First off.. i have read the post and replies to Emax's problem, which seems very similar, except that my car is unmodded. all info and opinions are appreciated, and if you think its the same deal as whats happened to EMAX, let me know. heres whats happened.

96 GXE 5 speed, engine is unmodded.

Driving home from work, at normal speed, i came to my exit and thus let off the gas and pressed in the clutch to glide down the exit ramp and save gas. as soon as i pressed the clutch, the engine promptly stalls. no warning or anything. i was going approximately 60 mph. i turned the key twice, and the car turned over, but did not start. so i put it in third and popped the clutch. car started just fine, and i continued on my way home with no trouble.

2nd occurrence: driving on a local main road, approximately 35-40 mph, not accelerating or decelerating... just a steady pace. i felt what seemed like a TINY, and i do mean TINY loss of power... same feeling as you get when you turn your AC on.... just a tiny little lurch. i pressed in the clutch to see if it would stall, like happened 2 days prior... and sure enough it did. i didnt try to turn it over this time, just popped the clutch and it started just fine, and i drove on cruising for a while on the local strip and had no further problems. 2nd occurance was friday night, first occurrence was wednesday night.

all that has been done to the engine is that i have removed the stock intake tract that is before the airbox... the resonator and that ram-air thingy a-la pontiacs. nothing else is done. the car currently has 98K and change. i've owned it since 89K. i dont know if the plugs/fuel filter have ever been changed. the car seems to make great power, though its the only maxima i've driven so i dont have anything to compare it to, but i have no complaints in that department.

when i purchased the car, the check engine light was on, and still is. the original owner said its because of some sort of emissions type of defect/malfunction/recall that Nissan informed him of. he took it to the dealership 2 times and had whatever needed to be done done, and the light would promptly come back on in the short time it took him to drive home from the dealership. he finally said to hell with it and didnt have it fixed a 3rd time. i have not gone to the dealership to have it fixed (is anyone familiar with the specifics of the recall i am talking about?).

Any info is appreciated, do you think its a dead/tired O2 sensor like DBM suggested for Emax? or something else?
Thanks guys.

 

Another piece of info... i deliver pizza in this car, so i do drive ALOT. these are the only 2 times this has occurred. tonight i drove approximately 100 miles, 90 or so were on the highway (not delivering pizza tonight). had no problems at all.

 

Hmm, this sounds some what simalar to my ex problems. I have a few questions for you. All right, does the car shank and kind of sputer before it stalls? What happened with me was after I drove for about 5 minutes the car would start to shank and then if I let up off the clutch the car whould just stall out emmiadatly and once it got into this mode the car whould just keep stalling out if I put it in nuetral. It was quite scary at times becuase I would be going preatty fast on a corner and I would lose my brakes and power stearing.

I think it would definatly be a good idea to start by changing your plugs out ASAP and then see if the problem goes away. My car starting to stall out every once in a while but then the problem grew much worse very quickly, it got to the point I could not drive the car. Another thing you should check is your ECM and see what the code is your check engine displays and then either buy a Chiltons/Haynes manual or post your finding here. If you whould like directions on how to pull a code from your computer then go to www.maximadriver.com or buy a repair manual, the process is extremely easy and any one who takes two minutes to learn how to do it should have no problem checking the code. Also chances are your plugs have never been changed and the guy who sold your car is full of B.S.

Weel good luck and post your findings.

 

Try cleaning your throttle body out. Other than that, check yer TPS..

vbxmaxima.8m.com for the tps stuff.

good luck

 

emax and ogredave, thanks for the advice. i will check on the ECM thing today, and also take a look at the plugs and get some new ones because i'll be racing the car a week from now anyhow. and no, there's really no indication before it stalls out, first time it caught me completely unaware, 2nd time was only that TINY indication that i mentioned. i'll post up my findings on here.

thanks.

 

You need to pull the check engine code first and foremost because I can almost guarantee the problem will be found here.

The light came on because there was a problem and the dealer was to cheap to fix it I bet. I almost bet that you will have a bad engine coolant temperature sensor. My car did the exact same thing as yours is. It was also a beotch to start every now and then.

 

If you don't know if the fuel filter has ever been changed, change it! These things should be changed every 30k miles, and I don't care what it says in any manual. If the problem doesn't go away, have the fuel pressure checked. There is also a filter for the fuel pump in the gas tank, and if that gets clogged yoou'll have the same symptoms.

 

Look into the ac valve. My stalling problems were solved after the ac valve was replaced. The ac valve has a role in the emissions.