Hey everyone, I had just enough time before work this morning to pull my spark plugs (after I am off work I will be checking the compression). My reason for doing so is because my car has been running rough/stumbling/cutting out when I give it more than 10-25% throttle. The car had been sitting with a broken maf plug for the past year with about 2 gallons of gas in the tank, I threw in 9 gallons with some fuel stabilizer and was trying to run the tank dry. As I went through the tank it began to run better but now it has trouble even idling. I don't know much about reading spark plugs but could cylinder #2 possibly be denied spark? It's really "gunky"... Also cylinder one had oil all around the plug and a little on the end of the coilpack's boot.

For reference, from left to right are the plugs are ordered #4-3-2-1 with #4 on the left and #1 on the right.

Well cylinder 2 has probles and 4 and 3 it need to be seal property and 1 looks good to me but here u go hoppe this helps

Rambo24o wrote:Well cylinder 2 has probles and 4 and 3 it need to be seal property and 1 looks good to me but here u go hoppe this helps

Your wording is difficult to understand, thank you for the diagram. Still kinda wondering what exactly is going on with cylinder 2.... And are the other plugs okay? Should I get new ones?

Yes 4,3 and 1 are fine two is probably leaking oil. Most likely from the valve seals but it could also be the rings. And yes u should get new ones
And make sure that the gap is correct.

What engine u got

I have a ca18det, gaps were all at 34-36 excluding number 3 plug which was at 40. I'll check whether it's the rings if valves tonight during the compression check, do you think number 2 cylinder has any issue with getting spark or is it strictly the oil leaking which makes the plug look like that?

Yes. a good way to know is to unplug the coil wile the car is running 1st unplug #2 if u do not see any difference when u unplug it
It meens that ur CA is not sparking on cylinder 2 and running on 3 cylinders that's way it runs rough


Or just buy new spark plugs

But I am sure something is up whit cylinder 2

Okay, I'll pick up some new spark plugs and try pulling the coil as recommended. The compression test should reveal any evidence of a leak.

Well if ur going to buy new sparkplugs change them 1st and that should give it way if it runs good its what u suspected not sparking correctly

I did the compression test and then test each coil on every cylinder. After I put it together it was running pretty bad, same cutting out issue... I came to the conclusion to check my fuel pressure, from altering the pressure I noticed it would get ALOT better, I could actually rev it. I took picture of the compression test results and a video of the smoke it was throwing "before" I altered the fuel pressure(I don't have the experienced eye for smoke reading and reading my plugs...I built my engine only because I had the information to learn from. So thanks for your input). So now I am trying to figure out what fuel pressure I should be running. It was at 50psi during that video and I get the best results when it's about 70psi, I know stock is about 36-37, with my limited knowledge of engines these numbers scare me, so I'm Not driving it or turning the pressure up any higher. I suppose some pertinent information about my addons would help:

•1st gen DSM injectors 450cc
•FMIC with cone air filter
•3inch exhaust turbo back with resonator
•Mls head gasket with arp studs
•Fuel pressure regulator ( obviously)
•mines ecu, I don't know what it's tuned for.... Came with the car and ran fine at the time.

Results:

Cylinder #1


Cylinder #2


Cylinder #3


Cylinder #4


Video of exhaust prior to altering fuel pressure, sorry about the quality, I should have held the camera sideways.
http://s1.craigupload.com/uploads/04_22 ... 923750.jpg

Sorry bro can't help u there I am a rocky in turbo but my best guess is that u may need a tune?

But u may want to get a second opinion on it

Alright thanks, I just noticed something tonight though, I pulled my FPR out and checked the gauge, it was faulty. It read 35psi when it should have read 0... So tomorrow before work I'll pick up a new one at a local store.

I'm a bit confused. You have bigger than stock injectors and a tuned ecu with no idea what it's tuned for, and you're surprised your car doesn't run right? You said it ran fine before, but before what? Sitting for 2 years? Just based on the plugs, I'd say your bad fuel ruined your #2 injector and it's stuck open.

