Sputtering like hell when i first start up, blows out some smoke, sometimes black, sometimes white.. from what i saw..have to gun it and warm up before it WONT stall out, but once its warm.. its idleing about 600-650, so it still WANTS to stall and still sputters intermitently.

fuel filter? gas lines? common censors?

just looking for help with troubleshooting it before i have to spend money i dont have

 

Some of that is most likely bad ignition coils. The smoke(s) could be several things, none of them good. White is probably the head gasket leaking coolant, black is running rich so the injectors are stuck open. I think mooze just had a similar set of issues, but he ended up giving up:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=531692
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=532275
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=528446
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=525974

 

definitely not the head gasket, coolants still topped off. And ive had bad head gaskets before, this isnt anything like that. Would be white smoke constant.

Definitely black tho, so injectors get stuck open and make it run rich? Damn i wont want it to be injectors. $$$

time to find a 3rd gen SE at the junkyard!

 

The black smoke is definitely a sign of the engine running extremely rich. The chief cause of is yup,you guessed it injector/s. I've had a few coils go bad on my ve,never any black/white smoke,or stalling occured,just a miss under load.

It's also possible a bad coolant temp sensor or o2 sensor could be causing this issue.

 

Is it possible that what seems like white smoke is in fact thick vapor? I would imagine that on the occasion that the rich cylinder(s) detonate, the burn is not too hot so the resulting water vapor comes out more dense.

 

Have You cleaned your idle air control valve (IACV)? This may contribute to your rich mixture and poor idle.