Alright guys i need help, i isntalled my mevi, install went good except i forgot to hook up one of the coolant lines the one right below the egr, and pissed coolant everywhere, fixed that asap, then i forgot to put on my egr gasket and the car idled like CRAP and stalled.

Now all that is fixed it idles and drives fine, but i dont have my VI working.

The control solenoid i bought says REMY on it, it has 3 ports, 2 on the top 1 on the bottom.

Well here is my situation, on the top 2 ports, on the left port i have a vacuum line going to the vac. canister, the other one i have no clue what it is for so i just left it open, i dont think it is right because i can feel the vacuum through it. I dont know where it goes and or what it is for.

The one port on the bottom i have going to the mevi actuator, that is correct right?

The RPM switch is activating, i set it at 1000rpm, and it activates at about 2600ish rpm.

The vacuum canister has 2 ports, one larger in diamter one smaller, which one is which or does it matter?

Thanks a lot guys, wouldnt be where i am with the car if it wasnt for this forum!!

okay, ll add this too, for those of you who are on the fence, let me tell you something. Right now the mevi is tied open, and the mid range power loss is VERY noticeable, but its about what you would expect from a family car, now..the top end..ill try some it up and not blabber on..oh my god, it pulls REDICULOUSLY hard, i have the jwt 7200, and god damn man i am amazed by the top end now, i remember i wound it out to 7200 with the USIM just for giggles, and once it got near 6500 on the tach, it CRAWLED to 7200..definatley not fun, it was such a waste, now it pulls as hard as it use to till 5500rpm, and it keeps pulling hard all the way to 7200.

Man im so stoked, definatley dont regret doing this, by far it changes the car, althought i did notice the intake noise is quieter, has a more refined sound, similar to that going from a CAI with no resonator to a pop charger with the main resonator on. I think i might try my hybrid intake again and see if i notice any gains.

 

I think you have the Dawes device....you need to use the side that has 2 ports on it.....it is normally open so it is backwards from what you need....if you but both vacuum lines on those ports and let the one on the other side be the breather....

Then you will see what the MEVI can actually do fully activating at 5200ish.....

 

Ahhhh i seee. Makes so much more sense lol. Will try that out tonight and see waht a proper opening mevi feels like! Thanks alot mazzivart!!

 

No prob....I spent a couple frustrating hours trying to figure that out.....pretty simple really......Just imagine what it is like after 5500 all the way from stop to redline....

 

The power loss below 5100 rpms is because the butterfly valves are open all the way throughout the powerband.........at least I hope that is what you are trying to say.

 

The power loss in the mid range..is the design of the mevi..something about the placement of the butteryfly valves.


Ill try sum it up. Right now it feels almost the same as it did before with the USIM but it pulls insanely hard all the way to 7200rpm. I am having an odd issue though.

I dont know if im doing something wrong, or this is normal, but the actuator arm, how far does yours move when it opens? Shoudl it go all the way to the end or maybe half way? mine only seems to go half way, which i dont think is right, makes me think the butterfly valves are only open half way.

Can anyone chime in on this? Also my other question is, where do you T for the vacuum for the vac canister? I teed mine off the throttle body..right after it to be exact..almost like if there isnt enough vacuum to fully open it or something.

thanks guys!!!

 

you have to figure out which two ports are open and allow flow through them when there is no power going to it. just blow on one of the ports and see which other port the air comes out through.

from how you described it, I am betting that the two ports that are next to eachother are the ones that switch back and forth depending on if the solenoid is getting power or not, but you need to check just to make sure. once you've figured out which pathway is open when there is no power and which is open when there is power, you can hook up the vacuum lines. one port will be open to atmosphere, one will be hooked to the valve to activate the mevi, and one will be hooked to your vac canister.

yes it matters which way you hook up vacuum canister assuming it has a built in check valve, which i assume it does (it sounds like the same canister I had).

think of it this way, the vacuum canister is going 'suck' the air out of the little brass valve thing on the mevi, so you need to hook it up so that when power goes to solenoid, the pathway which allows the suction needs to go all the way from the vac canister to the mevi.

to test your vac canister, hook up a hose to each port, and then start sucking. if you are able to suck on one hose and draw air through, but unable to draw air through the other, then the port you are able to draw air through needs to be hooked up to your vacuum source so that it can "suck" the air out of the vac canister. the other port needs to hook up to the proper port on the solenoid.

if your mevi is being artificially held open right now, you are missing about 20ft-lb on top of the 10-15ft-lb loss that is inherent to the design of the mevi. having the mevi open too early just creates extra loss.

