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rough idle when hot

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15K views 25 replies 5 participants last post by  Too Sheep  
#1 ·
Two weeks ago after driving for 5 minutes i parked my car, came back and turned the key really fast and the car started idling rough. At first i thought that i had flooded my engine, and it started right up when i tried again an hour later.

Then the next day i was heading home from school (highway driving) felt my car misfiring/skipping a beat every couple of seconds. When i hit my exit the car had an extremely rough idle and misfiring like crazy. The problem still exists but it only happens when the car is warmed up. When the car is cold it will fire right up and run fine.

Things I have checked: cleaned and replaced MAF
disconnected o2 while it was rough idling (didn't change)
disconnected anything that had to do with the TPS/any plugs near the throttle body
found a random vacuum that was disconnected but wan't pulling or pushing air (by pass firewall)
the car had been rebuilt when i bought it so it had new NGk plugs and wires

I feel like it is something simple since it will happen like clockwork when it is hot.
All input helps, Thanks guys
 
#3 ·
some things to consider:

*Your maf,tps, and other sensors wont start affecting your cars performance until the vehicle is warmed up because when your car is cold its in the closed loop cylce and wont take readings from these yet

*Even though the plugs and wires may be new it doesnt mean the plugs may not have backed out some or even fouled out and/or the plug wires could be backing off the plug or grounding out around the exhaust manifold. Or the guy may not have replaced the distributor cap and you have bad contact points.

I would start by finding the cylinder or cylinders that is missing first...If you can pin point it to one cylinder chances are its the plug or injector for that cylinder.

Wait until you notice the problem again, with the car still running take the plug wire off one cylinder at a time. If you notice the problem gets worse then its not that cylinder but if it remains the same then that is the cylinder that is misfirng.

Good luck i hope we were some help.
 
#4 ·
I dont think that it is the timing because it has always been a little off since the day i bought it over 9 months ago.

Things that I troubleshot tonight:
Rewired, cleaned and disconnected coolant temp sensor, temp gauge plug, knock senor plug while rough idling.

I could always feel a slight miss fire when at idle but always just thought because running rich.

Either today or tomorrow i will basically do what katfan said and disconnect each sparkplug wire while it is running like shit and see if i can narrow down the problem to either a wire or plug. I also found a couple more vacuum lines that are either plugged or lead to nothing.

Any chance their are some online vacuum plumbing diagrams online?

Just a side note, I changed my oil like a day or two before all this started happening and really had to wrestle off my oil filter, any chance i knocked something loose?

thanks
 
#5 ·
If you were taking the filter off from the top of the motor like I normally do then the only wires around there I could think of that might cause this would be the tps plug( but that's a stretch) and or the injector plugs ( also a stretch)... Def do the cylinder kill test first
 
#6 ·
Checked the TPS first thing haha. Removed the plugs one by one while running, wasn't the problem. What i think the problem might be is the vacuum lines by the egr shit. Looks like my EGR was removed but I found two hoses hissing and haven't really found out where they lead yet, but im about 90% sure that is my problem because i don't honestly know what else could be causing it haha. If this doesn't work i might screw with the coilpacks. Thanks for the input boys
 
#7 ·
Well, found four vacuum lines that lead to nothing. Two pull air, and are what I think are the product of a poor egr delete. Still have not found the damn problem. Also, does anyone know if a vacuum line runs to the transmission from the valve cover. Car missfires only when hot. The other night I checked the ECU and threw codes 11 13 33 34. I think it might be because I had unplugged all of them at some point in order to test it and reset the codes hopping it would help. But to no avail, car died on me the other night after a 15 minute test run and wouldn't start again. I'll check the ECU and see what (if any) code it threw after the reset. Could it be something with my idle. It seems to only happen when im slowing down and putting the car into idle and then it starts miss firing and never builds up rmps high enough to get going again. Because it seems like I can run it for a while as long as I don't stop lol. Guess I'll clean the IACV, I'm officially out of ideas if that doesn't fix it.

