Nissan CA18DET problems

[Inane]

Ok I know its a toyota forum, but I also know there are plenty of you out there who know something about this engine.

ok heres the problem.

Starts fine, but then will start to stutter and die if revs drop below 1500rpm.
this also happens any time coming to a stop (intersections, etc.)

turbo doesnt seem to be boosting at all.

no error codes are being shown.

it feels fine when driving regularly without much load on the engine.

anyone got any ideas?

[Adamal]

Sounds like there might be a split vacuum hose somewhere along the lines.

[Ako]

What he said. Some sort of vacuum leak somewhere - split hose, vacuum line, or munty blow off valve not shutting right?

[RAZA]

When I had mine I had a coil pack fail and when it was on the way out it was making the car miss at low revs but seemed to be OK above 1500 rpm ish.

its easy to check if it is that as you just pop the coil packs off one at a time while its doing whatever its doing, and if nothing changes then its not firing on that cylinder. To verify that its the coil pack on not the plug swap two of the coil packs and see if the fault moves to the other cylinder.

Could also be a vacuum leak as above.

Or (and its been a long time - i cant remember if these are afm) but if they are afm then could be worth checking that too as some of the nissan afm's do cause strange problems like this sometimes as well, although I'd expect the symptoms to be reversed and it to idle ok and crap out at higher rpm.

[RS13]

CA18DET's are AFM, however if it was the AFM it would idle fine, but wouldn't rev out, ie rev cut at 2500rpm.

The factory T25's are well known to shit themselves regularly. If the turbo had seized, it would idle fine, but run like shit over that. Undo the hose clamp that holds the rubber intake hose to the turbo, and try and spin the impeller, if it is quite stiff, then its' buggered.

Failing that, check all intake hoses, make sure they're all tight with no splits. Check all the rubber hoses connected to the inlet manifold.

Also, the coils do crap out, but normally the engine still revs out, it just sounds like a Subaru. The ignition modules also tend to stop working, but normally it wouldn't run at all.

Other than that, maybe the timing belt has jumped a tooth?

If you're still stumped, take it to a mechanic, or perhaps ask on nissansilvia.co.nz, those guys are really the ones to talk to about CA18s!

[fangsport]

Sounds like there might be a split vacuum hose somewhere along the lines.

if the vacuum hoses come off really easy, cut 4-6mm off them and re-fit. a mate's old lady had a Mazda 323 with a similar issue, the local perfomance shop charged her several hundred dollars to not fix a loosely fitting vacuum hose, that we diagnosed and fixed in 5 minutes.