got a free 240sx

My neighbor had a 89' 240sx in his driveway for about a year and I told him I'll take it off his hands so he gave it to me.

The starter was dead, the drive belts where missing, the brakes are dead but that's another story.

Before putting any money on it me and a few friends threw a battery in it and pushed it to a start, drove it a few meters, put it in neutral and then engine was acting a lil weirdly but I was keeping it arround 3k rpm, once i let go of the gas it went idle for a few seconds at arround 800 and then stopped.

So we went and got a starter, belts and fluids for it, changed the starter, checked everything, sanded the spark plugs and tuned them nicely.

Now what happends is that, it turns, and tried to idle arround 1k and then after a few seconds it dies. I checked a few things, I know there's a small leak in the fuel line but I doubt its big enough to make a difference, the gas pump is a bit weirdly placed in the back and the cover seems rusted but I think it works. I looked at the gas lines that arrive at the engine and there's one of them that passes through the filter and one of them that goes straight to the injectors, I'm guessing one of them is a return so i thought the one with the filter is the send so I pulled it out and cranked it and the engine did the same thing and it squirted hot gas out of that line coming from the injectors. Now I'm guessing the return passes through the filter? and there's no filter on the send? Also I removed the air intake tube so the air went straight into the engine but it didn't make any difference.

Today I have to go back and get another starter because one of my idiot friends was cranking it while the car was in speed and the starter overheated and blew.

I wanted to know if anybody has a clue what I could check further, the distributor, coil, lines and spark plugs are fine, I don't think the problem's electrical, maybe the timing, I'm not sure. Any ideas?

There's your problem, if you took out the intake, the engine can't regulate anything with the MAFS. You need the Mass Air Flow Sensor for the engine to work.

not only that but you're going to have a lot of unfiltered air (ie debris) going into your engine. never do that. ever. what you need to do is hook the intake back up and make sure the mass air flow sensor is hooked up properly. also, kick your moron friend in the balls for being a retard. you might need a ton of new parts for this though. and your fuel is filtered at the pump, which should be an in-tank pump in the trunk. thats quite the mess though, good luck

Okay, I think the MAFS might be dead, the plastic is cracked and it doesn't look in too good condition. We checked the compression and the timing and it seems to be fine, we checked for sparks and it's all good.

I got a second starter on it.

We're sure we got the right sequence on the distributor > spark plugs.

Apparently there was ALOT of crap in the gas tank and the gas was really watered down and dirty, and aside from that we're not sure if the gas pump is the right one for the car, but it seem to put pressure in the lines so I guess its ok.

We didn't have time to flush the tank tonight so we're probably gonna do it tomorrow. I'm gonna try to tow the car in my back yard so I can work on it more easily.

Does anybody know the firing sequence? I called a shop and they said its 1, 3, 4, 2... But that's just weird.

Also which cylinder is considered 1? the one on the front (radiator side) or the one at the end (windshield).

random pics of car, its really dirty but yeah... not so bad...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2469.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2467.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2464.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2463.jpg

blurry because i dropped my camera and it can't focus anymore.. lol

yea maf. Doesnt look to shabby. Definantly a fixer upper. Damn that first engine pic...i was like does the car have a hood or what? (got rust?) lol. But yea if it runs might as well drive it. It's free!!! I love freebies. So do you have any plans for it??? Cuz before you go spending to much.....might just want to buy a DE and swap it over or a SR or whatever engine you'd want, thats if you have plans for it of course. But if you just want to make it run and drive the piss out of it... HAVE FUN id love to do that.

