ok so i popped the code 0701- multiple cylinder misfire. great. so my pops and i are brainstorming this one. (ive searched, ive taken note of the common culprits. ie: plugs/gap/wear , vac leaks, ignition timing/coils, injectors, compression) the car has been very well maintained, so as far as things like stuck injectors, filters, tb, etc goes, its doing fine. even plugs.
well rather than go straight for the plugs and coils (question: doesnt ignition coils only have to do with starting up?) pops goes for the jugular and tells me its a modding problem.

when i installed my frankencar midpipe, the piece (that comes off to connect that hose that returns the oil fumes) was cracking so i capped it off and put a breather filter on the oil fumes hole.
has anyone with a midpipe done this? are there any downsides to disconnecting that hose? pops insists this problem has to do with a vacuum loss from the midpipe, and my disconnecting that hose.
please give me suggestions , i got to fix this tomorrow.

 

Capping off the nipple on your franken, that goes to the crankcase will actually benefit the car. How? Because it prevents the fumes, oil, varnishes, etc, from being reingested into the engine. As long as you put on a proper breather (not the k&n crap, but proper breather material, kinda looks like cotton, but isn't), the only harm you are doing is to the environment, as you are now venting more hydrocarbons to the environment, that would otherwise be reburned.

As for your misfiring, are you keeping up with proper maintenance? Bad plugs, lack of oil changes, and ESPECIALLY deposits, can all cause misfire. I highly suggest that you do a proper intake and combustion chamber cleaning (includes injector, valves, manifold, tb), check the plugs, replace if necessary, reset the ecu, and see if the problem persists. If you go with the NGK coppers, the whole job should cost no more then $20.

Just run a bottle of Redline SI in your tank with less than 1/4 tank of gas. Run it till the low gas light comes on, and push it. Then top up. Then get a can of some good intake cleaner like BG, if you can't find that, GM Cleans or something like that, is pretty damn good too, so is Kleen Flo. Disconnect the franken from the tb, spray liberally and brush the plate and as much of the tb as you can with a toothbrush or something. Then, start the car, you may have to rev the engine to keep it running (btw, do this cleaning with the engine hot), and spray the cleaner right into the tb with one hand, and blipping the throttle with the other. Keep doing this till you've gone through most of the can (doesn't take long). Then temporarily connect the franken, but disconnect the other hose (the 5/8") that connects to the idle air control valve, and spray liberally into the nipple on the iacv. Then reconnect. By now, you should have gone through practically the entire can. Also, you should see more smoke from the tailpipe, as well as smell odours. Then, disconnect the intake from the tb again, and with whatever you have left (should have like 10% or so), spray into the tb, and then shut the car down. You want to spray hard right now, practically causing the engine to stall. Shut down the engine, let it sit for 20 minutes. Start of the engine, may take extra crank time. You're done. Just change your oil within 1 day. Some of the chemicals which have now cleaned your tb, manifold, iacv, combustion chamber, etc, are now in your oil.

 

thanks for that extensive post. i appreciate your help.
thats pretty much what i thought about that hose too..recirc of the gas fumes is hot, and i figured itd be good with it off. so thats not my problem?

to my knowledge, the parts which you have described were cleaned vbefore i hit 60k. ill have to double check.
edit: i just went thru every record of factory servicing since 1998 when the car was new.
AUG01 - cleaned out injectors, intake plenium, intake/exhaust valves, piston heads, idle bypass circuit, etc etc. using that motorvac whatever they do.
only thing thats probably not up to spec might be the plugs.

do the plugs on a 98 go to 100k or 60k?
thanks

 

Join the club, I also have a misfire. Its probbly the coil pack or a sticky injector for mine. The spark plug is all carbon fouled.

 

thank you i accept the invitation to this club.
well now i'm completely off the intake thing and the vaccuum crap, and thinking its the plugs or coils. boy i need to learn a thing about the coils fast.
but bump that question about the spark plug life- please

 

I guess you guys never checked the TSB's? Try the one that specifically targets the multiple cylinder misfire. It indicates it could be all 6 coils, highly unlikely, bad connections to individual coils or the under hood harness. Now the problem is to find the under hood harness. Apparently all six coil wires go to this harness before being sent to the PCM for readout of the error codes.


