Hey guys, trying to help a friend with a 1997 KA24DE Altima. I used to own a couple 240sx's, but haven't messed with the KA much. The car currently will crank, but it will never catch. She says the car was running fine, then one day it just wouldn't turn on. Also that she had a similar problem recently, and her mechanic changed the distributor and the cap/rotor and it fired right up again.

I pulled the plugs, and found that it does get spark. The plugs smell of fuel so I'm assuming that its getting there. You can hear the fuel pump turn on. When you go to crank it, it turns over a couple times just fine then all of a sudden the next turn is real slow. You can hear it in the video below. Also the battery is brand new, 12.5 volts.

So pretty much I'm wondering, what will cause these motors to not start? I figured the crank sensor, so I unplugged it and checked the harness side with a voltmeter and got nothing. Am I supposed to get a reference voltage here? Or do I have to leave the sensor plugged in and check? What else could cause it not to start running? Thanks for the help!

Here's a video of it cranking.http://smg.photobucket.com/alb...7.flv

it depends on the sensor type. if the crank sensor has three wires its probably a hall effect sensor and has a 5v power supply and you should get power constantly as long as the ignition is on. if it has 2 wires then it is probably called a varieable reluctance sensor or VRS, there is no power supply that goes to that type of sensor so test the sensor by checking its resistance with your volt meter with it not connected to the harness.

there can be so many causes for a no start, it's hard to say. but it's either fuel, inadiquate spark, or air. how was the car running before this problem?