Quote:
Originally Posted by mechanicalmoron
What do your plugs look like, oil coolant gas dry and sooty dry and lean etc? Got your firing order right? Check compression, maybe running compression?
A stock KA feels like a pretty normal quick-enough car, not a broken boggy car - if you can't tell the difference, you should probably get a town and country or some shit.
Maybe you screwed up the cam timing playing with those exhaust cams. Or lost some shims or something. Kind of sounds like a head problem.
What's coming out the tailpipe?
You deleted the PCV? How? And what the fuck were you thinking?
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Just pulled the plugs, they're OEM spec NGKs I bought last year and the gaps were all around 0.035" so I re-gapped them all to the 0.044" range. All the plugs looked the same: black around the edge (keep in mind I did have a valve stem seal issue recently so I assume that's just the burned oil) with a white ground electrode. None were wet.
After gapping the plugs, the car did feel a bit smoother, but definitely still has bad hesitation. Temp needle didn't move from cold during the 10 minutes I drove it, still died at stop signs, 1300 RPM idle. Car also seems to have factory distributor cap and rotor with the nissan logo cap cover, factory ignition coil too. Double checked firing order and it seems correct: looking directly at distributor from the engine bay, plug wire 2 on top, 3 on bottom, 1 on the left, and 4 on the right.
Forgot to mention, I did a compression check a couple months ago before I replaced the valve stem seals:
Cylinder 1: 151 psi
Cylinder 2: 166 psi
Cylinder 3: 161 psi
Cylinder 4: 161 psi
Seems to be within spec of 151-179 psi. Wet test, all went between 170-180 psi.
I just haven't driven the S13 in a while since the valve stem seals went bad, and my daily is definitely quicker than the 240 even if it had full power. But like I said, it definitely feels down on power past 3000 RPM despite revving smoothly compared to 1-3k RPM.
I haven't checked distributor timing, but I put it exactly where it was when I went to take it apart, dead center of adjustment, made sure I reinstalled the distributor according to paint pen marks I made when disassembling it. Would dist. timing make the car feel this bad?
Almost positive the engine timing is good. In fact, I was putting the top end back together when I noticed my timing marks were off, so I pulled it all off and made sure I did it right. Cam lobes lined up properly with 4 teeth CCW for the intake cam (which is actually an exhaust cam), counted proper number of chain link pins between timing marks, and I put a ratchet on the crank bolt and ran it through a few cycles to ensure everything was as it should be. All buckets had shims, buckets spun freely, cam caps torqued properly, etc...
After the valve stem seal job, the tailpipe is free of any smoke when I rev the car up while sitting in my yard, and haven't noticed any smoke when driving the car. Don't see or smell anything odd for a straight piped car.
Believe me, I did days of research on the PCV system before deciding to delete it. Previous owner decided to leave the valve cover PCV port open and it was puking oil out, I assumed because blowby was easily getting past the bad valve stem seals. So I pulled the IM, followed a guide on ka-t forums on pulling/tapping/plugging the 4 PCV ports with pipe plugs, sealed with teflon tape and ultra grey RTV on top of plugs for extra security. Straight through fitting in place of the PCV valve, with a hose from the straight fitting to the catch can, valve cover port to catch can, and third port for a vacuum source that I used on the stock intake, utilizing a factory nipple that was capped because it was for an emissions piece I had deleted. SO all that to say, blowby is effectively being evacuated from the crankcase using an intake vacuum source (car is NA).
I'm just stumped that both the coolant temp sensor and sender seem to be acting odd. Is it possible both are bad/wrong part # despite being brand new in nissan packaging? I have both sensors on a spare KA that I know to be working, should I just try swapping them out with those so I know the sensors aren't the culprit? If the sensors are good, the wiring is good, and the ECU is good, wouldn't that have to mean I have some constant air bubble in my cooling system that is affecting both of the sensors? I mean, I bled the coolant with the front end on ramps, massive rad funnel to make it the highest point in the cooling system, and squeezed upper/low rad hoses with heater on, and eventually I wasn't getting anymore bubbles. Overflow tank between max and min lines, 70/30 water to coolant. Is there anything else that would cause a code 13 to be thrown?