1996 Nissan 240 SE (5 speed) - Stutters, Lurches (Reposted from Tech Forum)

[forrest]

I purchased this vehicle for my youngest son about 18 months ago (High School graduation). It is a 5 speed and is Stock and the odometer showed 72,000 mile when purchased, currently has about 86,000 miles. After purchasing, I took it to a local import mechanic (Toyota, Nissan, Honda) and had him go through the vehicle. He's good. We started with the basics; major tune-up, brakes, etc. This past May, 2006 he performed a total timing chain job.

The problem. A little over a month ago, my son informed me that on occassion it felt like the car was losing power around 2000 to 2500 rpm. He was home from college that weekend, so I drove it to Church on Sunday morning and did'nt notice anything. So, I filled the car up was gas (premium) on the way home; thinking maybe we had a little moisure in the tank. After getting home, he left within a half hour to return to school and stopped at a local store to buy some HEET. The car would not Start.I sent him to school in my car and returned about 6 hours later. The 240 fired right up. I drove it to Church that evening and after Church (about 1 hour), I drove to my parents house about 10 minutes away. After visiting with my parents for about an hour, the car again would NOT start.

I returned to my parents home the next morning to see if the car would start, and it did, so I drove it to a local repair shop about 10 minutes away. Seeing that I had at least a 45 minute wait before they could check the car, I did the following; turned the car off and on about a half dozen times (it worked perfectly), lastly I decided to drive a couple of miles down the road to grab a biscuit at a McDonalds drive-thru. I had about a 3 or 4 minute wait with the car running. When I pulled out to return to the repair shop the adventure began for real. The car surged and stalled the whole way back (2 miles) with me barely getting there. I parked the car and left it running with smoke coming from under the hood. A mechanic comes out, the catalytic converter is cherry red. He said it was running too lean.

Solution #1: They replace the distributor cap. The rotor button is all messed up. They test drive and tell me to come pick it up later that afternoon. I pay for the repair and before I can get off the lot, it starts acting up again. They can't believe it, come out to check and keep the car another day. The whole next day they would perform several test drives, but the problem never repeated itself. *Note: they say the timing chain is making a noise.

Solution #2: When picked up this time, the car drives well enough for me to get it back to the import mechanics shop. They would keep the car for about 4 weeks and ended up replacing the entire ignition distributor. *Note: They did check the work they did on the timing chain and said everything was correct. The new (rebuilt) distributor actually caused this sound to disappear. I was at his shop one day and with the distributor cap off of the old distributor, he showed me a sleeve that went into the engine which had some significant play in it which apparently caused the tapping sound.

Solution #3: HELP Please.

The car ran for 5 days. On the morning of day 6, I again filled it with gas and afterwards drove about 20 minutes. After shopping for about 15 minutes, I cranked the car up and was able to go about 1 block in the parking before it started sputtering AGAIN. For 3 consecutive days, I returned but this time the car would not crank. On day 5 (yesterday) I had it towed to the mechanics shop. Whereupon it cranked the first time.

*Today, it finally acted up on them. They cranked the car and had left it idling. After about an hour someone thought to apply the idle at which point it started to sputter again. Yeah, I'm not totally crazy. Anyway, they are telling me the following;

a) the fuel pressure is good, staying between 30 and 35.b) the number 3 coil seems to be bad, losing fire when acceleration is applied. However, this is a newly rebuilt distributor.c) the are not receiving any problematic computer codes.d) they are now wandering if the computer motherboard has a bad spot.

All I know is that this is getting expensive. I've told my son that I can't afford to put and his car through college at this rate.

I would appreciate any and all helpful insights.

I do apoligize for the length of this post.

Thanks in advance,

Forrest

[180fan]

hmm sounds simple, but did the shop read the plugs? when it was just cranking, did they bother to pull the spark plugs and see what they could tell em about what's going on inside the cylinders?

Next thing, what's the resistance across the plug wires?

The timing was checked as well yes? It's also probable that one of the injectors are getting stuck.

If it's also running lean, check the coolant temp sensor. This seriously should be listed as a part of any tune up for any of these S chassis cars but isn't. The sensor itself is readily obtainable and very reasonably priced at 15-20 and should be replaced regardless of mileage issues or not. Another possible culprit could be the tps. check the voltages across the tps from closed to the wide open throttle position.