I'm a bit confused. You have bigger than stock injectors and a tuned ecu with no idea what it's tuned for, and you're surprised your car doesn't run right? You said it ran fine before, but before what? Sitting for 2 years? Just based on the plugs, I'd say your bad fuel ruined your #2 injector and it's stuck open.

Yes it did run fine before hand on it's current ecu/injector setup. When I purchased the vehicle it had the ca18det already swapped in, otherwise I would not buy an "eBay" generic tuned ecu, I'd have it tuned professionally at a local shop. In regards to bad gas I recently purchased a bottle of "heat" for my next fill up, it is suppose to take out any water that may have built up in my fuel tank. At the moment though I am currently redoing my timing belt and running pressure tests for boost leaks. Visually I found one in my FMIC, I patched it last night and will reinstall to do a full inter cooler pressure test. On a side note, I have replaced the in-line fuel filter already and found no evidence of flow restriction. Float, I will read up on how to clean/check injectors after I read the new set of plugs that i recently installed and put it back together.

Also, just a few days ago while researching I discovered I had the timing off by 5 degrees, I had it set to ESDM 15 btdc instead of JDM 10 btdc.

Alright, keep us updated. I

Update, I found three boost leaks today; one at a IC coupler, one was where my boost gauge connected its vacuum (so I cAncled it out), the last one was the least severe and was coming from seals around the unit that holds the F.I.C.D valve, A.A.C valve, and the I.A.A. I haven't fix this leak yet because I wanted to check the idle and rev first. I have a picture of the fitting that is currently leaking and I have also recorded a video to better literate my symptoms. Since I've fixed the 3 of 4 leaks I have noticed my turbo chatter is much quieter.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug5mXMk8zTY
The video consists of attempts to rev the motor, when the throttle position is at 0-15% the motor will rev fine, but when the throttle position is at 15-100% then it's sputters and acts up...



I still haven't added any gas or fuel additive, I wanted to check my injectors first but haven't gotten that far yet.

When I get home from dinner tonight I will fix the leak deacribed above as well as pull the plugs to see how they are doing. On a side note, I'll be using a multimeter to check my injectors ohms. If an injector is "sticking" then will my only option would be to pull the injector and visually observe the spray to identify such a an issue?

Quick update, I didn't have time to pull the plugs due to lack of daylight and the presence of rain. However, I did fix the leak described in my last post, while doing so I pulled the plug off of the number 2 injector and noticed that it was 30% full of water! More than enough to submerge both pins... Not sure if it would affect the performance of the engine but i dried it up, the other injectors were dry. Here is a picture of the water in the injector connecting terminal.



The picture *below* shows the number 2 injector on the right and the injector number 3 on the left.


New goal, drain the fuel tank via priming open fuel line into an empty container. Once dry I'll refill a few gallons with stabilizer and Heat to eliminate the possibility of running bad fuel. Unfortunately I have work starting this Monday and will be limited on my time :/

This morning before work I started my car and inspected the leak I fixed in the dark last night. It looked good but I noticed something new... Smoke coming from my turbo, there is oil leaking in that area but mainly on my bell housing. I'm gonna rip it out over the course of the week to get a better look at the oil leak when the turbo is out, I get off at 2 am so I really can't work on it in the dark and don't have access to a garage. however I took a quick video of the smoke emitting from my engine bay, apologies for the squeaking belts, keep your speakers on low lol.

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxP9yLfA7mY

Also something I have been referring to regarding this smokig issue is a previous thread here on Nico, titled "smoking from turbo area/smoke out exhaust/bogging down" (a link to this thread is posted below). Does a blown turbo sound like a culprit here?

smoking-from-turbo-area-smoke-out-exhau ... 42696.html

I'd focus your attention on one problem at a time.

No, a blown seal won't smoke anywhere but out the exhaust, and usually does it on decel or at idle.