All input helps. Tanks fellas
 
#8 ·
Also if you guys could post a picture of a decent picture of a ka24 vacuum lines, prefered EGR delted kade vacuum lines (not crappy online diagrams) That would be great,
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the comment, I "tested" the coolant temp sensor when this crap first started happening by unplugging it while it was running rough. Nothing changed, but a coolant temp is next on things to replace if I cant fix the problem.

My dad replaced my O2 sensor, which was caked black....but wasn't the problem because the problem returned when I went for a test drive tonight. As soon as the car started to hit low rpms it started to misfire and stall out.

So I spent tonight removing and cleaning my IACV, dirty as balls. When I went to go start it this time, it didn't have to crank half as long as normal after it dies. Gotta adjust the idle(at 1300 right meow) but hopefully this might have fixed the problem or part of the problem. I also found a hole in the vacuum line attaching to the IACV and patched it.

Thanks for the input
 
#12 ·
check your ground to the block as that is the ground that would affect the collant temp sensor, knock sensor, and the dizzy...the o2 sensor code would throw because the knock and coolant temp sensors will cause it to run rich and the cam angle sensor in the dizzy will cause it to shut off...The common failure point for this ground will be the spot where it connects at the battery box from the battery then to the block... I would suggest running two new grounds one from battery to block and one from battery to chassis...do not reuse the battery box ground point
 
#13 ·
well you mentioned the egr was deleted? i deleted mine also and just for curiosity i started the car without capping of the egr tube and the car sounded really different and also it would miss every 9 sec or so.what i did was capped off the egr tube and everything worked fine after. heres the page i looked at before doing mine just for reference and he seemed very clear on what he was doing
240sxONE Tech Blog Archive KA24DE EGR Removal

but just try to feel for any leaks back there,even doe its kinda hard because of the clutch fan its pushing air back there just try putting caps on a few things and check. :twocents:
 
#14 ·
Still misfires really awful when it gets warm, mi padre replaced the FPRS because somebody on zila had the same problem and that fixed it. To no avail, a lot of my lines in the back either lead to nothing or are capped off. I will post a diagram of what my vac lines look like tonight.....almost impossible to find a vacuum diagram a 240sx let alone a write up that tells what to do with the vac lines. Most important of all, my FPR vac line lead to nothing. I think this is what caused the problem. Also if you guys could post how the wiring goes for the coolant temp sensors (Pic or diagram) thatd be great. I think I might also do a little write up for this sort of problem..........if i ever fix mine lol
 
#15 ·
Here is a normal EGR vacuum line set up



And here is what my vacuum lines look like



GREEN ends are open
RED ends are capped
BLUE are open and either push or pull air


Thanks for the input
 
#19 ·
Alright, so i cleaned up all my grounds the other night especially the ground that runs from the intake manifold but didn't get a chance to get the one on the battery tray. I have the extra ground that runs to the strut tower.

Ran the vacuum from the Fuel Pressure Regulator to the male vacuum on the intake manifold like someone suggested earlier and plugged or ran the other vac lines into themselves.

Still didn't help

Replaced the Coolant temperature sensor didn't help the problem

but now the car is only throwing 11 13 and 14(speed sensor)

Any ideas on what it is Im thinking crank angle sensor. I heat wrapped my headers, and that keeps the engine bay a bit cooler. The car still backfires like twostep and then dies. BUT ONLY AFTER DRIVING 20 or so minutes. My timing is a bit off, but i don't think that would make that big of a difference hot to cold (some difference not car shut off and die difference).

Thanks for input
 
#20 ·
I just let the car set about an hour after it dying and now it does the same thing from a cold start..........................any ideas???????? Also the temp gauge almost hit the H overheating point while i was driving it earlier and has been showing the gauge a bit above the middle for a while now
 
#21 ·
Cleaned up the ground running to my battery tray today, also my dad replaced the distributor cap and button this morning but when I took the car to get something for lunch it wouldn't start when II tried to comeback. Codes read 11 13 14 21 before I cleaned up the ground, and then took it for a 5 minute drive and it threw the codes 14 and 33 which would be for the front O2 sensor which is brand new.

