail pipe.

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

CSPS REF is located just above the main crank pully. It tells the ECU where cylinder #1 is located.
CSPS POS is located on the transmission bell housing, it looks at the flywheel, reports TDC on the referenced cylinder which in turn controls ignition timing.
CPS, Camshaft Position Sensor is located by the timing chains and controls fuel injector timing for fuel delivery.

There's no way all 6 fuel injectors or even more then 1 have failed suddenly (in the open position too) and caused your car to dump enough fuel into all 6 cylinders to completely flood it out or dump visible fuel out the tail pipe. That just doesn't make any sense at all.

A better guess at this point is that you've lost spark or ignition timing. Start by measuring both CSPS or checking for any stored or pending error codes.

The below statement is also concerning. Lets clear that up.
Is the engine being cranked (turned) by the starter easily or is the starter failing to continue spinning the engine during a no start condition?

mbhang

Starter is not turning the engine easily. It turns a few cycles and just locks (I think too much liquid in the engine at the moment - will need to vent/drain that before I try). That is how it was earlier as well, but it did crank when the tow truck driver started it (had been sitting for a few hours by that point). Ran for some time spewing raw fuel from tail pipe ran for 2-3 minutes as if everything is fine, and again started missing and stalled.

It has not started after that.

ac max 92

iTrader: (13)

Agreed on the bad injector or injectors. May be just an o ring but that definitely sounds like the cause of your gas coming out of the tail pipe and not cranking over.

mbhang

Also - there are no codes - P0325 (knock sensor) has been on for 8-10 years. I did buy a knock sensor ages back, but with Cali Spec, it was impossible to replace without removing intake manifold cover. I guess, if I have to replace fuel rail, I will also replace knock sensor at that point.

Will try to clean the CSPS before trying anything else.

DBear

FWIW, unless you have a 99, you can replace the KS on a CA spec. Iv'e done it a couple of times on my 96. The first time I had one of my kids do it, the second time I did it. You'll get scraped up, but it's doable. I think 99s have a swirl valve that does make it impossible though.

Maxima 97 SE

The more you try to start your car the more fuel it dumps into the cylinder because one or more of your fuel injectors is stuck open which dumps too much fuel into the cylinder and causes your engine to lock and also it will destroy your starter because it did the same to mine when i kept cranking it and wouldnt turn and soon the starter gave out and went bad from too much cranking and it drained the battery which made me go buy a new starter and a new battery. If you dont want to listen to me, and you dont believe its your fuel injectors then might as well save yourself the hassle of destroying your starter and battery and tow it to a shop for them to diagnose it and report back to the forum with the answer that the shop gave you. 100% Guaranteed its your injectors. Plus you dont have to replace the fuel rail, all you do is buy a used fuel rail from ebay like the ones i posted and take the injectors out of them and just put them in your old fuel rail.

Trini Boom

iTrader: (5)

The problem you have is the seal or one of your fuel injectors is stuck open and flooding the cylinder. Leave the car parked up and remove the spark plugs to see which cylinder is causing it. Once you find it, replace that injector and absorb most of the fluid out of that cylinder and then start the car. Yes, I said start the car with that spark plug out and fuel injector disconnected. Reason I say that is that the fuel that you did not pick up will shoot out of the spark plug hole.
If you continue to run the car, the engine will seize and hydro lock. To get it out of hydro lock, you would have to manually turn the engine from crank pulley a complete revolution. At that point, then the start will be able to start the car. The reason I know this much is because I had this problem before.

JwaxMax99

iTrader: (14)

I had the same thing. Bad fuel injector, stuck open. I would replace all 6 and be done with it. Car runs perfect now.

Nismo_Pilot

iTrader: (1)

This seems to be a theme through quite a few posts. You do realize that there are tests for sensors right? You have this vendetta against people recommending sensors because you got burned once. Had you tested the sensors rather than throw parts at it, maybe you'd have saved yourself some cash. Don't blame others for your mistakes. In this case I agree it is probably an injector issue, but making a concerted effort to turn people off of checking a sensor (which is free) in favor of throwing parts at their car is irresponsible. /rant

Maxima 97 SE

Yeah, but what if they don't know how to check the sensor and just go buy parts. Not everybody has a multimeter that tesla them the ohms are right or wrong. The case that I'm making is that I didn't know how to check sensors at all and people were telling me ects sensor was bad when it wasn't. I'm not trying to blame anybody. Sorry if I came out absurd at anybody.

ac max 92

iTrader: (13)

Fuel flooding due to an o ring or the injector not seated properly may not throw a code but id definitely lean toward one or more of the injectors being the culprit. The crank sensor more than likely would throw a code and I don't think the sensor would be related to your fuel leaking issue especially if it's coming out the exhaust.

mbhang

Finally got round to attempting a repair. Found the source of the problem, injector on cylinder 2 seems to have lost some part, and part of the o-ring was peeking out.

