hey guys. got a 1995 nissan maxima SE with 100k on it. and the only mods are tokico blues, short ram intake and exedy clutch. but heres the thing. when the car is cold, it drives really nice. pulls awsome. but then when its to the normal temperature, it losses power, and if its at low revs, it sometimes misfires. i changed my plugs, and there was some oil on them. but can it be causing this "power loss"? thanks, and also, can u guys send me a link how to change the valve cover gasket if there is a link? thanks

 

well its definitely not your valve cover gasket. that would only affect oil seepage.

is your CEL on? are you getting codes?
how do you know you are misfiring?


and by loss of power do you mean bogging down? is the car hesitating while you are accelerating?

or is engine "choking" during idle too ?




and yes oil on your plugs is probably the source of this problem

you say when its cold there is no hesitation, but when the car is warm (and the oil is more fluid, less viscous) then you begin to get this.

 

change your plug seals inside of the valve cover gaskets. That's the reason you have oil on your plugs. If they are coated in oil then that could be causing your misfire. Fix that then go from there.

 

Valve Cover gaskets at the dealer gona run you 45 bones for both gaskets and about 8 bucks a piece for the plug seals. Oh yah and you will need the plenumn gasket. Dont forget to get some sealant, you will need that for the corners of the vc gasket, located closest to the timing chain. There is also breather hose that goes from one vc to the other vc, thats 20 bucks. When i put that hose back on it cracked on both sides. Oh yah one more gasket, the egr gasket, will most likely have to get that one too.

I just did this to mine a few weeks ago. Took me about 8 hours to do all of it.

 

change the plugs.

 

thanks guys. i already bought the gaskets and the plugs were changed 1k ago. and ROCKART, the CEL isnt on and what i mean down on power is it acclearates, but much slower now. and misfiring, when im, let say 3rd gear, 1500 RPM and floor it, the car stutters sometimes. not all the cylinders working.

 

are the coil packs all working?

 

yea might b ur ignition coils

 

Might be the KS too. I would still check for codes. KS might be there as a ghost, thus retarding the motor on accelaration.

 

Checked my ks this weekend, it was dead, have similar symptoms, stomp on the gas, it hesitates then gradually goes. So yeah, check ks. Also had oil on a plug a while back, changed the seal, that would effect that cylinder causing a misfire because the coil is not getting a good connection to the plug cause of the oil.

 

Its your knock sensor. I had the exact same symtoms and I changed my knock sensor and it stopped. It was funny because I had to take a bag of ice to cool my car down at the track and the warmer my car was the worst my times were.

 

can my sensor break because i use 87 at the pump?

 

well, i broke one and we put one from a blown engine, but it seems to work fine

 

yea you can damage your KS by using lowgrade, at least thats what nissan says.

 

all right thanks...im going to change it and try to use 91 from now on

 

typicaly the KS or the coil packs will through a code. have you tried just simply cleaning the TB? do that ... and have Autozone pull any codes that may be there. if you don't pull any codes, then you may try replacing parts, but to not have any codes says to me it's something more simple. just my thoughts ... good luck and keep us posted.

 

Get rid of that short ram intake. The only thing your gaining from that is the noise. It's turning into a hot air intake when under hood temps are high. Put a true cold air intake on, if you can find one, or put the stock intake back in place. It will pull better when it's hot.

 

hmm i could be wrong but third gear in 1500rpm seems kinda low....naturally wouldnt it bog a little? btw a screwed up coil will not necessarily throw a code...i had one coil way off spec and another one the stalk part broke in half...both of those were on going at the same time and made my car run like crap...and yes it did the whole run fine until it warmed up...i replaced them and works fine now...check the resistance of your ignition coils...

 

i said "typicaly" .... ^^^^^ >_<

 

oh sorry bud....

 

hey guys. so i had saturday off and wanted to work on my car, but my sister put oil in her radiator, so i had to work oh her accord first, but i got somethings done. i changed my oil, changed the front valve cover gasket and my fuel filter. i didnt do my rear cover gasket cause i ran out of time...got to dark. but anyways, i been filling up 91 octane only for 2 tanks already, and i wanted something good to come out of all of this, but not that much did...the car is still the same way. slowish and misfires at low revs. do you guys have any idea what it can it be? i asked about the knock sensor and everybody told me that it is supposed to throw a code, but i dont have any lights on....so i dont know where to spend my money. also if this helps in any way, this all started right when i put my intake on....and drove like a idiot for a a day or 2. i dont know if that has anything to do with this....now im thinking of either replacing my coils, and hoping thats that. or im going to try to save up for a new engine, since im a 16 year old student lol. so anyways, these are the pix of "work"
edit: these spark plugs were put on 3k ago

 

if i had a bad piston ring, would i feel it? i wanna check the compression, but already broke 2 of my dads measuring tools. lol

 

Those plugs look terrible! Do your rear plugs look like that too? You can probably change the rear VC gasket and tube seals in about 3-4 hours. The knock sensor will throw a code, but not a light. It will show up as a "ghost code" meaning that if you manually scan for codes with the screwdriver method, you should see the 3 long + 4 short flashes of your CEL. Don't change those coils yet if you're not showing any misfire codes. Replace the rear VC gasket and tube seals, clean or replace all spark plugs and see how the car runs. I'm betting that after you do that and replace the knock sensor (If the trouble code shows up), your car will be running properly again.

