Thanks to Jeeve, Jay25, StephanMax and numerous other members on the orgs and their threads that helped me got this all completed.

I am using a 01 I30 Motor that was swapped in my 97 using the 4th gen EGR, EVAP and other small things. So far all the vacum hoses are connected along with any other plugs. I just cant get it to run. Looks like the starter is doing its part but .....

At this point I am kind of lost. I am not sure where to even start troubleshooting. Any help?

-Ossamah

 

I assume it's getting air so that leaves fuel and spark. Which of those have you checked and what did you find out?

 

Did you connect the crank sensors and ALL the grounds?

 

I have checked the fuel lines and everything is connected. Gas tank is half filled. I just took out one of the coilpacks to see if they spark plug is there and it is. I am assuming all are in there. Motor has about 32K miles and was pulled out of a car right in front of Jay25. This is very frustrating.

 

Yeap - From what I can see all of them are connected.

I have grounded most of the wires on the intake manifold (checked the ground there and it was good).

 

Frequently recommended way to bleed off the fuel pressure prior to disconnecting fuel lines is to pull the fuel pump fuse and start the car, letting the loss of fuel pressure stall out the engine. Did you do this, and if so, did remember to reinstall the fuel pump fuse?

 

I dont remember taking the fuse out. I will double check today. THanks for the input!!

 

I ran into the same problem Ossama. My problem was that the cylinders would flood and soak the plugs. However this problem first started when I put in the 570 injectors and the Emanage. All I did was put a relay inline with the fuel pump that would stop the pump from running only when the started was enguaged. Have you pulled the plugs to check and make sure they are not soaked? To test this just pressureize the fuel system by turning the ignition, pull the power plug from the fuel pump, or the fuse. Crank the car, if it does start plug the pump back in and she should stay running.
Give that a whurl.

Choray

 

Those IM grounds, move them to the timing chain cover, you will see 2 bolt holes for them on the cover at the top.

 

I think what people were asking about grounds was in reference to the engine being grounded to the frame of the car. IM grounds don't do jack if the engine isn't grounded to the frame with a large gauge wire.

 

If the sensors and grounds are good... Injector wiring? I assumed you used the 5th gen LM if it's a complete engine..

 

True, I know when I was installing my SMT6, I grounded the lower IM grounds to the fuel rail and the car would not start. I had to add a bunch of grounds everywhere and now the car runs better than ever.

 

Isn't the motor already grounded to the frame via the negative battery wire?

 

I guess that depends on the setup. I was only thinking of my car with relocated battery in the trunk so in my case no. But without a relocated battery then yes it would be. I was just thinking of my car. After I did my engine swap the car wouldn't start because I hadn't hooked my ground back up from the engine block to the frame.

 

Thats the first thing that came to my mind. I have the engine grounded. I also used my multimeter to test the ground on the intake manifold bolts and its good.

**UPDATE**: After trying to start again like million times smoke started coming out from the starter. Just picked up a new starter and a new battery to take those two out of the picture.

 

dont 2k1 motors need a chiped key? just a suggestion

 

2k1 CARS do... The engine is an engine which should run given air, fuel, and spark.

 

The chip in the key only affects the fuel pump if the respective steering columb does not receive the signal. The anti theft system is built into the car not the motor. You can change the motor from a 99+ with the transponder to an older model and have no problems with the anti theft system.
Choray

 

It's not his fault...

 

I had some starting problems after my swap also but I was able to get it started when cold and then it would stall out and not start again until cold.
It ended up being a bad ground (intake manifold one). Any after that I had a hard start problem which ended up being just a dirty crank sensor (flywheel).

Check and make sure the injector wiring is okay and that the pump is making pressure, the ground points, MAF, coolant temp. sensor and crank sensors. Hope you get it figured out soon.

 

Finally car was started thanks to some creative thinking by JAY25. Now its idling like crazy. BEtween 1500-2000 RPMs. OBDII is throwing a check Idle Control code.

 

Congrats on getting it started. Fixing the idle shouldnt be a big problem, just have to adjust a few things. Is the IACV connected?

Also, what fixed the starting problem?