Anyways, cleaned up LIM (swirl valve), IAC, EGR etc, waiting for new reconditioned fuel injectors (from CSI performance MN). Will let you know how it goes.

mbhang

I replaced all 6 injectors (using remanufactured from ebay CS Performance - JECS - don't know if that was the right thing to do).

Car idles fine, but if I press the pedal, it spews some gasoline from tailpipe (maybe, I have accumulated in the silencer and that needs to be pushed out).

Car diesels for 4-7 seconds after I turn it off. Wondering if it is a sensor or the fuel pressure regulator now.

One of the injectors had lost a pintle and part of the smaller o-ring was sticking out - so I thought replacing the injectors would fix the issue.

I guess, I will try the fuel pressure regulator and the crankshaft position sensor on transaxle next and see if it fixes it. If not, dunno maybe junk it, 165K, 15 years, can't complain.

The Wizard

iTrader: (43)

This car has been sitting for a long time, right? Drain the old bad gas and put in the highest octane gas you have in your state. Go for a nice drive and drive it hard. If 5spd, drive in 3rd gear at 70mph for 5 miles in hopes of burning off the carbon buildup. There could be enough carbon buildup on the piston tops to increase the compression enough to cause even good gas to detonate from combustion. Check out the fuel additives at your local parts store and get something that will help burn off the carbon.

The Wizard

iTrader: (43)

My suggestion/info above maybe coupled with a bad FPR, extremely high idle speed or an improperly rated spark plug can retain heat and cause the same dieseling problem.

ac max 92

iTrader: (13)

Your 2nd statement. Car idles but when giving it throttle some gas is still coming out of the tail pipe. This gas is probably not accumulated from before changing your injectors. Gas evaporates pretty quickly. Double check your work and make sure all of your injectors and fuel rail are seated properly and that you do indeed have the right injectors flow rate wise if your still having an issue with gas coming out of the tail pipe. Try that first before your 4th statement dumping more money on parts or getting frustrated and scrapping the car especially after spending money on doing all 6 injectors. IF everything is seated properly (Which im thinking it may not be) if gas is still coming out of the tail pipe. Then move on to other fuel related issues that might be causing it. I'd start with that before looking at sensors. If your still having gas coming out of the tail pipe under throttle somethings not right being fuel related and fingers crossed this hasn't damaged the cat.

mbhang

No - I don't think I have damaged the cat - I run it for a few minutes max. As far as injector seating, I thing that is not an issue, I can not smell any gas in the engine - all smell in the tail pipe. I definitely had One injector problem (cylinder 2 - obvious when I removed the fuel rail) - no pintle cap and the oring was sticking out - I should have just replaced the one injector (instead of 6 rmfgd injectors from ebay). I will replace the 3 (the ones that don't require me to remove UIM) with three good 'old' injectors. If that does not solve the problem I will get one brand new injector, remove UIM, and replace the 3 remanned injectors with the one new injector, and 2 old good injectors. If that does not solve it - I will replace FPR. If the re-manned fuel injectors are the problem, I will just stop using ebay for the rest of my life (I had a bad experience with ignition coils 7-8 years ago, and at that time, neither ebay nor paypal wanted to fix the problem - they give 10 days to review - that is not good enough for auto parts, it may be more than 10 days before you can even swap their products in).

Harbor freight fuel pressure testing tools are probably on my list next.

CS_AR

This thread has some similarities to my injector problems from last spring. I purchased an engine from a salvage yard with ~73,000 miles. One injector rail had been removed leaving only the rain that lives under the UIM. When I had the engines swapped, I had the mechanic move the rails (the ones I knew) from the old to the newer engine. All that did was move rails with broken pintle caps to the replacement engine. I found broken caps on cyls 2 and 5. I can't believe the (Infiniti Master Tech) who did the swap didn't even look at the pintle cap condition -- but he didn't. So I ended up with an extra rail and three injectors from an engine with ~73,000 miles and six injectors from the original engine with ~178,000 miles.

After spending a bunch of money for a misdiagnosis with the dealer, I decided to take the engine apart to get to the bottom of the problems. I found two broken pintle caps. So I Ohm tested all nine injectors and found the best six (3 were from the newer engine) and decided to go with a DIY injector refurbish. I ordered the following kit for $34 from eBay and followed some instructional videos I found on YouTube where a guy refurbished some injectors on a 240SX or 300ZX -- basically the same type of Phase II Nissan injector.

Amazingly it worked. I did test the injector rails for o-ring leaks before re-installing in the picture below.

If you don't want to DIY your injector refurbish, there is Deatschwerks in OKC that will refurbish and flow test your injectors. I've purchased items from DW in OKC in the past and have always had a good experience. I think I just wanted to see if I could refurbish my own injectors for kicks -- and was surprised at easy it went and how well it worked afterward.