It's not THAT bad, its been sitting there for a while. I just have to sand the rust a little. If I get it starter im planning on installing a few little mods on it, a paint job and MAYBE a body kit... Anyway I don't even have a drivers lisence yet so its a project untill I get it.

id be saving up for a DE and some parts to get rid of all the rust. Id also buy a new MAFS while your fixing it up. Thats cool that it runs though and it was free, good luck with it!

dude, the car's been sitting for a year.. you have bad gas. I bet it'll run 100 times better once you dump that old stuff and give it a fresh tank. also replace those dry-rotted fuel lines. you don't want to cause a fire. The line comes in > fuel filter > fuel rail > return line. Gas is not filtered in the tank (there's just a membrane to make sure you don't suck up large chunks, but it's not a filter)

You also might have other dry rotted hoses causing vaccum leaks.. Check all this stuff first, then the MAFS

Does anybody know the firing sequence? I called a shop and they said its 1, 3, 4, 2... But that's just weird.

Also which cylinder is considered 1? the one on the front (radiator side) or the one at the end (windshield).

random pics of car, its really dirty but yeah... not so bad...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2469.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2467.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2464.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2463.jpg

blurry because i dropped my camera and it can't focus anymore.. lol


I believe the firing sequence is 1 3 2 4


WINSHIELD
4
3
2
1
RADIATOR

dude, the car's been sitting for a year.. you have bad gas. I bet it'll run 100 times better once you dump that old stuff and give it a fresh tank. also replace those dry-rotted fuel lines. you don't want to cause a fire. The line comes in > fuel filter > fuel rail > return line. Gas is not filtered in the tank (there's just a membrane to make sure you don't suck up large chunks, but it's not a filter)

You also might have other dry rotted hoses causing vaccum leaks.. Check all this stuff first, then the MAFS


Yeah, thats true. We had our boat sit over season with gas in it, when we brought it out next summer it knocked like a bitch, wouldnt idle, and ran really sluggesh. At first we thought it was timing but it was a brand new boat and ran it months ago. In the end, we just drained the gas, ran it on WOT with new gas, and it runs AWESOME now. This probably is affecting the performance on the 240 that sat..

Okay, we're having problems here...

On that first picture, the fuel rail,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v503/djandy/100_2469.jpg

On which side of the fuel rail is the input and which is the return? What happends if you put the pump out in the return? Any chance we screwed something up by doing that?

Oh, and the fuel pump seems to have been changed, with another model, sigh... It pumps but - is the jet supposed to be continuous fuel? because it seems to squirt fuel-air-fuel air... it does have power though, it gets alot of pressure on the line ...

I'm not too familiar with the exact layout of the SOHC. But I can tell you what to look for.

on those two hard pipes coming from the fuel rail.. One should go strait into the rail.. this is the feed(pressure) side.
on the other side of the fuel rail, there's a canister with a vacuum line. This is your fuel pressure regulator. This is the return line.

If you're getting air, then you probably have a leaky hose somewhere, or no gas in the tank.. It's not good to go switching feed and return, but I couldn't tell you whether or not you'll break something..

Once you get that strait, like I said before, put some fresh gas in that tank

Okay, after a whole day of screwing arround with it, clogging the fuel pump and a bunch of other crap that went horribly wrong, it starts, but It doesn't run very smoothly, I think there's a cyl with no spark or the timing's off or something off with it. I checked all the cylinders though, they all have compression, and sparks (explosion) at times.

I need to change the wires and the distributor cap...

I'm wondering if it would be worth putting a few thousand bucks in this car, in the body and the engine to make it really nice.

If I were you I would do a KA24DE swap it would be like 1000 at most if you do it yourself. but I would only do the swap if the Spark Plug is not the problem.

Yeah, if your ganna put real money into this car, stop fucking around with that engine and swap in a real engine, be it SR or KA.

One last thing. The car's not running in all cylinders, but we checked each cylinder at a time and the engine starts in one cylinder with each one of them. Sometimes 2 or 3 work but it goes back to idling in one.

Can this be simply the rotor, cap and wires? We changed the wires and the spark plugs, we checked the sparks and their not really equal in all 4 plugs.

Can It be something else, I'm going to pick up the rotor, cap tomorrow morning.