Vehicle: 2001 frontier w Ka24de/5spd.
Bought the truck from a friend last month for 1500 and 4 days later the timing chain skipped and we all know what happens then. Turns out, he never changed the tensioner or guides in his 160k miles of ownership! Anyways...
Bought a cheap salvage motor with a cracked timing cover (broken clean off at the distributor mount) so I did not have the distributor location at TDC to mark, and I bet I've pulled the oil pump 50 times now trying to get it right. Dizzy currnetly installed is off of the original motor, which ran great until the plunger came out of the tensioner! The replacement motor has unknown mileage and I do not know the year. If someone could reveal how to find the year of motor, this may be of pertinent info, so we can cover that later if someone thinks it's necessary.
Current issue is this: the motor starts and idles well, but has absolutely miserable power above 1500 rpm. I'd say 0-60 is literally around 25 seconds! I am probably down to around 50-60 hp, and I am also getting horrible mpg; guessing around 12.
I took the truck into auto zone and they scanned the ECM for me, with two errors for vacuum leak and one for MAF. In the process of setting ignition timing, I have removed the small hose from the air box to the throttle body, and I also mistakenly unplugged the MAF instead of the TPS while it was running once. Cloud these be the reason for the codes? I need to find a scanner that can reset the codes and start over. I bought some MAF cleaner today and went crazy with no results. I also cannot find any cracked, checked, or missing vacuum lines. Also, timing is spot on 20* btdc at 800 rpm. To drive the truck, I'd swear the ignition is off by 10* or more, but it's not. What am I missing?!?!
Not sure if this matters, but wtf. The engine has a slight whirring sound while driving ( barely audible, but there) and a little chain noise at idle, like a soft sewing machine. I'm brand new to these ka24's, so I dont know what is normal and what isn't.
My worst fear is that I mis-aligned the cams by a tooth.
I am going to recheck this tomorrow. Any help is appreciated. Thanks guys!