I hooked up the injector rail to the fuel line on my other Nissan to pressure test the rails for leaks before installation. I could have used the Maxima but it had been accidentally immobilized so I didn't want to try using it for a fuel pressure test..



Here's a picture of my "well worn" Harbor Freight fuel pressure testing gauge.



BTW - The broken pintle caps and leaky injectors must have been present on the original engine for a while because the cats were cooked and clogged up. Long story but the dealer couldn't make the car run and kept insisting that I had a bad engine. I had to get the car towed home from the dealer so I could find and fix the issues.

Once I got the car home, about 15 minutes later, I pulled the two upstream O2 sensors so the engine could breathe and started it up and drove it around. So the cats were clogged up.

Next I had to find the engine misfire condition on cyls 2 and 5. That turned out to be from the bad injectors causing flooding. I ordered a WS y-pipe and high-flow cat to remedy the clogged up cat problem. Once I got it all back together it ran ok -- really it ran great over 2,000 RPM. However, could be hard to start on occasion and the engine speed would fluctuate in under 2,000 RPMs. I had already replaced or swapped the coolant temp sensors, crank and cam positions sensors, FPR, IACV, cleaned every pipe, and replaced about every sensor under the hood except the electric EGR. Naturally, the EGR turned out to be one of the problems. The EGR must have been hung in an open state that acted like a vacuum leak. After I replaced the EGR, with all the other stuff that I replaced along the way, it started running like a new car.

Side Note: The engine I bought with ~73,000 miles must have been driven by a grandma. The cylinders had so much carbon build up that it looked scary when I looked in with a borescope camera. .

mbhang

The remanufactured injectors I bought over ebay was from the same seller (CS Performance) that sells the refurbish kit. I think at least one of the remanned injectors is spewing too much liquid and is also draining into cylinder when I switch off the ignition (car idles fine - however droplets of fuel shoot out if I give it throttle - if I disconnect the fuel pump fuse, and crank a few minutes later, it does not fire up and run for a few seconds like it used to etc). Anyways, will fix it this weekend, one way or the other.

dwapenyi

iTrader: (3)

Honestly I would do the FPR first. It may be that your FPR has failed catastrophically. There have been FPR failures where the diaphragm burst so fuel was making its way into the vacuum lines. FPR is a device that handles fuel for all the injectors. So a failure there could cause alot of fuel going into the wrong places.

I just don't see an injector or 2 spitting so much fuel that, after going through the entire combustion process, then forcing its way through the cat converter, it comes out liquid the tailpipe. This, from a partially running engine.

FPR is cheaper too.

mbhang

I guess my battery had been disconnected too long - also - though it was fuel that shot out the last time (when the injector was bad), I realized that the liquid shooting out was water (water not product of combustion, but water that must have condensed in the exhaust/cat converter/silencer because of the fuel that had been dumped earlier and evaporated over time.

I noticed each time I started, it ran a little better - so I took it on a 5 mile drive, it behaved - then took it on freeway for another 5 miles, it behaved.

I still have very old fuel, but now car runs normal, breathing much better (cleaned EGR, UIM, IACV, TB etc). No more auto ignition, though, sometimes, when I come to a stop, the car wants to stay with gear engaged (it is an auto).

I think issue got resolved as the car computer needed to relearn the settings.

CS_AR

Is that "the car wants to stall or stay with gear engaged"?

Does the engine sometimes stop running at stop lights/signs?

mbhang

No - does not stall, just seems to want to pull away (earlier, it would stay put with minimal brake pressure - now I need to press the brakes harder to keep it stationary).

CS_AR

What is the RPM when you are idling?

mbhang

Around 750 rpm once it is warm.

ac max 92

iTrader: (13)

750 rpm at idle is normal and if it felt like it wanted to pull away with your foot on the brake you should definately have a raise in your rpm. Are you sure it's not just in your mind lol

dwapenyi

iTrader: (3)

The throttle body was worked on? Probably issues with fast idle cam then;

https://maxima.org/forums/4th-genera...nctioning.html

http://www.lyberty.com/car/Maxima_A3...NTB99-053b.pdf

mbhang

Could be my mind as well - good point. After 4 months of driving a brand new Toyota Prius Plug-in (which pretty much shuts off when you are stopped), maybe my expectations or feelings about what constitutes normal have changed. I guess, after I measure my mpg over a few tanks, I will get a better sense of whether it is like it used to be - I used to get 22-24 mixed, if it is the same, probably means it is in my head.

jgcable

Many of these responses mention gas coming from tailpipe. Is this in the form of raw unburned fuel pouring out of the tailpipe or is it smoke that has a very rich smell of gas which is what my car is currently doing.