 

IACV is connected and thats why I was kind of surprised why it is throwing the code.

As for the starting issue - Jay poured in some fuel directly into the manifold and baang. car started

I left it there for right now but I do have a few questions.

- If car started and ran fine for 10-15min or so, does that mean all the grounds and electricals are connected fine?

- Since OBDII threw the IACV code and nothing else - I shouldnt worry about anything else should I?

Just tryint to narrow down everything to couple of things and take it for a spin tomorrow.

For some reason the intake makes this really LOUD whissing noise that makes it sound like a boosted car. Did anyone else notice that?

Thanks Jeeve, Jay25, Kevlo911, choray and other members here on the board. Without your help it woulda been nearly impossible.




Anyone has wiring color codes for VAFC2 and 97 Maxima ECU? Cant tell if its the pink or the purple wire on the vafc2 used for MEVI.

 

Good job guys on getting it started..


Now for the IACV..

Are you using the 4th gen one or 5th gen one? The last time I checked the 5th gen IACV wasnt compatible with the 4th gen ECU. And also the 4th gen IACV requires an adapter plate.

 

It probably just needed that little push, I was having a problem with clogged injectors on my old engine and a little bit of starting fluid allowed it to start right up.

Your grounds and electrical connections should be fine but you might run into some problems after driving it a bit. My bad ground made the car stall only when it was warmed up to operating temperature so you will have to wait and see until you actually start driving it.

Mine makes the whisle sound while accelerating lightly at low rpms, not at idle though.

 

He is running the 4th gen one with an adapter plate. You sure all the connetors are snapped in?

 

As far as I can tell all the connectors are good. I am going to start over tomorrow morning and once it idles I might drive it around the block

 

So this is where it sits now. CAr starts fine and runs for about 2-3min and then it dies. Will a vacum leak do this?

 

Hmm, does it start up right away after it dies? Could be a vac leak, maybe you can find a gauge cheap to check it?

 

It starts rite up runs for 2-3min and dies. Then you let it sit for another 10-15min and start it again and starts right up. Not sure whats wrong at this point.

 

Its difficult to say what it is but it sounds exactly like my problem. Once it heats up and the needle hits close to the middle, it would stall out and not start until it cooled down. I probably already mentioned this a few times up top but it was my ground on the main harness which used to be grounded to the intake manifold. That fixed the problem right away but in your case, you said you already checked that.

With a vac problem, I would think that it would get better as the car warms up. When you try to start as soon as it stalls out, what does it do exactly.

 

I moved the ground from the intakemanifold to the valve cover.

After it stalls out, I tried starting but I just cant get it to start up. I thought it would be my IACV thats not doing things rite so I disconected that. Still the same result.

Kind of lost now.

 

ahahah, I did the same thing, put the ground on the valve cover and that was my problem. I used one of the 2 threads on the top of the valve cover because it was the only place to reach. The valve cover is not a good ground point so I ran a wire from the valve cover to the ground on the battery. That should fix your problem hopefully.

 

I am going to do that first thing tomorrow I HOPE that fixes the problem. I mean when the car is running for that 2-3 min period, none can even tell that anything is wrong with it,. It idles @ 2000rpms but I guess I can fix that later on.

Next step - Install the VAFC2

 

Well Jeeve, you are DA MAN! I moved the ground to the battery terminal and car ran perfect Thanks for your help man along with Kevlo911.

I still cant figure out the IACV issue but that shouldnt be that bad.

Thanks again guys!

 

Nice, im glad you got it fixed. Time to dyno tune

 

Technically the battery isn't a ground. It NEEDS to be grounded so basically grounding something to the battery is just as good as grounding that thing to what the battery is grounded to in the first place, the frame and engine block.

 

The neg cable usually goes back to the engine block

 

I know that. That's exactly what the last part of my post said. He said that he grounded the harness to the battery terminal and I just wanted to clarify the fact that the battery itself isn't a ground. Just in case anyone was wondering or confused about it you could ground the harness to the frame or engine block directly and get the same result.

 

Well when the harness was grounded to the block car was NOT running. As soon as I grounded it to the ground terminal of the battery it started working. That's all I gota say.