 

Yeah i would start off by changing the spark plugs especially if you had a bad seal around the spark plug. i had this problem and my plugs were just filled in oil. so im sure there probley is still oil on the plug affecting ignition.

I would try troubleshooting in this order
1. spark plugs
2. ignition coils
3. knock sensor

 

change em all.

 

well before changin the coils check em first..it can get pricey to replace all of them when all you needed is like two....just check their condition visually first..then check its resistance....when mine were screwed up there were no codes no check engine lights...the only way we found it was it was way off from the specs...

 

how do you check its resistance?

 

For the record, to those saying a misfire would cause a CEL, that's not necessarily true. Most of the time, yes, but not always. For example, one of my rear coil packs was not on perfectly tight after my 00VI swap and therefore was making good contact sometimes, and sometimes not. So it would misfire, but only sometimes, and very mildly. Never threw a CEL. It was audible, too.

 

Those look like Autolite plugs ...which is a no no! You should be using NGK plugs.
Be sure to change you plug seals before you install the NGK's.

 

NGK V-power FTW! Reminds me...I need to install the fresh set I have sitting in my room.

 

my brother works at pep boys and i told him to get double platnium for my car and he got these for me...but oh well...i'll get the ngk now

 

well checking resistance is easy...you just use a multimeter...use the setting for resistance...ohms i think..and you touch the two prongs on the specified tips...i forget which ones but theres a write up somewhere..if you do a search i think you can find it in the faqs....

 

copper,cheap,i can get them at fleet farm for like 2bucks a pop.whats not to like. so what you have to change your plugs more often.

First time i ever did plugs in my max was with autolites. But then i met this site. and when i switch to ngk omg it was so much better. response,gas mileage it was just way more peppy. now i side cut them for the nitrous

 

hey guys, so i checked the resistance, and they were all the same...checked the front injectors and they were all the same as well....but heres another question....me and my friends were looking where do you control the timing? where is the distributor?
thanks in advance

 

Put the intake back to stock before you spend money. If the problem clears, that was it. If it's still there, I'm thinking the MAF is damaged.

Misfiring would likely give a CEL.

Bad MAF & no codes is not so uncommon. No CEL for the KS isn't so unusual either but a baf MAF would not give that sort of problem. Just reduced timing and poor performance. You appear to have a "choking" issue under load, not just slow acceleration & bad fuel mileage from a bad KS.

Once the intake is back to stock, see if you can borrow a MAF from another maxima or I30 buddy to see if the problem still exists. MAF isn't cheap but knowing it's not the coils is ideal before you spend money.

 

hey thanks for the tip...i put the stock intake back on and the car is better the way i see it....i took it for a spin and its much more smother. power delivery is better, but the only thing that my "after market" did was give me a little better throttle response. and make much more noise, which i started to hate. but thanks for all your guys help...

 

We don't have distributors. Our motors use individual coils per cylinder - remember... the ones you just checked resistance on?

 

The reason why cars like the Maxima have knock sensors is so that when you have lower octane fuel it will retard the timing to avoid pinging.(Sometimes when you are traveling you might not have a gas station around that has premium fuel.) Whenever your knock sensor is bad use the highest grade fuel that you possibly can.

However, whether or not the Maxima requires premium is debatable consideirng some of the org members here have been using 87 and had no problems.

My personal opinion is that if you knowingly buy a car that says premium is RECOMMENDED, I don't see why you wouldn't want to dish out the extra 20 cents a gallon to be safe. I never understood why people buy these cars and don't put the good stuff in them. To each their own I guess.

I just wanted to add that in to what ROCKART said. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me, I'm not an expert on cars.

Also, as some of the others have said, if you have oil on your sparkplugs they may not be getting a good connection. You may have a leak, which is bad for your plugs if the oil is getting on them. If this is the problem and it persists then expect to find that your spark plugs are fouled sometime soon.

I've noticed that a lot of misfiring are related to coil packs. You might as well check those too.

 

hey guys its me agian...um, so i changed my rear valve cover gasket and the round things too.....(for the spark plugs), i wanted to get new spark plugs, went to pep boys, ad they had 3 diffrent kind of NGK plugs. some for $1.99, then $3.50 and then $7.40. but they were all out of them...so wich ones should i get? wich ones are best? i dont want to spend extra money.....also, my car idles like crap...i cleaned the trottle body, but still.....my friend suggested to replace my injectors, so i found a guy who is selling a 5th gen fuel injectors....but will they fit a 4th gen wire harness and fuel rail?

sorry for all the questions...
thanks,
Paul

 

ok i went to auto zone and got the following ghost codes:
P0110 - Intake Air Temperature Sensor
P0325 - Knock Sensor
P0443 - EVAP