I just changed to brand new plugs and wires but it still idles rough like this

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The RPM is still very constant, just at the exhaust is this weird noise. Sometimes it seemed that it 'sucks' some air in as well. I just passed my inspection with flying colors too, which makes it more weird.

 

maybe you have a leak?

 

a leak where?

 

sounds like a miss fire...probably from a bad injector.....

 

Sounds like your average run of the mill (slight) misfire to me

 

exhaust

 

crud, was afraid of that. New injectors are way too expensive for a car this age. (I got it for 600 bucks) are there any remedies? Any fuel cleaners I can dump in for a quick fix? I know it won't do much, but just don't want it to be worse than whats happening.

 

just try running a bottle of injector cleaner in your gas tank next time u fill up and see if it helps at all

 

Well, personally, I wouldn't bother to mess with it at all. It's really kind of a non-issue, especially if it runs/drives/accelerates perfectly fine. Like I said, your miss is a "slight" miss at best. Very subtle. I really wouldn't bother with it, but I guess you could try some injector cleaner but that's probably a crap shoot.

My old black VE had a slight miss at idle that I could never quite track down. It only had a miss at idle, though, and never stumbled/hesitated/bucked or had any driveability issues at all. And certainly didn't miss at WOT

 

I agree, If your gas mileage is not suffering, call it part of 'vintage car ownership'. If you'd like to try a fuel tank remedy, I had an injector issue several years back and ran two tanks with BG 44K (no longer available at parts stores, but you can get at dealerships. Try Hyundia, Kia, etc. before going to Nissan, Volkswagon, Mercedes. They charge more). It smoothed out my problem and I went trouble free for 2.5 years. Now... I'm feeling the 'ouch' of an injector replacement job coming soon.

 

well i have a 92 GXE and my injector concerns need to be diagnosed. I used injector cleaner the last time i filled my tank, and the same issue exists. i was told one or two of my injectors are open too far and are wetting my spark plugs. the plan initially was to take them to doctor injector for a rebuild, but when i went to the injector website there was a disclaimer about the injector shop not being responsible for electrical problems. I have actually been dealing with an electrical problem for a week now. there was a short to power and my battery was getting drained. we found the shorted wire, repaired it, installed a 50 AMP fuse between the battery cable and the power cable, but whenever i had to jump the car my tach would go haywire and for a while there my tranny wouldnt shift. the tranny is fine now, but the tach is still acting sporadic.

now that i am afraid i may have an electrical problem i want to diagnose my fuel system BEFORE i pay to have my injectors rebuilt. any practical back yard diagnosing techniques will be helpful. i do own a DMM, so the first thing i want to do is check impedence right? do i need to check my fuel pressure? what electrical issues are related to the fuel injectors? any help would be great

 

fuel injectors run off cps just as the coil on plugs if you have a VE. VG's are a different story don't know those motors all that well only owned one vg and it was a long time ago. I prefer VE's

 

My max was idling similar. Next thing I know the #3 injector has died, and that injector is under the intake manifold, so now I'm going to have to replace all 3 injectors under the manifold so I don't have to do it later. This car is becoming a money pit, $1,080 for this job. These cars are more expensive to work on than my Mach 1. I hope for your sake that your injectors are still good.

 

wow sorry to hear that, I hope thats not the issue. As I got my car for $6oo.

I bought a bottle of Redline S1 fuel injector cleaner. Hopefully that could help a bit. The problem is on again and off again, sometimes very bad other times unnoticeable.

 

Yeah, I hope your luck isn't as bad as mine Hopefully nothing else will go wrong with my car. I've had the Max for about 1.5 months. The car only has 97k miles, but the owner said it sat for a while. If your injectors go bad make sure you don't have the dealer do the job. I called the dealer to get a quote just to price compare and they quoted me $1,800. Looks like I'm saving about $720 through my mechanic.

 

I just finished rebuilding most of my cooling system + injectors and had heaps of trouble with stale fuel and the A.A.C. valve malfunctioning to the point of almost junking the car. I can tell you at more than one stage I had an idle like this and it came down to a few little things.

