So today i went to colombians max's house and me and him (mainly him) got my rear calipers working again (they were rusted and didnt move) and adjusted my timing. Before the timing was past the last tick mark which seems way off wat it should be. So we moved it just after the 4th one, i believe 17 degrees and i usualy run premium so thats fine. This fixed my complete crap idle, it used to surge and then sound liek it misfired and was very rough now its smooth for the most part(prob needs IACV or TB cleaned) but its definitly smoother. I cant thank colombians max enough hes helped me with a bucnh of stuff and probably will continue too, hes a great guy. BUt now onto the problem. After driving home after retarding the timing the egine has almost no power. I punch it and it barely beats someone accelerating slowly. Not fast at all. Once it gets past 3,000 or so its revs much faster and seems to have more power but still not like before. DOes anyone have any idea as to whats wrong? COmputer doing something to try to adjust itself back to the right timing after being so far off or wat? And when i say big loss in power i mean its very noticeable at just about any RPM. Consequently the shift from redline in 1st to 2cd actually seems smoother/faster. I dont no why but i noticed that. All my injectors click fine and i believe the wires and plugs are like 4 months old. This problem started after adjusting the timing and nothing else was done....please help.

 

go back and set it at 20 then, and use 93oct. retarding timing causes you to lose power; that's how the Maxima's rev limiter works. It retards the timing for-real-style and then all your combustion happens too late, and doesn't really extract all the power it should from the gasoline.

basically it's not a problem... you are just accustomed to the power level you had on your advanced timing, and all you have to do is go drive a slow car for a couple hours and your maxima will seem fast again.

 

believe me, it is a problem. He drove both my car and his and I'm also on 17 degrees. He's having lag/power loss from 1-3k rpms then afterward its ok. I'm kinda thinking clogged injectors.

I unplugged wire by wire and there was spark on each one and there was a stumble for each one as well. What I did notice is that the engine ran slightly quieter/smoother when I unplugged one of the plug wires

Other than that I hope his brakes are better...F-ING midas charged the poor guy $100 for a brake inspection and couldn't even tell him his damn guidepins were frozen, should he go back and ***** or what?

 

what # cyl ran smoother with no spark? perhaps a problem then with the cylinder that syncs with that one (plus or minus three.. share BDC and TDC but one is power and one is intake) like a sort of counterbalance. Then go to that cylinder that is opposite the one you unplugged and maybe a bad injector there? It's a tough thing to diagnose when something runs BETTER when it should run worse.

 

Il have to look into that next time im by johns, but as for the timing, what is wrong with it being set so high? I really miss the power but now my idle is smoother but still its downright slow. It must have been set past the highest tick for a lon time so the engine must have been real accustomed to it. Can that cause any damage if the timings way off? What if I set it back, or like at 23 or so? And yea i definitly want to go back to midas to ***** them out and get some money back hopefully.

O yea and another way i can definitly feel the power loss is when cruising in OD at around 30-35mph if i try to accelerate slowly it kicks down to third because it doenst have enough power to accelerate in OD, but it always used to....

 

I used to run my car with the timing advanced like yourself for many years. The power was great.

However, there is a long-term detriment to having the timing adjusted too advanced. The farther you advance your timing (to a point) ,the more power your engine makes, but it also makes the combustion chamber temperatures skyrocket as well. When the engine is revving high with a lot of intake/exhaust flow, that's one thing, but at lower RPMs and it gets hot, there doesn't seem sufficient flow to keep the combustion chamber temperatures at bay (and pinging usually results as well).

2 weak parts I found; exhaust manifold studs and hydraulic lifters.

I had to fix the exhaust manifold studs - twice - Once at about 81K miles, and the 2nd time at around 179 K miles. They just couldn't take the punishment.

Some Maximas get occasional clacking from the hydraulic lifters at cold start for a few seconds. Mine was no different. It was getting pretty bad to the point where I was almost guaranteed a clack at cold start every morning. The lifters were getting a beating from the heat as it transfers directly from the valves. After I shut the engine off the lifters would bleed the oil and I have noisy start.

After I rolled the timing back, I didn't have clacking problems anymore. The VG engine is very forgiving as I didn't have to replace my lifters.

My car is pretty much stock otherwise.

I'm almost at 190K miles now.

 

Check your cap, rotor, and gap on your plugs. All of which effect your power considerably.

 

I do have to say the VG engine is a tough bird. Mine has overheated 3 times. Once when a fan blade fell off, second time when the thermostat got stuck, and earlier this week when a hose developed a hole. Shut it down soon but still runs great. I have seen some motors fry at 3/4 on the temp gauge.

 

no way to retard timing back to 17 when under 40-50% throttle? Not even by tripping the KS or something.

 

Hmm, I'm with Goon for now, Cap, rotor, plugs, wires. They didnt look that new anyway so he might as well change em.

 

lol john, so i got outta school like at 310 and the car just wouldnt start. i was going crazy. Finally with my foot to the floor it started and BARELY BARELY ran.
well i had to get home and wash my clothes for work so i got home (like a mile away) and opened up the engine and all i heard was sparking/arching. turned motor off. CHecked all the connections and whatnot and heres wat i think happened. we adjusted the timing and fooled around the engine and i did the night before and stuff and i think we loosened the coil plug since today it was barely hanging on. Plug it in snugly and all that and the car runs fine. Im pretty sure that was the cause of most of my power loss. It seems to drive faster now but i didnt really give it a good test but power seems to be back. Everythings great. I still want to upgrade back to OEM plugs, rotor and cap tho. And clean the TB, IACV.

 

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Nice job helping him out there john..

 

doh ! if only all things were that easy

 

It was out of good faith

lol hey I only unplugged the plugs that go over the sparg plugs...never touched any of the ones over the cap. He's the one that kept touching the coil and asking if it was bad.

Glad to hear that you got your **** straightened up. Yo you wanna go to the dealer tomorrow and get that stuff? I might be up for it.

 

lol sure i was messing with it john sure.... Im just glad to have it running right and making more power. Yea tomorow is probably my only free days this week so lets go for it... i called and asked, TB gaskets in but not IACV and rotor is 28, cap 10, plug 1.90 each or sumthin like that...