Whats up guy's long time no see, aye.. Well today my maxima had a big day, the car has all sorts of problems now. When I started the engine up this morning the car emmediatly started burning oil (I think). There was smoke just every where, the smoke is mostly white with a hint of blue. It smells like buring oil. Well I took the car out to pick up a new snow board (I was going to go SB tonight, not any more..) and the car continued to shoot out smoke. Well after 20 miles the problem is still here. I examined the car in my garage when I got home and when I tap the excellerator I hear a whisteling noise, right near or below the intake manifold. The car judders now when I hit the gas, it does not rev properlly.

So what do you guy's think? Cracked head or something, blwon head gasket? This really stinks, I am deppressed now. I think the motor is toast...

I thought maybe the car was running insanely rich becuase of a bad MAFS so I put my spare on. This of course made now difference. If the motor is shot it means I am going to have to put a lot of the stock parts back on, what a PITA that will be.. And then beg for warranty repair (I have about 30K miles). If the motor is gone I am going to say good by maxima, this car has been nothing but trouble since day 1. I have a substantialy higher income now so I think I will be replacing this car with a gently used S4 (I know they are un-reliable, however I will make sure it has a warranty while owning it). I have really changed a lot in the last year in regards to car enthusiasm, all I really want now a days is a nice reliable car that packs a punch (with out the noise). I think I am pretty much finished modifiying car's (of course if I get an S4 I will still chip it, lol)


Tell me what you think, am I screwed?

 

I just realised I forgot to plug my MAFS in after installing the new one, oops. The car feels fine now, however the whisteling noise and smoke clouds remain.

 

I don't have an answer about your engine but you may want to contact org member SmokinOdum. He was selling a proven, low mileage (about 13k) VQ35 for about $800. I believe he still has it.

Also, trust me, you will never stop modding. Once you have the taste for it, it will never go away. It may subside for awhile, but you'll always return to it.

Hope you decide to stay with us a while longer. It looks like alot of the things we complained about not having are here or about to arrive.

Good luck.

 

its funny how all of your hope was lost over an oil smell

are u still going to stop modifying ur max an get the s4 or no??


-J

 

The white smoke is your antifreze burning... sounds like your head gasket is blown. Your engine should be fine. You just need to do a valve job.. SO how did you do this??? Red lined the poor Max And showed it who the BOSS is...

 

Noooo, not another Maxima owner leaving.......

 

Ethan you douche...errr I mean magician you never seem to show your face online anymore...

 

Unscrew your radiator cap, start you car... If the antifreze is bubling inside your radiator that means your head gasket is blown....

 

Thank you for your in put, I greatly appreciate (thank you everyone else to) your help. I tried what you said and ran the car with the anti freeze cap off. The fluid began to slowly rise until it began over flowing. I ran and shut the car off and then I noticed one bubble. If the head gasket is gone won't I need to just replace the head gasket? Why would the car need a valve job?

Now the exhaust seems to really stink like oil, my father say's it smells like oil to and not antifreeze. There is black stains on my rear bumper also.



Blu, I have been insanely bussy in life lately, I really just do not have the time to go on AIM anymore, I work about 80 hours a week now. I do miss talking to you guys though..



Thanks for any more help! If just the head gasket is gone I will keep the car

 

no excuses good luck with the car though

 

Ohh and yes I have abused my car a ton of times. I have raced it on the strip and on the road way to many times. However lately I have settled down a lot.

 

If your head gaskets are blown, you will need to have the heads checked by a machine shop for cracks and warpage. They will also be able to do the vavle job if needed. I would not advise just buying a head gasket set and replacing them without having the heads checked out. You could end up doing it twice if you take that route.

 

sorry to hear about your Max Ethan. Hope things work out for ya

 

Check your coolant again. Is there a white milkshake like foam on it? If so you may have a blown head gasket and the oil is leaking into your coolant as well.
If you are burning oil and it is coming out of the tailpipe it sounds like you have lost sealing/compression in one or more of your pistons and you have blow by. If this is the case it's just a matter of time before it makes death nosies. You can buy a simple compression tester at the auto parts store and run a check on each cyclinder.

 

Thank you for your suggestions. I just took a look at the radiator fluid and there is no white residue on it. I have a compression tester and I have used it in on my other cars a few times. I will see if I can find it and I will do some testing.



BTW I will have a mechanic fix this, after recently replacing my driveshaft I swore not to touch the car again, atleast not for a while

 

I'm confused. Why is everyone treating this as though it wont be covered under warranty? Take off as many mods as possible, go to the dealer and tell them its not running right...

 

That would be worth a try. There is no way of knowing if they will cover it until he takes it to them. Some dealers will do it and some will go out of their way to avoid doing it.

 

ethan... sorry to hear about your troubles... it's been a long time tho... you are the invisible 5th gen mod here

 

You might as well take it to the shop to mashine the head. Its only $30-40 bucks..

 

It is a honor


I tried looking for my compression tester but I moved and I can not find anything

Tomarrow I am going to look around and see what mechanics are available in my area for this job. I decided that I am not going to visit my nissan dealership, paying the repair bill is more desirable then to deal with them. The last repair I had done at nissan caused a chain reaction of other parts breaking.

In two years of owner ship I have had the following things break:

Motor ?
Transmission
LF Driveshaft
Ball Joint
2X Front wheel bearings
5X MAFS (aprox.)
CD Player


To top it all of I have a transmission fluid leak... I swear I can not take it anymore!!!