Firstly, check your air duct for leaks, improperly mounted pod filters that sort of thing. Clean out your throttle body and make sure its not sticky in any way.

Secondly, if you have had the mani off, check the bolts (torque, missing ones etc.) but be careful doing this if you haven't had it off in recent memory (good way to strip the bolts and have 0 sealing pressure). This also applies to A.A.C. bolts and throttle body but again BE CAREFUL! These bolts will strip in a millisecond if you overtighten them. Use the gap on the body for guidance, once it seals STOP!

Lastly the timing. I found I could get a decent run out of the car with the distributor cap way advanced but the car idled unstable when warm. On top dead centre (using timing light) the car ran like a dream when cold (during fast idle) but sputtered, backfired (through intake) and lacked power at speed when warm. What I ended up doing is driving the car for about 10 minutes (till the idle was stable at its lowest revolutions and advancing the timing manually (without a light) literally one or two degrees. The result?

My car idles with a lumpiness reminiscent of a V8 without sounding sick and goes like the thunderous clappers with the roar of the pod filter in front.

 

Not sure what the purpose of your post is, but your name will soon turn out to be the status of your actions.....................

Any time you have backfiring through the manifold you stop whatever you are doing and learn how to set the timing properly as per the FSM ............... you don't go fiddling with the distributor and set timing by ear - you are guaranteed to kill the poor motor

 

As it was there was only ever soft pops through the filter and as it turns out, I not only used the FSM but also a mechanic friend who showed me to do it that way. Unfortunately what the FSM fails to provide is experience, something which shows that short of using a timing light there is a way of getting the TIMING on the motor right. I'm not talking about the ignition/idle control circuit that is a different story altogether.

Obviously anyone who wants or seeks to do work on a motor (and I should have included this in my previous post) should only work to their level of experience and have a qualified mechanic 'on call'.

 

Sorry but I am totally confused now:

So you don't have a funky idling motor because you eventually did it properly according to the FSM? .......................... or did the mechanic set it "properly" based on general motor experience?


Not sure what to make of your last post when looking at your earlier

 

Basically the mechanic set it based on general motor experience and didn't want a bar of what the FSM had to say about it. Basically. Sorry to have put it so confusingly.

 

Lets try plain English:

1. Do you have a properly idling/performing motor now?
2. Is it that way because of the mechanic being stubborn or
3. because you followed the FSM's setting recommendations/methods for timing

 

Since its so important to you:

1. My motor idles perfectly now.
2. The mechanic set the timing using a timing light then advancing it literally one or two degrees (rotation of the rotor cap not timing mark degrees).
3. I shudder when I review the FSM's 'recommendations' to set the timing thus have never even tried.

 

Its not important to me at all but it should certainly be to you - I just followed the real simple setting of 15 degrees +-2 on the timing mark scale when the motor is hot according to the FSM .............

WRT your #2 answer ................. your so called mechanic doesn't know what he is doing - simple as that, and your motor idling "perfectly" now is nothing more than luck.

 

i hope THATS over (pointing upward). so i checked the resistance on my injectors and need to know what to do with the readings. i had to first clean corrosion off of the connectors. here's what i got: 15ohms, 13.3ohms, 44.6ohms, 12.2ohms, 23.3ohms, and 12.3ohms. the mechanic told me i would also have to buy new wires for the injectors. one of my earlier posts i was talking about an electrical issue i had. someone had installed a wire just to drain the battery and after we installed a 50amp fuse between the positive battery cable and the fat power wire, the car came on whenever i started it. so could my electrical issue have burned the injector wires thus jacking up my injectors? also, would taking my injectors in to be rebuilt even be worth it? is my internal coil fried? thanx

 

"That" is not over - its moving in your direction now.

