Well I'm officially about to have a nervous breakdown. I'm in shock right now.

Well after installing new coils yesterday and feeling the car drive nice and fast, I decided to see if the new coils would help with my problems when I try to spray nitrous. I'm using the JWT ECU and nitrous daughterboard to control to nitrous, which is a 65 dry shot.
After driving around and warming up the car and bottle, I decide to hit the spray. Worst mistake of my life.
As soon as it gets to spraying, I hear a POP, and see a puff of smoke coming from the engine bay. FUKC!!!! I turn off the nitrous and bottle heater, and coast back to school. As I'm about to pull into the lot, my car shuts off, but luckily I was able to start it again. As I pull into my parking space I notice a rough idle, and within a minute of pulling in the car shuts off again. I didn't see any oil dripping from the engine however.
This is the worst thing that could happen to me right now. I was gonna auto-x this weekend, but that ain't happening. I'm so far away from any Maxima people that would be able to help me throw in a used engine for any reasonable price that I guess I'm gonna have to have some fool install my engine (my college is in the middle of nowhere).
I can only assume my engine is totally dead since it won't even run for more than a minute without shutting off. No chance of driving it home either.

I'm so frazzled right now I don't really know what to think, except that I'm already in debt to my parents $3,000, I have no way of getting a new engine in, and I have no way of getting home.

I just had a compression check done a week ago or so and everything was fine.

Excuse me, I'm going to go cry in the corner. Seriously. I'm sooooooo fukked right now.
Time to give JWT a nice call.

 

Wow. You might have popped off a vacuum/intake hose or something. Dont give up hope yet! maybe you damaged the maf etc...

How does the car run? Super low on power? Smokes? Soft or loud knocking??

 

When it was idling for a minute I listened to the exhaust and it sounded real bad. It was also vibrating a good deal. The smoke only happened when it popped, there was no more after. I couldn't tell if it was low on power. There was only about 45 seconds of driving between when it happened and when I parked it luckily. I didn't hear a knocking, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

 

Lift the hood and see if there any obvious things not hooked up.

 

Damn man I feel your pain, but you gotta be willing to pay-up if you're going to mod your engine like that. I've paid for one engine, one clutch, and one tranny, and my insurance paid for another tranny.

I now don't consider serious mods on my vehicles; just not worth it.

Good luck, keep us posted.

 

Wow, sorry to hear what happened. There's no way to tell, but maybe you have an electrical issue, because the motor wont stay running. Yet you see no oil/coolant on the ground. Any coolant in the oil or likewise? I doubt it from what you say.

Hopefully you've got a problem related to spark, which can be repaired. Good luck.

 

wild, wild guess...but maybe those new coils fried themselves cause they didn't like the JWT timing manipulation?? again...a wild guess, but seeing as how you just put the coils in...start with the most obvious path.

 

If you burn the spark plugs it'll run like **** and die out. Same if you damage the top surface of the pistons which can happen from damaging the spark plugs and have the pieces of spark plug fly around in the cylinder.

 

But what could have caused a plume of smoke to come from the engine when this happened? The plugs I have in there now have been in for 3k miles, and are OEM plats, as per JWT recommendation.
Even with what I believed to be perfect tuning for something as 'safe' as a 65 shot, my luck never fails.
But hey, I've already had to replace a tranny, then another clutch, and about $5,000 worth of other things. This engine is the last possible thing to go....

 

95maxrider remember that comment I made about the JWT ecu to you????

Go back and search for it. I wouldn't touch a JWT ecu with a 100ft pole. Almost everyone that ran them had serious engine problems. People have better luck running a stock ecu and a safc2.

BTW i run a 75 shot on a 99 altima that only has 150hp stock. I retard my timing by using a MSD digital 6 box.

 

Update: Went out to car to check for fluids and lose hoses. I found neither. I called Tilley and he said to start the car to see how long it would run. It ran for about 15 seconds, then it shut off. He said to turn up the idle to compensate for a busted ring or other parts that wouldn't let it idle, and I did, but it didn't help a thing, and it shut off in 10-15 seconds again. The exhaust sounded very lumpy.
Both times right after the engine had died I heard a little pop of air coming from somewhere in the engine. I don't think it's normal, but of course I have no idea what the little pop is.
Tilley said it's probably busted since it won't even run for 20 seconds. Great.

JWT is going to get an earfull tomorrow.

 

take some throttlebody cleaner and spray it around the air intake gasket. i think you blew your gasket. spray around the whole gasket and in between where the knock sensor is if theres a leak it will shut the car off or speed it up.

 

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn nick

I know how you feel - but it doesnt really seem like your motor is shot....seems like its something else. Its gona be a long process of elimination to find out what it is tho

Real sorry dude....hope you can get it worked out.

 

So could that have caused the plume of smoke? The engine won't run for more than 15 seconds, so it may be difficult to tell if it's the TB cleaner or not. I'm a tad confused, what does it mean if the engine speeds up, or shuts off when I spray the TB cleaner?

 

dude your symptoms sound alot like mine and i know i didn't blow my motor since it hasn't left my garage in a month. I tried installing new injectors and have since had some of the symptoms you talk about. When you crank your car does it have a high rev then idle drops and spits and sputters till it dies? I think what you have is a vaccum leak and that popping noise you are hearing may just be the car backfiring

 

it means its sucking in air somewhere or in your case throttlebody fluid. if you blew your air gasket the car wont run and will throw out smoke.it will start back up but wont run for more than a few seconds. your gonna have to keep the car running by giving it gas while you spray you will know if its being sucked in. or ike jeff said a hose popped off from the pressure of the nitrous especially since its a dry shot and relys on vacuum sould of forced off a hose..