Well I'm at a stand point... I ran the injector cleaner with no results and the smoking from the exhaust manifold is increasing. I'm beginning to think my head gasket is bad, I'll run another compression test but if that's the case im going to probably make the decision to cut my losses and get rid of the Car, I wouldn't mind doing a new head gasket because it not very hard but screw pulling the engine out to get the deck resurfaced, I don't have a garage anymore and it's just in realistic considering my living situation. Its bull s***, for the 3 years I've had the car and the engine has been nothing but trouble. I've already replaced the head gasket with an MLS gasket and ARP studs, and yet it is pissing out oil. Sorry for the rant, I bought this motor for good gas mileage and to have a little fun when I wanted but I've done nothing but dump money into it to go no where. I would have saved more money driving a car that got 5 mpg vs buying this vehicle. Of course I could blame myself for mechanical illiteracy, but I tried.

Do you guys think these symptoms are related to a head gasket issue?

First off, I don't think the issue is HG related. Look carefully at the area where the oil is leaking. Are you SURE it's the HG and not the valve cover? It's more likely to be the Valve cover. If it IS the HG, simply replace it with a Felpro and be done with it. I've used them for years and seen absolutely no reason to use an MLS gasket.

As for the engine running issue. This seems to be a weak spark issue. From the look of the plugs, it's in the #2 cylinder. There are a few things that can cause a weak spark. I'll start from the plug and work backwards.
First off is a fouled plug, which you obviously have. You did get the plugs replaced, right? If so, pull the plugs again now and see how they look. I'd be willing to bet that the #2 plug is starting to foul again. If it is fouling again, then we need to move on to the next step.

Second is weak spark source. This is caused by either a failing coil pack, or igniter. As load increases (more throttle) demand on the ignition system increases. So a coil/igniter that will work at idle or part throttle, will stop firing, or fire later than it should under load. You should be able to determine this by unplugging a coil, one at a time, and see if the problem gets worse, or stays the same. I would be willing to bet that if you start with the #1 coil, it will barely run, or will just die. When you unplug the #2, the idle will drop, but when you rev it, it will act about the same as it does now. If that's the case, then the #2 coil is bad and needs replaced. If this doesn't happen, then you need to replace the igniter. When the igniter fails, it doesn't supply enough current to the primary windings of the coils. When this happens, the coils produce a very weak spark. It's usually enough to ignite at idle and light load, but not enough for heavy load.

Last is combustion contamination. What this means is that there are limits on what AFR's gasoline will ignite at. If there is too much or too little fuel, the mixture becomes very hard to ignite, or simply won't ignite at all. This is usually caused by under or over fueling. Based on your symptoms, I would guess over fueling. Probably from the #2 injector. I know you ran injector cleaner though it, but if you have an actual piece of debris holding the #2 injector open, no amount of injector cleaner will remove it. Part of the problem with having a vehicle sit for long periods of time is that the fuel becomes corrosive and will deteriorate the surfaces of the fuel system. If this happened, you could literally have a piece of the fuel rail lodged in the #2 injector, holding it open/shut.

Thank you for the thorough response float that helps me immensely, I was stressing pretty hard this weekend because of the hg. I don't mind doing a head gasket but just as lOng as I don't have to get the deck of the block shaved,I can't pull the motor where I live now.

I will take your advice and follow the steps for trouble shooting, also I didn't think about it until now but my friend has a set of the same injectors in his talon, I'll see if I can't borrow them for trouble shooting.

I'll update ASAP, again I will be have a small amount of time to work on it during the week due to work but it will get done regardless. Thank you again for the advice I felt as if I had exhausted all my options but if there is anything I can still check/troubleshoot, I'll get on it.

I have pulled each coil one by one and each coil definitely was sparking, I never tried to rev it while each one was unplugged though, at the moment I have my exhaust half way off to better diagnos the oil leak.

I pulled my igniter and will be looking how to test it online, I briefly read that it can be read with an OHM meter so I'll use the one at work today to see if I can identify whether or not it's faulty. However, it doesn't look like the number two plug isle tying fouled, but then again it's hard for me to tell... I tried to take pictures as clear as possible, hopefully they are sufficient.