I am sure there is a reason for you to have gone and measured the injector resistances ................... so if you have read the FSM and tons of posts on the subject, what's up? - replace as a minimum the 2 injectors with out of spec resistances (44 and 23) - injectors cannot be rebuilt no matter who says what, so don't get "rebuilt" crap. You are there looking at the injector wires/terminals - if cleaning them doesn't help or leaves you unsure as to their condition then yes you have to replace them

Getting people to help you will be much more efficient if you make sense:

What is the meaning of "someone had installed a wire just to drain the battery " - WTF? - did you find that person yet and have you removed him from the human gene-pool as you should have ?

" the car came on whenever i started it" - now isn't that a frigging surprise eh? - "come on"? - as in came on to you? ............... or the dog ? ............ or your girl?

As I said already - start making sense, or just as in the case with Maxkiller, poo will start coming your way.

People seem to lately come here asking for help or posting the biggest load of irrelevant rubbish to confuse the person with the problem.

If you want help, stick to facts and report in plain English what is going on. I know I am right in saying this, but if you disagree and don't like what I am saying, use the ignore button and you will not be bothered by my drivel any more, and you can continue to enjoy sitting there wondering what to do next ................

 

Funnily enough it would seem that the only person *confused* by both my post and the latter is yourself. In no place in the AUSTRALIAN fsm does it detail the timing and how to find or adjust it except to suggest that a timing light should be used to check it, hence my apparent roundabout way of finding it. Relentlessly picking at my posts on the basis of your failure to understand them will not change this. Moreover it is unlikely that a seasoned mechanic's methods that he uses daily to troubleshoot and repair vehicles rely solely on luck since it is his livelihood. Enough said on that issue.

As far as bad injectors go, it is a common issue in both maximas and the similar block build 300's for the coil to fry, thus leaving the only solution of replacement with new parts. I have had three injectors do this, often resulting in them simply dumping fuel into the affected cylinder causing major power losses and massive fuel consumption. And no, all three did not go at the same time.

 

when wa the last time you changed your oil

 

So according to you a FSM doesn't spec timing setting except to say "use a timing light" eh?

Since we are on a 3rd gen forum and we are trying to make these things last, I am all for understanding the animal since I am a petrol/gear head, but you plain don't make sense at all.

Its as clear a daylight in the FSM that timing should be set to 15+-2 BTDC in more than one place but one specific page in the FSM is EF+EC338 with a real simple graphic on EF+EC30 ............. so what you are telling me is that you have a manual with no such spec at all

I will continue to question both your experience and advice because its non-factual and cannot be used as reference ................. the basic problem is this statement of yours:

"2. The mechanic set the timing using a timing light then advancing it literally one or two degrees (rotation of the rotor cap not timing mark degrees).

and

3. I shudder when I review the FSM's 'recommendations' to set the timing thus have never even tried.

and

Basically the mechanic set it based on general motor experience and didn't want a bar of what the FSM had to say about it." .......................


Any "mechanic" with that attitude is a disgrace to his profession, and your assertion that the FSM doesn't tell you what to do with the timing light simply doesn't gel with those statements.

I am keen to get a copy of the Australian FSM since we will be using the exact same manual here in South Africa so be a responsible member of the community and give us a download link please and help with my education

 

Mine does the same thing

 

i sense such a hostile environment lol. Www.rockauto.com www.nismoparts.com www.courtesynissan.com just buy new injectors and risk less chance of having to replace the injector too soon again. Why continue wasting money when you can fix it right the first time and for good for longer with new instead of jy used.

 

Firstly I purchased my FSM in soft cover so there is no download link. It came in two large volumes that have been difficult to navigate since I don't have time to sit down and read them in their entirety.

Secondly, it has been only in the interest of making mine last that I ever entered into the repairs I have recently undertaken and the resulting joining of this community. As it turns out, some of what I have said in previous posts has since become obsolete information, namely because in speaking about timing, I have referred both to ignition timing and idle speed control/mixture.

It also turns out that the advance on the ignition timing by my mechanic friend was done to circumvent the vacuum advance system on the rotor cap that is in operation on similar year Japanese cars. Turns out he was wrong as this system is not employed on the au model, although there is a port for it on the rotor cap.

