Recently i've had an on and off issue with my 95 gxe. When i start the car I have to kind of "prime" the engine as in spin the key onto start and let go a few times to get it to start. After doing this is when the real problem starts, on some days the car will start up fine, and start sputtering at idle. But on other days it will just start up very weak as if it wants to die out and sometimes does.
If im driving and i gradually build into wot, the car usually keeps up, but if i punch it in gear (i have a standard transmission) it will kind of choke up a little bit and then keep going (as if it has to build up some kind of boost). I read my cel codes the other night, and I got a 1008 (evap valve), 0603 (cylnder 6 misfire), 0304 (Ks), 0102 (Maf), and another for igniton failure i forgot the number.
I sprayed my maf out with cleaner, unpluggd my evap valve and re routed the vaccum lines that were attached to it to where the evap lines hooked up. I got a good condition used coil to replace with the one on cylinder 6. Ran injector cleaner... I have the feeling its fuel related but I could be wrong. Any ideas anyone????


If it helps, I recently had a Head gasket failure due to bad thermostat and replaced all the gaskets in the engine bay with the exception of exhaust and had the head resurfaced. I also have a short ram intake, i even tried washing the filter out and drying it. I notice if I open my dipstick or oil cover some steam does come out, idk if thats normal or not. The previous owner (my friend) replaced maf sensor before about 2 yrs ago. When my Hg went, I know some oil/coolant mix got onto it and i had to wipe it out and the clean with maf cleaner. Before this, the problem was barely noticeable, after 5-10 minutes of warm up it would idle fine, but not the case now. Sometimes it will idle like garbage, and sometimes it'll "kick itself up" and idle fine only to idle like garbage again. Im guessing thats the open loop closed loop switching. When i unplug the maf sensor it sounds much more like a normal idle. But it wont let me drive without it to really see. I'm out of ideas, I have a feeling its something fuel related but I wanted to see what others think, I could be wrong

 

sounds to me like a weak fuel pump or fuel filter is starting to clog a little, change ya fuel filter first its the cheapest and go from there and if it dont change id try to run a fuel pressure gauge on it see where its at

 

Well after making the post I took a really good look at all the fuel related lines. I realized the fuel regulator wasn't getting any vaccum. After some more investigating and probing I realized there was a small vaccum line disconnected between where the intake goes and the metal vaccum lines under the throttle body. I reconnected and purred like a kitten once again
Guess the mechanic missed it when putting everything back together. Amazing what a small vaccum leak can really do to performance.

Upon further inspection, I also notice one of my vaccum lines coming out of the canister purge valve (black mushroom shaped piece that connects to evap valve) has two vaccum lines. The big one is connected properly but the little one is also disconnected, can't seem to figure out where its supposed to lead you. only thing i can think of is the cruise control since I dont have a line going into the cruise control either. Any thoughts please share lol

 

On the intake manifold, to the right of the butterfly gate, somewhat lower on the the manifold you'll find the idle control valve.

First, remove, disassemble, and clean all the burnt black out. Careful, when you remove the two smaller solenoids for cleaning, they have a thin copper gasket, a metal pin, and a spring inside them; also remember what side each one came from. You will also remove the large solenoid from the center for cleaning as well. You will notice a plastic black screw on the top of the valve assembly, that is your idle air mixture.

I start with the screw adjusted most of the way out. You'll find that your car will start rather quick from a cold state. The car will run at a high idle with the screw mostly open (around 1100 to 1200 rpm), let it get to running temperature. Once at temperature, screw the plastic screw in until you reach the proper idle rpm (700 to 800 RPM). Now, let the car get cold. Once the engine has cooled, try and start it up, should be a significant improvement. If it's still a little rough starting, you may need to back the screw out one turn or so.

All this of course is assuming your fuel pump is in good working order, you have a good fuel filter, and there are no mis-fires in the cylinders. It's a very common problem for this engines idle control valve to get all gummed up. I found that acetone cleans the idle control parts better than carb cleaner.

I just fixed up a 1997 Maxima. It was hard to start from cold and would randomly shutter while driving. The primary problem was the idle control assembly being gummed up. I also found I had a random misfire in cylinder No. 3 through the check engine light blink codes. I had a bad boot on the coil pack, $10 fix.

How to get your diagnostic codes from your 4th generation Maxima (includes how to reset the check engine light):
http://vbxmaxima.8m.com/ecu.html

Code tool for result:
http://vbxmaxima.8m.com/ecudecoder.html

 

Replace the MAF.