 

thanks neal. Well right now my issue other then that stupid coolant line on the back that is has a slow drip to it, i guess i hooked everything up correctly, the mevi actuator was opening, but i dont know if it was opening all the way though, it opened slowly, and maybe only opened 50% of the distance it could travel. I dont know if it is suppose to fully open to were it hits the bump stop so to speak or only open about half way. And yeah the mid range loss was starting to bug me..but i wanted to see what the top end was like so i just left it tied open.

Now other then the actuator problem, the only other thing is re-learning to shift at 7K + instead of short shifting at 6200 which i normally do lol..

Alright im trying to fully understand your post. Makes sense. I am confused on one part, but let me see if i got this right.

The port on the vacuum canister i can suck through, needs to be hooked up to the appropriate spot on the control solenoid, so that when the control solenoid receives the signal from the RPM swtich it can suck the air out of the brass mevi actuator arm. the other port on the vac canister, the one i cant suck through, needs to be hooked to the other port on the control solenoid right?

I have figured out i am using the bottom two ports on the control solenoid, the top one is a breather.

So ill try recap this. 2 lines from vac canister, lets say #1 i can suck through, #2 i cant suck through. #1 on the vac canister, goes to one of the ports on the control solenoid so it can suck the mevi brass ball thing lol.. for the rpm switch, i have the red on the rpm switch directly to the bat, the ground to the batt, then for the control solenoid i spliced into the power from the rpm switch, for the control solenoid ground i hooked up the yellow "acitivation" wire to it. i have set the rpm swtich to 2500rpm, which works out to about 5000rpm according to my safc.

thanks a lot neal!!

 

yes it should open all the way, you might need to take it apart and make sure the thing is moving freely, perhaps clean and lubricate it.

 

Alright so my understanding from above seems correct?

Yeah i guess for inspecting it, i just pull off the top cover and check for anything. I might have taken any of the grease off, before i got it i went crazy at work with brake cleaner cleaning all the deposits off, so i imagine i took off most of the grease/oil there was lubricating it. It is somewhat stiff to move, but it snaps back into place, so i think ill get at it with some silcone lubricant spray.

I am so anxious to get some dry weather so i can really test it out, been raining for 3 days straight, and i have no traction in 1st or 2nd. and to wind out third to see the main difference (past 5500), i am going WAY to fast lol.. being able to drive on the freeway in 2nd gear and keep up if not pass traffic is pretty cool lol..not that id ever do it.

 

are you sure you also have a good vacuum source? I actually noticed that on my 95 I had an extra vacuum port on the tree....straight vacuum source for me....

 

Yeah thats what im thinking, the vacuum source, althought it was very stiff, but once i oiled it it was much smoother, i still have a feeling the vac source is weak, now im having problems with the rpm swtich not activating.. fixed my coolant leak though, and everything should be wired up correctly.

 

If you have the summit then you have to set the rpm on the switch to 2000 less than you actually want it to activate......EX if you want it to happen at 5200 then set the switch to 3200.

 

Really? Why is that? IIRC, the Summit instructions make no mention of this.

FWIW, I'm using a Harlan switch, and I have it set to 5200, and it activates at 5200......

 

The summit switch we all use it set up for a v8 engine.....99% of the time it is set up to 2000 rpms less than for our cars....but some have had it set up less than 2000 or more....

 

Yeah mines set at about 3200rpm. It does activate at the 5-5200rpm range. I fixed the issue with it not activating, i re-routed some of hte wires and i guess i pulled on one of them a little too hard and it came out of the splice. well once that was done with i alos fixed the issue of the MEVI not opening all the way.

Here is what was happening, the mevi arm on the brass ball thing wasnt going all the way open, it opened only maybe 50%, and it would open very slowly, well on the control solenoid, the 1 port on the bottom, was making all sorts of sucking noises, i was about to give up and try a diff vac. source, and im like lets put my finger over the bottom port which i thought was a breather. Well put my finger over it, revved it to 5000rpm, and it opened all the way and fast. So i was in a parking lot, so i grabbed a piece of hose, shoved a bolt in the end and put that control solenoid. And damn it feels good.

It pulls so smoothly, i actually thought my clutch was slipping on the 1-2 shift, but my tires were spinning that much in the dry..the speedo was right up to 120 i didnt know they were till i smelt the burning rubber and looked in my mirror and saw 2 black lines about 50ft long

Havent wound out third yet, got onto the freeway but it was way to busy to safely do it.

