New to the 240 Community (Help Needed)

[WhoMe-Never]

Hello everyone,

Well some basic info, I am new to the Nissan life. Just purchased a 1989 200SX here in Germany. I am stationed here and decided to pick this car up. It has a rebuilt CA18DET motor. I will post pics as soon as I get done putting new turbo feed lines on. I have been browsing this forum since I bought the car, and I must say this place is awesome. Found a lot of good answers to questions I had. BTW, I am 19 and in the Air Force if anyone was wondering.

EDIT* It is a Euro Spec. Pics are in a later post.

[Hijacker]

Welcome to NICO! We have some members stationed in Germany as well (CrazySkewerel). He has a red coupe that's very well maintained. Welcome aboard brother!

[WhoMe-Never]

Thank you. I do not have vast knowledge of Nissan's what so ever, so I am glad I found a place where I can learn and find people alike.

[breadbox]

Welcome and enjoy your baby RB. Great motor with tons of potential.

[WhoMe-Never]

Thank You, and I will. I am still trying to figure out what all I can do with these cars. I heard the CA is rated for 300-350hp. Is that correct?

[Razi]

Welcome!
We have a huge CA forum if you haven't noticed it yet.
ca18de-ca18det-forum.html

I'm not sure what the stock bottom end can hold, but I wouldn't be surprised if it held 300hp no problem.
My main concern would be the injectors. It'd be good to find a way to keep an eye on the injector's duty cycle so you don't risk leaning out the air/fuel mixture.
I don't know if you guys have OBD interfaces on the Euro-spec cars, but if you do, you can buy an OBD reader on eBay for fairly cheap and use ECUtalk to monitor the injector's duty cycle. Anywhere near 90% duty cycle is bad.

Mine looks like this:

[WhoMe-Never]

Thanks Razi. I will have to look into that, Also what is a good tune. Since it is rebuilt it runs a little rough, and the idle kind of bounces between 700 and then goes to 1800-2000 rpm for a little bit then back down

[WhoMe-Never]

Here are some quick pics I snapped today on my crappy phone.

[Razi]

Not sure if anyone makes good mail-order tunes for the CA18.
As for the rough idle, it could be a lot of things.
I'd start with checking the vacuum hoses and idle air control valve.

[WhoMe-Never]

Thanks Razi. As far as the idle, I decided to look under the hood and noticed something odd. Now I said before I know very little about engines, even less about this one. I took a picture but it came out crappy and blurry with my phone. I will try to snap a better one later. But I noticed that a piece was disconnected with what seems a hose missing.



It is near the back of the valve cover(I believe) on the side. I circled the general area. Like I said I will snap a better, closer pic later when it is light outside. But any suggestions for now?

[Hijacker]

I'm not a CA expert, but that should be part of the PCV system. On an SR, it would be hooked up to the intake somewhere between the turbo and air filter. Looking at my RWD CA service manual, I see a hose leading to the intake hose. In your picture, I think I see where someone plugged one of the fittings on the intake hose. You can probably run a new line between the two and be fine. But I don't know if that's gonna fix your idling issue. Make sure all the vacuum sources are hooked up properly.

[WhoMe-Never]

Awesome thanks, I will look into that. I bought the car about a week ago and just pulled it out of the shop because it took forever to find a place to make a braided hose. I will look at the manual and see if I can find the exact location of said hose. I'll also take a peak over the vacuum stuff. BTW, how is the SR motor? Thanks for all the help once again.