Hey guys. I have a 95 Altima with a 2.4 that I just bought off of a friend. The car had a myriad of problems when I bought it including a blown head gasket/warped head, bad radiator, massive oil leak, etc. The car had also been overheated/filled with stop leak pellets numerous times. I replaced the head gasket this past winter and swapped in a nice used head from another 2.4 I had gutted for parts before. The whole upper end of the engine (and the bottom end water jackets) was meticulously cleaned and inspected before putting it all back together and when I tried starting it in the sub-zero weather, the car would just crank over and flood with gas but not start. I tried replacing the cap, rotor and coil to remedy a very weak spark. The intensity of the spark improved dramatically, but it still would not fire over except for the occasional sputter and stall. I also tried rotating the distributor while cranking to play with the timing.

Around this time, it got too cold for me to care about continuing working on it outside, so I let it sit for the rest of the winter. A couple of months ago, I jumped in and cranked it over to see what would happen, and it fired right up and ran pretty good. I can stop on it and wind it up in park/neutral without any issues and it seems to run fine. In gear, however, if I stomp it to the floor it chokes and surges and lurches and my scan tool shows the advance cuts out. If I gradually accelerate and get it going first it runs excellent and has tons of power but if I stab the throttle it goes right to s***. It also wants to die climbing steep hills.

I'm pretty sure the timing is good based on the fact that I followed the Jim Wolf instructions when putting the head back on and it runs like a top when I get it going slowly. The Car is throwing all kinds of codes though and I don't want to just start replacing sensors left and right, so I'm wondering where to start or if anyone has any info about dealing with a problem like this before. The codes it throws are as follows:

P0335- Crankshaft Position Sensor "A" CircuitP0325- Knock Sensor 1 Circuit (Bank 1)P1336- Crankshaft/Camshaft Sensor Range/PerformanceP0732- Gear 2 Incorrect Ratio

I've cleared them out a couple of times and driven it around in between. The first two codes keep coming back and the third occasionally. The incorrect gear ratio one seems to be a one time thing. (Although the car does have a very hard/delayed 1st to 2nd shift).

I guess my question is should I replace the distributor or what? I gather that this is a common problem on these cars and I'm not sure if it has ever been done before. Before I did the head, there was a little oil (not excessive) in the distributor, but I cleaned it all out and replaced the seal when I put it back together.

Would the knock sensor be a better place to start, as this is responsible for retarding the timing as well?

Help?

the Knock senors is only to protect the engine from damage its not going to cause serious problems mine has been out for a long time the check engine light stays off i would check the crank senor and see if its with in rage and start with that cause the knock sensor is close to $200 and it wont fix much

*UPDATE*

Since my first post, I have driven the car almost 7k miles through the warm weather with no real problems except the sluggish going up hills thing. I started testing the sensors that were originally throwing codes. The crankshaft position sensor was bad, and when I replaced it the code disappeared. The knock sensor was melted from my buddy overheating the car a bunch of times before I redid the head/etc. Replaced that one and that code is gone too.

After replacing those two, I cleared the rest of the codes and the CEL has stayed off and it hasn't thrown anymore codes since. Problem is, the car still cuts out when I stomp it to the floor and it still won't go up big hills worth a damn unless I manually downshift the auto trans or let off the gas and then lightly ease into it again.

Also, this past week, as the temp has dropped to the frigid range (Upstate, NY in January), the car recently began to refuse to cold start again like it did in the beginning. It is flooding with gas. I checked spark again and it is just fine. Something is just making the ECM squirt too much fuel for a cold start. Pulled the fuel rail and all the injectors spray evenly and don't dribble or leak, the pulse width just seems too long?

Once it floods, if I unplug the injectors and crank it it will fire up and run until the raw gas is burnt up and then it'll die. Once I plug the injectors back in it's right back to flooding though.

Thought maybe the fuel pressure regulator was bad, but that is fine. Coolant temp sensor shows a change in temp on the scan tool if and when I can get the car running, so I think that's ok. I think the mass airflow is fine because once it starts up it runs ok and drives around town just fine. The car doesn't throw any codes and I don't know where else to go? I'm thinking about replacing the distributor because it's a known problem in these cars and the tach doesn't work and the sluggishness all could point to a bad dist, but that is a lot to spend on a guess and there is no oil leaking or anything obviously wrong with it. It's getting voltage at the connector. The engine grounds are good...

Help?

how are you confirming injector pulsewidth--with a consult (like) interface?you are using the correct heat range NGK (no substitutes) plugs?what is the TPS voltage at hot idle?i had an old post in this forum that described how to check for proper distributor low voltage signaling--note that that requires AC voltage measurements to accurately determine what is going on (camshaft --i.e. distributor position sensing as the 1 degree timings slits go by the optical sensor).remember the ECU coolant temp sensor is not the same one as for the dash gauge. long shot guess is that the ECU could be whack. try against a known good one while looking at measured MAF, injector pulse width parameters.