Now im going to get it tuned. What is an ideal A/F for NA application, something around 13:1 af? I only ever run 94, and it doesnt really get too hot here either. Low altitude FTW!!

 

This thread is very informative.....read the last half of the discussion....
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=539357

 

Alright thanks man. I am going to dyno it and see where im at then adjust accordingly. I guess ill aim for the 13.5 range. Well here are some pics if anyone is interested. The cover fits a bit weird on the right side above the oil cap, ill have to look into that Those pics were right after the install, it is messy, there were wires running everywhere i just wanted to get it running so i could test drive it to make sure i fixed my massive air intake leak (forgot to put the egr guide tube gasket back on LOL..and the coolant line on the back of the manifold was leaking).

Again i must thank everyone who contributed, mazzivart, nealoc187 and NmexMax in my other thread.

Oh and my rpm switch wasnt set to 2500 lol, i was miss reading the numbers, i saw the 1, 2, 3 ,4 and i thought that was the RPM, but it was just the switch numbers. Right now its set at 3200 and it opens at around 5200. Gotta verify that tomorrow.

For some reason the engine always looks bigger with the IM off. I dont know why but i really like this pic for some reason.


lol dont laugh, i went to bed at 1am, woke up at 6 and started working on it as soon as i got home from dropping off my mom. i think i was half asleep still LOL.


Almost done. You can see what i mean by the wiring is just everywhere, cleaned it all up today just didnt have time to snap any pictures.


Excuse my dirty engine bay, weve had like 5 days of straight rain and i havent had the time to clean/polish it up nicely.

 

It seems i am still having some problems, they seem to be on and off and are all related to the same thing. The acuator arm doesnt seem to be opening all the way. Ill try explain what is happening. I have it set at about 5200RPM

When it hits 5200RPM it opens partially lets say half way, but doesnt open any farther. When i let OFF the throttle it opens all the way then closes. I couldnt figure out why, it runs much better but i can still feel the top end being restricted.

I tried swapping the hoses for the control solenoid, didnt seem to make any difference. Is there a chance there is something wrong with the vacuum canister itself?

k so i made a video of it, the sound is way off, but if you look, you see the actuator arm only opening maybe half way, then as soon as i let off the throttle it opens all the way then shuts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vQOwW5IZI

 

That doesnt make any sense.....do you have a napa canister or a Nissan OEM cannister??? the control valve may be bad....

 

I am not sure. I bought the whole kit from SNOMAX. I believe it is the NAPA vac canister. Doesnt make any sense eh? At first it opened almost all the way, i got maybe 1 run in with it fully open, now when i wind out 2nd(first no traction lol), it feels slightly better then the USIM, but still not what i was expecting. Although my midrange is back lol.

I think i might try a new vacuum canister. My question is, would no check valve cause this? Reason why im asking is because i when i was sucking on the canister, the bigger of the two ports i could easily suck through, the smaller one i could still suck through but it was harder, would this indicate that the built in check valve is bad?

 

This is how I did mine if it's any help...

Note: I didn't use a T adapter. I was lucky enough to find a vacuum cannister with three outlets...

 

Alright. I wish i could find a vac canister with 3 ports. Well here is one of my questions.

1. If you suck on the 2 ports on your vac canister, can you suck through one of them, and not at all suck through the other? I can suck through 1 easily, the other port i can still suck through but it is harder.

2. For the vacuum expelled from the control solenoid, should that be re-routed back into the intake tract somewhere? Right now i just have it blocked off, which might explain why the mevi actuator opens full when i back off?

3. What type of vac canister do you have? I might try find another one, because i suspect this one might be damaged during the shipping process. I dont think should be able to suck through the other port at all.

Thanks man!

 

Re: 1 and 3. Mine is an OEM cannister which came off the Nissan Cefiro I took the Manifold off - same with the control solenoid. I cant remember how my vac cannister worked as far as sucking goes.

Re: 2. The expelled air is just released back into the atmosphere. It does not need to go anywhere. Basically the vacuum is stored in the cannister. When the control solenoid has no electical current - A valve in the control solenoid opens a path between the vacuum actuator (the thing which opens the butterfly valves) and the outside world (the part which expells vacuum). When a current is passed through the control solenoid, it changes the path to between the vacuum actuator and the vacuum cannister - this then activates the mevi. Then when the electrical current is released, it expels the vacuum in the actuator out to atmospheric pressure again.