The issue now is that whilst you have demonstrated your clear prowess and knowledge of a motor vehicle, this somewhat hostile conversation has only served to confuse the asker of the question when simply stating your opinion and or experience would have been sufficient.

My initial response would have been read and then more likely discarded by the discerning reader who followed the thread coming across more experienced words. Instead we have a mutated thread bordering on unnecessary flaming that has taught noone anything, except that you know more than perhaps I.

Maybe next time as a senior member and experienced petrolhead you could see your way clear to sharing your experience to teach us lowly newbies to the ways of the maxima rather than make the community uncomfortable for those who are new.

 

So now you want to lecture me on how to treat newbies? ...................

Grow up man. If you want to stand up and argue a point you better get your facts straight first. Saying that a "discerning reader" would most likely have discarded your advice and experience is plain ridiculous - people with problems starting threads here need help because they have either run out of ideas or just don't have the technical skills or knowledge to solve a problem them-self .................. as such they are most likely unable to discern between fact and fiction and would thus not be able to discard the type of information in your original post as being irrelevant. Thats the first thing.

The second thing is the fact that, from the text of your last post, you are apparently aware that you are wrong, but have chosen to post irrelevant stuff anyway and have even gone so far as to question my intentions and tried to convince me that I am wrong for even pointing it out - so now who did more damage to the community here - you posting crap or me questioning, challenging and correcting bad advice? - If you are honest you will agree its you.

I have actually "shared my experience" in this here thread, but you chose to make a ****-up match out of it and then finally attacked my character too. I am not paid to do anything here and don't have the time to post in each and every thread - if I see an interesting topic and the correct solution has already been offered then I don't post there, but if I see garbage being posted and also defended, I will take issue with that and will continue to do so because stupid mistakes as a result of following bad advice often kills these vehicles, and for some of us these old vehicles are/may be in fact the only reliable transport we can afford - so if you want to be welcome here, don't post crap and then defend it to the n-th degree.

As a senior member let me teach you something else about
What an absolute pot of crock! There is no vacuum advance used anywhere on these motors - there is no such "port" on the distributor cap (and for the record vacuum advance mechanism ports are located on the body of the distributor not the cap) - there is only a water trap/breather port on the cap................. and this once again demonstrates the utter nonsense you are posting - IMO you need a different mechanic friend if you even have such a thing, because for all the "mechanic" experience I have seen you post and attribute to his supposed vast industry experience, he is bound to cause exactly what I said initially - your forum user name will soon turn out to be the status of the car.

 

had this problem with my last engine and it was a misfire with the plugs and wires so i changed them out and used some fuel injector cleaner and filled up on 89 instead of 87 which in fact does burn a bit slower... and it solved the problem but that engine is no longer in the car.

 

To those who run low grade cheap azzes gas no wonder your having issues. In both owners manual and on the dash it clearly states premium unleaded gas. Not im a cheap azz 87 or 89 octane. And you all ask why you continue to have problems. Tisk Tisk.

 

Please ........................ lets not start THAT here too - higher octane fuel only has a higher resistance to the onset of knock because it can tolerate higher absolute cylinder pressures before spontaneously combusting - IT DOES NOT BURN SLOWER THAN ANY FUEL WITH A LOWER OCTANE RATING.

 

Are you ever in my car to know this? Im letting you know for sure that it does take a little longer for the 89 to go than the 87. *IN MY CAR* not saying it will work or fix anything. so yeah. c ya!

 

which engine and car do u have GXE or SE? and what year?

 

What - all the ignorant dumb-asses decided to hold a conference in this thread then?

 

93 Se VE5

 

Ive also owned both sides of the engines but all my maximas I've owned where SE 2 VE autos one VG5 and the VE5. Right currently have a 93 TK3 VE5 my baby the one in my signature pic and a 93 VE auto that is a parts car. Soon to be searching for another TK3 VE5 or a black VE5. And for clarification purposes 87 89 91 92 and so on pump gas does not burn faster or slower from octane grade variance.


Post #12 shows my signature pic of my TK3