Thread: Stalls at idle until driven a while

On this site, no. But Google is your friend.

Nissan Sentra Factory Service Manuals

I did make sure the Alternator is grounded when I installed it. Now I didn't make sure that the other end of the ground was in good shape. I will check that. When I turn the accessories on and it lugs down to about 400 RPM, the battery goes from 14.3v to anywhere from 11.8-12.2v. And the voltage is about the same at the alternator itself. Also, thank you, Jimbo_se-r for the link to the manual.

Not seeing as problem with those voltages since the engine has bogged that badly. Alternator spins slowly, voltage drops.

I haven't looked at the FSM sections referenced, but when you are chasing a ground problem check the voltage between the battery negative terminal and whatever ground you are checking. You want this to be as close to 0v as possible, more than 1v is definitely bad. Clean up the connections, and repair/replace connections as needed, or just add an additional ground strap to a known good location.

If you are considering grounding check this post out. I replicated this post and had good results.

Spoiler

Bad Distributor. The cam position sensor is in it and it is probably bad.

Thanks so much for the different areas to look. So far I cleaned all the grounds and added a couple. That didn't change anything. Pretty White, is it called Camshaft sensor inside the dizzy? On RockAuto it is called either Crankshaft sensor or Distributor Pickup Coil.

Do a tuneup and see what happens.

Also you can try turning the idle up manually at the idle screw by the firewall. That worked for me once.

Let me ask you to do this: next time you are getting gas, leave the motor running and fill it up. Does the idle drop down at all during this? Does it want to stall?

So I feel like a total dufus. I haven't fixed the problem yet but I think I may have pinpointed it. First, I apologize that I didn't notice this as a symptom and throw it in the mix. I didn't really realize that at idle, it seemed to be missing a bit until a friend pointed it out. Plus there was a little hesitation at lower revs but I didn't... Again, I am a dufus. So I pulled the #1 spark plug wire and there was no change or drop in the engine idle. When I pulled the other three there was a change. So I checked the wire and it had spark. I pulled the wire and spark plug and tested that and there was spark going all the way through the spark plug. So the next thing I will check is the injector. I noticed that the spark plug was not wet with gas so I am hoping it is just a bad injector. Shouldn't the plug be wet if the injector is still firing? I plan to swap that injector with another one and see if the other one ends up not firing so I can pinpoint it that way. I guess there could also be a bad wire going to the injector but I am not sure how to diagnose that. Any suggestions so far? And again, I am sorry I didn't see that in the first place.

If the plug isn't wet, then the injector isn't opening to squirt gas in. So the injector is either clogged, failed, or not getting a signal through the wiring harness to fire.

Don't worry too much about missing the symptom, happens all the time, and not just with cars. LOL

I haven't had time to mess with it yet but I hope to in the next few days. Is there a specific way to test if the wire is putting out a signal? Thanks so much again!