Hit a deer at 80MPH, Car won't start!

[phreezer]

Hey guys,

So I run into this deer at 80mph and the only visual damage was it put a fist sized hole in my intercooler, I managed to pull the car off into a safe area to be towed away, it was coughing and sounded like a WWII spitfire while it had the hole in the intercooler with the skewed a/f ratio and would hit a top speed of 5mph and quickly die at idle. I started it up a few times after the accident to see what was wrong with it, it was dark and didn't notice what was wrong. I got it home and put a new intercooler on and it doesn't start. The starter fires and put out 1-2 puffs out the exhaust on occasion and seems like it wants to turn over but doesn't quite make it.

Things I've done/noticed:Put new intercooler on, no airleaks in any intercooler tubing.Unpluged battery, let fully charge.Fuel pump activatesCleaned MAF.Cleaned intercooler piping of debris which there was none.Visually checked under car for damage, no riped out sensors or damage.Not even a dent was done to the car, just the underside of the intercooler was damaged.Tried starterfluid last, when it tries to start it the engine shakes like I just sprayed 100shot of NOS into it.Car sounds more willing to start on a cold morning on the first attempt but still doesn't fully start.

Possiblities:fuel flooded???

'91 240sx CA18DET

Thanks for the input.
Modified by phreezer at 9:03 AM 3/10/2008

[Vegascorbin]

You left out the most important part!

Step 1: Remove Deer!

Back to the serious side, glad you di not get hurt. Worse things have happened when hitting a deer at those speeds.

Did the engine die as a result of the accident? Or did you turn it off after you came to a stop? If it died due to the impact do yo uthink it could have damaged the internal engine? From what you are saying I would have to consider the possability. Pull the valve cover and check things out. See if your timing is still ok etc.

[ghostrideda95]

yea if your engine died at impact it is prob ****ed up on the inside

[Slappy]

at 80mph

[Ilvemynissan]

Are you sure it was a deer? Are you sure you drive a 240?? Last I checked a deer is taller than a 240 so I don't know how it ONLY hurt the intercooler. Oh unless it was taking a nap, and still at 80 mph should of done more damage. haha j/p

[Iused2Slide]

check all your spark plugs...my sr hot pipe used to com off till i got tbolts and it would run pig rich since there was no air going to the motor and foul the plugs out

[ca18detgabby]

stupid question..... do you have fuel? did you flood your engine trying to start it with a broken IC?

[srpowered240sx]

pull the plugs, look for fuel inside the cylinders. any smoke and/or fuel out the exhaust when trying to start. sounds like you f'd the car pretty bad, but somehow got away unscathed (very unlikely considering you hit a deer at 80mph, that should have totaled the car).

[phreezer]

The deer was hit by a guy in front of me a ways up, so it was dead in the road just not flattened, so I went up and over it in my lowered suspension 240. Should have driven with my brights on, it was a hilly, winding road.

The car kept running for a minute and I got it parked, didn't think that it was too serious so I started it back up and pulled into a side road about 1000yds away, it died from trying to idle, it was coughing and couldn't stay running without the pedal down. It was 20ºF out so I tried to start it to get some heater while I waited for a pickup from a friend. It started but sounding like it was gonna die without alot of gas applied, it died when I left it idle after about 3 seconds. Got it towed home, replaced the intercooler and it wont fire up.

I'll be working on checking what you guys recommended today, for now I only know the timing belt is fine and it gets fuel but doesn't quite turn over when starting, only a few puffs out the exhaust from trying to fire.

[phreezer]

So I just got a car to start, pulled the sparkplugs they looked pretty black and cleaned them, didnt see fuel in the cylinder but i bolted it back up and now it will start. It turned over, was pretty rough for a minute till it warmed up and now there is a fine white/grey smoke coming from the exhaust/turbo manifold but not from the back of the exhaust, doesnt smell good, I'll go out and give it another go and see if my turbo starts to spit black smoke =(

Update: smoke was comming from some deer meat that was all over the engine.
Modified by phreezer at 5:17 PM 3/12/2008

[Ilvemynissan]

ahahha was there really meat there orr ya just yankin ma chain lol. And that sucks you didn't see it comin. Last night me and a couple friends were drivin around and I barley saw this big dead dog in the road, I swerved pretty hard and missed it but my friend behind me blasted it with his 3rd gen twin turbo rx-7. he's the only non nissan owner in the group so he gets sh1t for it all the time.

[unanswerred]

wow once my cars done im going to be so scared to take it out at night where deer could be roming.