Plug 1:


Plug 2:


Plug 3:


Plug 4:

Well that is a different set of plugs than from before. Notice that they're all sooty? That means you're either over-fueling on all cylinders, or you have weak spark on all cylinders. I will say that now, #2 doesn't appear to have any issue, and that #3 and #4 look the worst, while #1, while still very rich, looks a bit better than the rest. This is really looking like an ignition related issue, and since it's on all cylinders, I would look closely at the igniter. I would be willing to bet though, that since it will still let the car idle and run some, that it will test out OK. See if Tim (he's local to you, right?) will let you borrow his to test with. it's pretty simple to swap them out and will only take 10 min to check.

If that doesn't work, you need to pull the codes from the ECU. We should have had you do that at the beginning.

Yes, they are different plugs, about two weeks old now.

I tested my igniter (power transitor) tonight and while doing so I kept in mind what your said about it testing out okay jut still may possibly be "failing." so for s*** I decided to record my results, I don't known if they have any significance in determining whether it's "okay" or "okay (but) failing." here is a picture I took from the FSM dictating the testing procedure.


Here are the results:
Terminal combination: #of unit Ohms
D1:10.8 M ohms
D2:10.8 M ohms
D3:8.7 M ohms
D4:10.8 M ohms
1C:11.0 M ohms
2B:10.3 M ohms
3F:8.7 M ohms
4E:10.8 M ohms
DC:1.64 K ohms
DB:1.47 K ohms
DF:1.54 K ohms
DE:1.45 K ohms

With continuity detected in every terminal combination of the test, it passed. However, I couldn't help but to notice what seemed like an outlier in terminal "3" unfortunutley i dint know the circutry of the power transitor but if i were to guys i'd say its for one of the four coil packs. Do these number hold any significance or am I being illusional?

A bigger more important question ( because I don't know this Tim you mentioned ), could I use a different motors power transistor for my vehicle? Such as one off a ka24(d)e? I tried findin crossover part information regarding this igniter module but came up empty.

For reference I have put my ecu in "mode 3" to read any code and have been given the 55 "everything is okay". The only trouble code my ecu has ever displayed was about two years ago for a bad knock sensor which I bypassed with a resistor leaving my ecu happy, reading 55 from the ecu.

Hi there, long time no see.

I'd test with a different dropping resistor, injectors seem stucked open.

Cams wrote:Hi there, long time no see.

I'd test with a different dropping resistor, injectors seem stucked open.

Sure, can I test it with a volt meter or should I just try to locate another one? Also what model's dropping resistor crossesover so that it will plug and play in with my ca18det?

Do a search around the CA forum, I think there are a couple of threads that state how to test it with the multimeter.

You can also use a DSM or RX7 DR (running rx7 one in my car), but that requires cutting the plug from yours and rewiring the replacement, so I would suggest testing thoroughly before this.

This fixed severe idle issues I had, while having a bad CAS at the same time causing high rev issues. Took me a while to sort it all out

Okay, I'll do my best to check mine tonight, thank you.

I would say that you definitely have a bad/failing ignitor. The ignitor is (as Nissan calls it) and Ignition Amplifier. Basically what happens is that power that the ECU sends to the coils is too weak to actually charge the coils. So the igniter takes that signal and "amplifies" it, so that the coils can charge properly. There are actually 4 separate circuits inside the igniter, one for each coil. The 5th wire on the input side the 12V+ source that the igniter uses to increase the signal going to the coils.

What you're seeing in your test is that one of your coils isn't going to fire properly. It will probably still run for now, but it will need replaced soon. I don't think that right now, it's causing your issues, but it would still be a good idea to replace it. If you can find it, the igniter from a Q45 is the same. Actually, the Q45 has 2 of them, one for each bank. If you can't come up with one, the one for the SR will work, but you have to have the plugs for the SR unit and wire it in, as the plugs are different.

As for the real issue, I do think they're onto something with the dropping resistor. If you look through the stickies I'm pretty sure there is one in there about using a DSM dropping resistor if your's is bad. But before you go replacing it, you need to test it.