septimus

Uh oh. I have a friend with a 1990 Maxima SE thats at about 250000 km on the engine. Its acting odd. On cold ignition the engine will start up... and this is when the shaking happens. Its as if one of the pistons are not working or something. With gear in neutral, if the accelleration is pressed the shaking persists at all RPMs. If we turn the engine off and then start it up again the shaking goes away, usually after a couple off/ignite tries... Also, on the first cold ignition the RPMs dip to 800 or so and the engine sounds like its going to stall. Then the RPMs pick up to about 1500... and thats when the shaking is felt.

BTW, engine, tranny, oils/fluids were checked and found to be nominal... in fact, the owner is pretty good about these things.

Sign of an engine on its last legs? Is there anything we can do?

I tried searching the forums... but I can't. Its locked out or something. Help us oh maxima gods

jaguax

iTrader: (1)

Yeah it sucks that searching is locked, but your problem sounds like a fuel injector. Wish I could help more. Did you check the spark plugs?

internetautomar

iTrader: (30)

Did you bring the female virgin sacrifice yet?















Btw. it probably is injectors they are notorious for failing

cneary812

check your injector wires, plugs, coils. Check to see if you have any cleaner plugs than the rest. could be a number of things

broncoguy

I agree with injector diagnosis- even 1 that isn't working right will cause misfire and vibration. check the items that cneary mentioned first, that should give some clues.

cneary812

if you had a VE then I would have told you to unplug each coil one at a time while the engine is running and see if it boggs down or changes the idol at all when you do it. Chances would be that the one that doesn't change the idol would be the one that is not firing. But you have a VG and that might hurt a bit to grab the wires while the car is running.

jaguax

iTrader: (1)

You can just pull em off the distributor cap.

cneary812

good point. I have been zapped by plug wires before so I just don't touch them when running myself...

Roco

It will hurt just as much at that end

Redmax

iTrader: (20)

Yep Probably injectors

MaDMaX024

clean your idle air control valve, that should take care of the almost stalling (mine used to start, rev to 1500, drop to 400 then go through its normal warmup cycle.
as far as the shaking, not sure what to tell you about that..had my motor rebuilt and it doesnt do it anymore

Golden Ice

have you checked motormounts? friend of mine had a car that did that and it was determined that it was a bad set of motormounts on the engine and tranny..replaced them and it was all better..