Does anyone know how much it would cost approx. to have a head gasket replaced? About $800ish?

 

torch the car ethan..=)

 

Do you see oil spots in your coolant?

 

No I do not.


I know china it is mighty tempting..


I forgot to add under my list of broken parts:

I snapped my shift linkage in half once, that was fun



Any one want a gently used car?

 

I located a motor 30 miles away with 13K miles on it for $975. Worst case senerio is this will cost about 2G's. Damn I should not have bought that big screen LED TV, LOL!

 

LED tv? whats that look like? hahahah

 

Correction, it is a "LCD" TV, it is this one here: http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.js...rk_6&oid=74889 I got it else where for a bit less.

 

Before you drop off the deep end here, you may have something as simple as a lower intake manifold leak. If you are hearing a hissing noise deep down it could very well have a dud gasket or seal. The lower intake of course seals oil as well as coolant. Oil can easily be drawn into the manifold and create the smoke problem. What we do at work is use a smoke generator. This machine actually creates its own pressurized smoke which we then feed into an intake hose into the manifold. Once the manifold is pressurized with smoke (TBI is also plugged off before
pressurizing) leaks or a leak will easily show up. It's nailed many problems before and is a great tool. Something like this could verify a leak or no leak condition. You need to find someone to verify the lower intake is not leaking before condemning a cylinder head. We've had cars in where vehicles with these new high tech plastic composite manifolds have cracked and caused the entire engine to hydro-lock due to coolant ingestion...don't take long either! Anyhow an avenue you may wanna explore. Goodluck.
Mark

 

One more thing you can do is pull off the rad cap engine running at operating temperature, and stick a 4 gas analyser close to the neck of the rad and sample the fumes if any coming from the rad. Any hydrocarbons or CO, then you have a head gasket issue. Any reputable shop could do this for you at minimum charge. At least you will then know if a head is cracked or gasket blown....saves you having to rip it down for nothing. Have fun!!
Mark

 

i really dont think its a head gasket. doesnt sound like 1.

check PCV or for a vacuum leak.
at idle shoot brake cleaner around where you think the whistling is coming from..if you have a leak the idle will rise.


are you FI?

 

Wow, thank you and slvr2KSE5 so much, my heart has just sunk back into my chest! You have given me hope! I have taken my intake manifold off about 6 times since I bought the car (I tested the Z manifold a bunch of times, spark plug change, polishing ect.) so this sounds like a real viable explanation.

At the dyno shop a while ago I saw the guy there do the spraying of brake lean test, at the time we suspected a air leak but it came up negative (A gasket in my VIM was the culprit!).

I am going to have to search the garage for some brake leen now, let's keep our fingures crossed! If you are right jmd102 I will reward you (I really mean it).

 

One question? have you recently had the oil changed? If so check the level. I know if you overfill these cars oil get blown up into your intake hose and can get on the MAF. Just a thought.

 

I am not FI, however I do have 30 more WHP over stock



No luck finding any brake lean tonight

 

Nope actually it has been 8K miles since my last oil change, lol! However I do use Amsiol with a amsiol filter (oil tests on the org says this is fine) and the level has been in check.

 

Yeah, I have done that with the gas analyser several times. Works pretty well, you can do that OR just go have some1 run a block test. Its basically a a tube that you fill up with a blue chemical. Its quite easy to use, if any hydrocarbon or Co are present the fluid will turn a yellowish color. Thats when you know for a fact you got some serious problems mang. Either that or the gas analyser thing. They both work just fine, I just use the block test in front of the customers to show them whats going on.

jmd102: Smoke generator huh...now that could come in useful As far as the intake manifolds being plastic & cracking. True, ive seen this be4 a few times. We actually have a 98 yukon in with the manifold cracked right now and another one scheduled for early next week. Its quite common as im sure you know.

 

Blue smoke is oil burning. The tailpipe will either smoke all the time or just once, first thing in the morning. If you get blue smoke all the time, that is a sign of impeding doom. That is the first sign of the beginning of the end. Broken rings, bad pistons, damaged cylinder walls, all high dollar items.

On the other hand, if all you get is a puff or two first thing in the morning and never again throughout the day, then your problem is probably bad valve guides or valve guide seals.

Also are your plugs fouling? and Have you noticed the car using oil? I guess thats one bad thing when it come to complexed engines...... complexed diagnosis of the problems

 

The problem just started today with no signs of any problems previously.

 

Complexed diagnosis of the problems is an understatment. The most crap cars got, the more I personally want to leave them alone. Im ghetto, Ill just let the other techs mess with it

about the bluish smoke. Its usually gets worst & worst in a short time person. Usually once it starts the motors has about 3months of limping around left.
In most cases the blue smoke is caused by worn piston rings or valve guide & guide seals.

 

I took the car to a local mechanic today. He said he will take a look at it tomarrow. He said if the motor needs to be replaced it would be $500 for labor (Not bad!). So I guess worse case scenerio is this will be $1500. Hopefully it is just a seal and I get out of this mess for under a G. We will see, I will keep everyone updated. Thank again for all of your help, I really do appreciate it. BTW I tried spraying brake lean around the intake and it had no effect.

 

Engine block is cracked under the intake manifold, sounds like the one we got not too long ago over here at Nissan 3.0s rule !!! <ducking>

 

A cracked engine block, sweeet! Just my luck . I bet this problem may have started from hitting a puddle of ice cold water. I hear you about the 3.0 thing, they d rule, I had two before this POS.