 

No, it cranks and starts normally, but the idle is lumpy, and after 10 seconds it starts to stutter, then slowly shuts off. Then I heard a weird popping noise right after it was all shut off, which I have no idea what it is.
The popping noise after it shuts down doesn't sound nearly as bad as the pop that happened when it spit out smoke. Like I said, I went out to check hoses/lines, but wasn't able to see anything out of the ordinary in the fading light.

Just so people know, it's not smoking at all now. Just when this happened. I tried to keep it running by turning up the idle, but that couldn't keep it running, so I'm not sure how much good revving the engine is going to do when I try to test the intake gaskets.

 

why dont you do a compression test first?

that would be the first logical move.

 

Yeah, only I don't have any tools to do that. Maybe I can convince my local mechanic to come by my parking lot and do one for me along with reading some codes with a scanner.

 

check the cat and plugs

 

Well if I can get my mechanic to come to my school (which is about 4 minutes from his shop), then he will bring tools. While we're doing the compression check we will check the pulgs for sure. I doubt however that we will be able to check the cat with the car still on gravel.

 

Sounds like you have a severe vacuum or EGR leak, maybe you had a nitrous backfire in the manifold and it blew a gasket. When we installed Krismax's VI with left a EGR plate untightened by accident and it made the same symptoms as your car does, however the engine stayed running but backfired and idled horribly.

 

If i was leaving for cali, I would try to help you out...your not to far from frederick/thurmont, right?

Does it fun if you stay on the throttle, keeping the revs up?

 

Well, my car doesn't run for more than 15 seconds at a time. I raised the idle some but it didn't help. Tomorrow, I will see if it stays running if I rev it.

 

See if you can have someone rev it at 2000~3000 rpm and check the engine for any leaks or hissing. I Could hear alot of air hissing and see small flames from the backfiring... All this at 11pm at night, needless to say people at my house and the neighbors were pissed.

 

I don't think you blew your motor. My money is on a vac leak, blown gasket of some sort, etc. Also you can buy a cheap socket set and compression tester for like $30 man... just check the compression to eliminate that possibility or confirm a blown motor, head gasket, etc.

 

Have you unplugged the MAF? Perhaps you just had some blowback from spraying and it blew the MAF.....other than that, I would have to agree with those above who mention vacuum leak as the most likely culprit.....

damn, I hope it turns out to be something small...I was looking forward to working you at the auto-x this weekend.....

 

Well peoples responses have brought my hopes up. But even if this is a smaller problem, it might not be easy to fix.
Either way, there's no way I was gonna let you get the best of this weekend.
I still have no idea what could have caused this possible blowback/backfire. What are some posibilities?

 

MEVI ? , what RPM where you at when you had the blowout. Maybe some nitrous got stuck in there and blew out.

 

My best guess is that I was between 4200-4500 rpm. Keep in mind this is a dry setup.

 

Any engine codes? Usually you will get something.

May be the cat material is fried/clogged.

Check all the basics before freaking out.

g/l

 

Well, I constantly have about 8 codes due to the fact that I'm using a Maxima ECU in an I30, and we have some different systems that show up as errors.
So I don't know if any other codes came up yet. I was going to do that tomorrow as well, it's just a b!tch to do without a scanner. I don't have a cat, I have a test pipe.

 

It does sound more like a vacuum leak that a blown motor. I had a massive vacuum leak and the car wouldn't run for more than 10-15 seconds at a time either. It would start fine, then idle funny and die. Raising the idle didn't help either, only way to keep it running was to keep feathering the throttle. And another time, I had a cracked fuel injector that was leaking at idle, same symptoms. Car sounded really bad both times also, it's basically misfiring.

If your car isn't smoking right now, chances are it isn't the motor. Your may have had a nitrous backfire that caused all the smoke when it went.

 

I don't know what a nitrous backfire is, could you explain it? What is the best way to test all my injectors?

 

tank you are thinking of Mt. St Mary's. he goes to St. Mary's = southern MD.

but nick i also think its a vacuum related problem. could have blown a hose off somewhere. also a possible injector or coil pack issue as well. good luck man, i wish you the best.

--Paul

 

you can get them flow tested. RC engineering does it for around 30 dollars/per injector. What your describing is not injector failure IMO. The popping sound is backfiring caused by a probable vaccum leak.

 

Why in the world are you listening to JWT and running Plats with nitrous. I say that your plugs may also be messed up.

 

Is that the only way to know if they're working right? I would rather not have to send my injectors away to a shop if possible.

 

Well, mine was visibly cracked. If it's bad enough to cause your car to run like mine did, you'd see the damage. A clogged injector isn't going to cause the massive idling problems you're having and I had.

I just mentioned the injector because I had problems with mine and it caused symptoms like yours. But, I'm still leaning toward the vacuum problem. It's a much more common problem. Check all your hoses and gaskets, it's not going to be a minor leak.

 

I figured if I trusted them with my nitrous program, I should trust them for advice on plugs. What do they have to gain? I guess I'll go ahead and order some coppers for when I'm down there.