Why is my car shaking so bad?

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May 4, 2005 | 07:51 AM
  #1  
Hey guys, last week my car starting shaking and it was pretty obvious that I was down to 5 cylinders. The car finally threw the CEL and I figured out that my cylinder 1 injector was bad. With the help of the how to's posted here I replaced the injector and the car ran great (95k miles, I also put in new plugs and cleaned the TB). That was Friday night and by Sunday night I had the same exact shake. CEL came on again and this time it was cylinder 6. Sure enough the injector appeared shorted out. I replaced the cylinder 6 injector and the car ran better but it still had a slight shake to it. Well, as of today the car is still shaking but the symptoms are a little different than when the injectors were completely dead. The car does not want to start now. It cranks for a while and it fire up, it shakes like it has a miss, it sputters up until about 2700 RPM and then it takes off, it has good power above 3k RPM and I am noticing a weird smell that almost smells like a new catalytic converter type smell. Do you guys have any ideas??

Thanks!
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May 4, 2005 | 09:13 AM
  #2  
Is the weird smell unburnt fuel?
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May 4, 2005 | 09:15 AM
  #3  
Could be, but I'm not positive. I haven't seen anything that looks like an obvious fuel leak. Has anyone ever cut an o-ring while installing an injector? What would this do? I don't know how I could have cut one, but I guess it's possible.

BTW, the CEL is not on.
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May 4, 2005 | 09:19 AM
  #4  
wont a nissan dealer look at it for free/cheap?
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May 4, 2005 | 12:00 PM
  #5  
Quote: wont a nissan dealer look at it for free/cheap?
lol
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May 4, 2005 | 03:46 PM
  #6  
Yeah, I think it's $200 minimum to have my local dealer talk to me.

Nobody has any ideas on what could be wrong with my car?
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May 4, 2005 | 05:46 PM
  #7  
I hear you on the dealer comment, my dealer won't talk to me anymore as I've been banned (see under Dealerships), lol!.
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May 4, 2005 | 06:04 PM
  #8  
Check Spark plugs plus do you have a aftermarket y-pipe
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May 5, 2005 | 07:17 AM
  #9  
Well guys, I figured out the problem last night. I pulled injector #6 back out and found that a piece of plastic from the old injector was stuck down in the intake where the injector sits. Because of this the new injector was not fully seated. This allowed fuel to bypass the injector and just dump into the intake. That explains the hard starts and the smell. I removed the piece of the old injector, put the new injector in and the car runs great.

On both injectors that I replaced, the plastic portion at the bottom has broken to pieces. Maybe someone could add a note in one of the sticky's that you should be very careful when removing the old injectors and definitely do not turn them at all when you are pulling them out. I rotated my injectors side to side a little to free them up and this definitely helped break that plastic piece apart.

The only downside here is that I could not easily get the plastic piece out of the intake. It was pretty much siezed. I started with a little metal pick and ended up with a screwdriver and a hammer ...unfortunately I think I may have cracked the lower intake. I can't tell if I am seeing a crack or just a casting mark. If it is cracked I think we might have to go for the hella redneck mod and hit it up with some JB Weld.
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May 5, 2005 | 09:02 AM
  #10  
Quote: Well guys, I figured out the problem last night. I pulled injector #6 back out and found that a piece of plastic from the old injector was stuck down in the intake where the injector sits. Because of this the new injector was not fully seated. This allowed fuel to bypass the injector and just dump into the intake. That explains the hard starts and the smell. I removed the piece of the old injector, put the new injector in and the car runs great.

On both injectors that I replaced, the plastic portion at the bottom has broken to pieces. Maybe someone could add a note in one of the sticky's that you should be very careful when removing the old injectors and definitely do not turn them at all when you are pulling them out. I rotated my injectors side to side a little to free them up and this definitely helped break that plastic piece apart.

The only downside here is that I could not easily get the plastic piece out of the intake. It was pretty much siezed. I started with a little metal pick and ended up with a screwdriver and a hammer ...unfortunately I think I may have cracked the lower intake. I can't tell if I am seeing a crack or just a casting mark. If it is cracked I think we might have to go for the hella redneck mod and hit it up with some JB Weld.
If you can stomach the downtime (easiest way is to do it while you're on vacation..without your car) you can send all your injectors to RC engineering and have them clean and blueprint your injectors. Last time I checked it wasn't that expensive, and you will know if any more are sub-par. The website is www.RCeng.com, a buddy of mine did this after he saw it in grassroots motorsports.
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