q. I September 10,2001
1999 MAXIMA; MIL 'ON' WITH DTC PI320 STORED DUE TO IGNITION COlL(S)
APPLIED VEHICLE: All 1999 Maxima (A32)
SERVICE INFORMATION
If an applied vehicle exhibits a MIL 'ON' with DTC P1320 stored in the ECM, the cause may be the ignition coil(s). Refer to the Service Procedure to resolve the incident.
SERVICE PROCEDURE
1. Use CONSULT41to confirm DTC P1320 is stored in the ECM. NOTES:
Single or multiple cylinder misfire codes (i.e., PO300 through P0306) may be stored in the ECM with the PI320 code.
Rough idlekunning may also occur.
2. Check the ECCS wiring harness for a broken or damaged wire causing the incident. Refer to Technical Service Bulletin NTB98-008b.
A. If the ECCS harness is found to have a broken or damaged wire causing the incident:
0 Repair the harness Clear any DTC codes stored in the ECM 0 Verify the incident is resolved 0 Return the vehicle to the customer
B. If the ECCS harness is not the cause of the incident:
Replace the ignition coil(s) with the one(s) listed in the Parts Information table 0 Clear any DTC codes stored in the ECM 0 Verify the incident is resolved 0 Return the vehicle to the customer
1/2
0
PARTS INFORMATION
I DESCRlPTlON I PART NUMBER I QUANTITY I Ignition Coil -RH 22448-31UO1 or 22448-31U11 3 Ignition Coil -LH 22448-31U06 or 22448-31U16 3
DESCRIPTION PFP OPCODE SYM DIA FRT Repair Wiring Harness (1) RA16AA HD 32 (2) Diagnosis: DTC 1320 -EE47AA (3) ignition Signal
If the ignition coil assemby(s) is replaced, submit a Primary Failed Part (PP) line
DESCRIPTION PFP OPCODE SYM DIA FRT
RPL Ignition Coil Assemblv(s) (1) GD14AA HD 32 (2)
Diagnosis: DTC 1320 -EE47AA (2) ~ Ignition Siqnal
il P/N
2. Please reference the current Nissan "VVarranty Flat Rate Manual" and use the indicated FRT.
2/2

 

thanks jmax that was helpful. looks like this might involve the dealer....if i really am at the end of my wits with this
i notice that it says 99a32 though, im a 98 ..guess it doesnt matter?

blah ..keep the help coming please

 

I don't know if it affected the 98's or not. My dealer elected to ignore me when I mentioned the TSB. He indicated their was another TSB that indicated the proper procedure was to replace all 6 coils. Which is about $755 in the pocket for the dealer. It's easy to see why they ignored the cheap fix bulletin. My light is still on but I passed emmisions with the supposed misfire in place. You see I have had a single bad coils before. When the coil is bad it is obvious there is a problem with the car. My car has no symptoms other than the stupid light.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/trd/

 

Some guys on here have fixed the coil packs by wrapping the electrode portion with electrical tape. The electrode portion is the stalk that runs down through your valve cover to the spark plug.

It's worth a shot......

 

Sil,

They recommend you change them every 60K. I"m about due for a belt chng and my 1st plug change

 

thanks, ill look into the plugs at some point during this.

would there be any visual indication of a problem with coils?

 

Maybe the connector to the plug is broken (such as not complete contact or destroyed) or the wire itself has some type of sign. This is just a guess, I haven't seen a broken coil before.

 

You can check the coils with a multimeter. The procedure is in the Haynes manual.

 

how come some people get codes for specific cylinders? my multiple doesnt necessarily mean that it cant be one coil or something causing a problem?
ok i'm still learning here..so i must ask. where exactly is the coil? above or below the plug?

also, i should add that my idle is at about 650 but sometimes at red light stops it may occasionally hit upper 500 to 600, and might shudder EVer so slightly, but its enough to make me put a little gas on to rev a higher idle keeping things smooth.. is this an indication of bad sparking

 

more questions:
it's not always a good idea but, i think i might try resetting the light. other than what faults i conjure up in my head (from worrying) i think the car runs like butter.. revs are fine, acceleration, even the idle (which i say kinda worries me) is fine.
nothing noticeably off.

1)i just wonder if you can always really feel these problems when they occur?
2)sometimes, if i shift (usually into 5th wherre things are boggy anyway) itll hesitate for a split second. is this a problem? or normal?
3)if i reset the light, i can be sure itll come back on to warn me if theres still a problem right?

 

The shudder COULD be a representation of a bad coil.

 

The coil is above the plug, if you take the cover off the engine that says 3000 v6 (or something like that, you'll know what I'm talking about) there are 3 black rectagulat boxes, these are three of you're coils. I believe you said you've changed you're spark plugs yourself, the the top of the peice that you put your spark plugs in is the acctual coil.

Hope that helps,

Ryan

 

thanks ...
no i havent done plugs on this car. last time i did was about 2 years ago on my 86 mazda, plugs and wires.

 

Less than 12 months ago I was coded with cylinder 2 misfire, now I have cylinder 6 misfire code along with multiple cylinder misfire code. I had the cylinder 2 coil replaced last year, man those dumb things aren't cheap. It's looking like I have to take a hit in the wallet for at least two more. What is wrong with these things. Is there a mfg's defect, bad design or what? Has there ever been a recall at all on these things. Is there a root cause for these things to go bad that I and many others don't know about? Is there a life expectancy on thesethings? What, if any, options do I have? Thanks for any help.

 

yeah from what ive learned, people have problems with them things pretty often.

update: i reset ecu. after about 80 miles today the light hasnt come back. the car runs smoother than butter.

 

There are seperate codes for individual ignition coils. The coils are dirrectly above the plugs. Two screws hold them each in and the plug sits at the end of the coil. I had a single coil go bad at around 42k miles. It was obvious that there was a problem. 650 rpm's is the normal idle for 4th gen maxima. It is probably normal to fluctuate slightly but more than a minor up down motion is possibly the mis that the computer detected. If you reset the computer and it detects the same problem it will light up again. If it goes about 200 miles without a problem it will shut off automatically. My light goes off for about 3 days every two weeks. I drive about 350 miles each week to work. Does anyone here know where exactly the ECCS connector is? The one mentioned in the TSB? Also, I agree with one other member that these coils have bad reliability. But I have never seen a recall.