I hope this makes sense...

 

Weird....My OEM Nissan vac canister only has 2 ports....it works just fine.....try going to a nissan dealer or going on line to find one.....mine I think was like 10 bucks....

ill get some pics and post later of my set up....

 

It doesnt really matter if your cannister has three ports or two. It just means that if your cannister has three ports you get to cheat and dont have to use a "T" adapter

 

Yeah ill try tomorrow. I work at a nissan dealer so it shouldnt be too bad. Do the OEM nissan vac canisters come with a built in check valve?

Yeah jordan it does make sense. I dont know why mine seemed to work better when i blocked the breather off though. I think ill try it tomorrow with the breather open to see if that helps if not im gunna pick up a check valve and try make do with this vac can if not ill get another one.

I really wanna get this thing up and running 100% to feel what the top end should be like lol..im gettin a small taste of it, and im liking it a lot lol..

thanks to both of you!

 

Not sure what you mean by a check valve... so obviously I probably didnt have one

As for the control solenoid - are you using the top two ports? The bottom one is the breather port.

The lowest of the two top ports goes to the actuator and the top one goes to the cannister...

 

Yeah i am only using the 2 ports which are side by side. On the one port one comes from th vac canister, then the other one goes to the mevi actuator.

I found some vac canister part #'s the VE30DE/VG30/VG30D from the maxima/300zx use the same vac canister with the part # 22372-V6700. From what i can see there is a "Delay valve" which i think is a one way check valve, its part # is 14958-V6700.

I am probably going to pick up those tomorrow, hopefully we have some in stock so i dont have to wait to get one.

I was really hoping i would need to buy anything else. It sucks, i was hoping i wouldnt run into any problems like this lol.

 

Best of luck...

Here's my working setup - I posted this video on youtube - terrible quality though, taken on a phone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_fh4M9CT34

 

Thanks man. Yeah i wish mine opened that far that fast. I dont know if you guys saw the link for the video i posted of how mine opened. Just incase you missed ill post mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vQOwW5IZI

I guess for those who would rather not sift through the thread this is what my actuator arm is doing:

when i rev it to the activation point, it opens only 50% of the way at most, it opens slowly, and as soon as the throttle is released, it opens fully then closes. But even if i hold it at 5300rpm(activation point), it does not fully open, it will stay half open or so, will not go any farther till the throttle is released then it opens fully but closes right away.

It makes no sense, im still trying to think of how this is happening lol. I probably have something hooked up backwards or something weirdly stupid.

 

yeah thats pretty stuffed... could be the cannister or the vacuum source. Have you tried tee'ing off another source?

 

Yeah. Here is the port i Teed off of. Maybe ill try a different port, a much larger one lol. Maybe the one that goes to the brake booster, should be MORE then enough vacuum there.



thats the one im currently teed off. I dot think that is the issue though, i think the vac can is having problems.

Would the length of the vacuum line going from the control solenoid to th actuator have anything to do with it? I mounted the control solenoid right by my strut tower, so its maybe 1.5ft long of vacuum line going from the control solenoid to the mevi actuator.

I think i may have had the lines hooked up incorrectly on the vac canister. but ill double/triple check everything tomorrow. thanks for all the help.

 

Your welcome....yes the OEM one has a built in check valve...

 

Dude dont tee it off from up there.....tee it off close to the vacuum tree underneath the throttle body....I happened to have an open source....I didnt need to tee any vacuum source...

 

Here are some pics of my setup

 

Not all of them do. I ordered an OEM vac can using part numbers from the stickies, and mine didn't have a check valve. I had to go to Autozone and get one for $4.

Now, in other stickies, this vac can actually has a check valve built in...part # 22370-2Y50A. Verified when Ptatohed ordered one for his MEVI install.

 

I do recall that there was a part number for the wrong vac cannister....good thing I checked and ordered the right one though....

 

Just giving a heads up to the OP.

 

Alright. Well i didnt end up geting a new vac can. Even at my price there 22372-V6700, which is off a VE30DE/VG30/VG30DE, does not have a built in check valve so id need that too. The list on the tank is 41.73 and even my price is 20.87 and theres no stock in canada, so it would take 10 days to 2 weeks to get it in. Same with the delay valve(1 way check valve) off the VE30/VG30 is 12.48 my price and theres only 1 in toronto which would take another 2 days to come in.

So i think i might try canadian tire, which is equivilant to autozone to find a 1 way check valve, so i can still make do with this vac can.