Does this mean the ground could have been the problem or what. I will most likely retime the engine because the timing is wayyyyyyy off and it might just now be affecting it because all the time before this it has been winter so the car really never heated up that much but now that the car sits out in the sun all day, maybe it is causing this problem.

Also would replacing the Crank angle sensor help at all? I think that one code reader thing said if you throw 11 and 21 to check your crank angle sensor first (which we looked at last night and scraped any corrosion off)

The car still runs really rich and when it died I smelled the oil and it was straight gas.

So im guessing the only other options now are timing, crank angle sensor, or injector O rings?

Thanks for any input guys, really hoping to get this thing fixed soon.
 
#24 ·
Cleaned up the ground running to my battery tray today, also my dad replaced the distributor cap and button this morning but when I took the car to get something for lunch it wouldn't start when II tried to comeback. Codes read 11 13 14 21 before I cleaned up the ground, and then took it for a 5 minute drive and it threw the codes 14 and 33 which would be for the front O2 sensor which is brand new.

Does this mean the ground could have been the problem or what. I will most likely retime the engine because the timing is wayyyyyyy off and it might just now be affecting it because all the time before this it has been winter so the car really never heated up that much but now that the car sits out in the sun all day, maybe it is causing this problem.

Also would replacing the Crank angle sensor help at all? I think that one code reader thing said if you throw 11 and 21 to check your crank angle sensor first (which we looked at last night and scraped any corrosion off)

The car still runs really rich and when it died I smelled the oil and it was straight gas.

So im guessing the only other options now are timing, crank angle sensor, or injector O rings?

Thanks for any input guys, really hoping to get this thing fixed soon.
its crank angle sensor need to replace ur distributor I dealt with this last summer same two step noise
 
#25 ·
that battery box is usually really rusted and no longer offers a good grounding point...try this run a ground wire directly from the battery to the ignition coil( you may need to scrape some paint off here...when my ka24de was throwing all those same codes this is what fixed it for me)

If you were only throwing 11 I would say replace dizzy but since you are throwing 11(CAS) and 21( ignition coil) I would def try the ground experiment first.
 
#26 ·
Fixed it a couple weeks ago, it was the crank angle position sensor, just took it apart and cleaned it up. Found out what it was doing, when it warmed up we were checking the timing on all cylinders with a timing light. Well the dist. stopped sending a signal through the first spark plug -__- So if you run into this same problem, instead of unplugging your spark plug wires and trying to figure out which one isn't firing, just use a timing light(if you have one) and you can solve the problem a lot faster. But yeah, tps, temp sensor, o2, maf, and all grounds (including the battery one) were all in rough shape so replacing them/cleaning them up made more sense than blowing 100 dollars on a new distributor that the least likely to be the problem lol. Also, all the crap that happened with the vac lines came because the engine shaking and pulling them all off causing a messy egr delete to become even worse haha. But car runs alright now, just whenever I am slowing down the rpms will drop/when i turn and lights are on.

But if someone reading this runs into a similer problem I would diagnose in this order:
Get car to its rough running stage and unplug MAF (If it stops, BAD MAF)
Unplug TPS
Unplug temp sensor (red connector)
listen for vac leaks/lines that aren't hooked up
Pull codes off your ECU and double check thrown codes
Clean up and sand all grounds/battery tray
Ensure spark plug wires aren't getting too hot
Pull plugs and check condition
Check timing (if one of the spark plug wires wasn't even getting a connection like mine then your problem is within the distributor/crank angle position sensor)
Disassemble IACV clean inside with carb cleaner and plugs with elect. cleaner
Check vac lines to Fuel Pressure Regulator/replace
Buy a new engine/car haha

Thanks for the input