2001 Nissan Sentra Engine stalls after 28 seconds at idle

Tiny
JCWILKES
  • MEMBER
  • 2001 NISSAN SENTRA
  • 4 CYL
  • FWD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 83,000 MILES
My Sentra 1.8 QG18DE Calif stalls at idle when warm, every 28 seconds. Restarts fine but goes back to struggling and dying about every 28 seconds. The engine usually avoids the stall (idle drops to 500 or evn 300 but recovers) for the first few minutes of warm idle but progresses to stalling at the 28 second interval. The car also has stalled out on the freeway under stop and go traffic conditions. Drives without any trouble otherwise. My scan tool shows that the Fuel System 1 and 2 both show an OL-Fault together on both 1 and 2 immediately before the stall. The fuel pressure checks out ok, and does increase slightly when the engine is trying not to stall. The spark advance also increases when trying to avoid the stall. Idle speed is within spec, except when trying not to stall at the 28 second interval; and ignition timimg by light is within spec.
The Nissan dealer tells me all factory recalls have been performed for the vehicle. I have replaced the crankshaft position sensor for no other reason than it was a component that could cause this trouble. I replaced the IACV - AAC valve because I lost a shim when checking it out and it was not happy without it. The throttle position sensor was not testing out (no closed signal when there should have been) and I have replaced and adjusted for correct switching. The codes that have come up once, but have not repeated after erasure have been P0140, P0160, and P0175. The HO2S front and rear check out with resistances at 3.4 and 3.5; and voltages that vary between 0.0v and 0.93v meeting the above 0.47v and below 0.43v criteria when revving above 4,000 rpm and releasing.
I just got done with a test drive after putting the ECM back in it's box and removing the pressure gauge from the fuel line. The car drove fine and did not die even at the stop lights that took more than 28 seconds. When I got it back in the driveway, and removed the load from the engine - put it in park and turned off lights - it would die. First Fuel System 1 would go OL-Fault, and then when System 2 would also go OL-Fault, about 3 seconds later the engine would stall. If the engine did falter but recover the OL-Faults would both clear in about 2 seconds after the falter.


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Saturday, March 7th, 2009 AT 10:38 PM

5 Replies

Tiny
KHLOW2008
  • MECHANIC
  • 41,815 POSTS
Hi jcwilkes,

Thank you for the donation.

Can you please provide the DTC regarding the fuel system 1 and 2?

Have you tried cleaning the MAF? Sometimes when it is contaminated with dirt, the sensor reading becomes inaccurate and would cause stalling.
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009 AT 1:23 AM
Tiny
JCWILKES
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
No DTC's show when the engine stalls. The only time DTC's show is after I have been testing components, when erased they do not return. (They have been P0140, P0160, and P0175.)
The Fuel System faults have been observed on the Scantool I am using (an Innova 3130 with live data function- I watch them come and go on the 28 second cycle at idle).
I have removed and looked at the MAF and it is clean. The wire screen before it is also clean, some of the balck coating on the wire screen has been rubbed off, but I do not beleive that this is of any consequence, the MAF itself looks good, and when observing the output in Live Data mode on the scan tool it appears to be behaving normally
The most noticeable thing about the stall is that it happens at idle, when warmed up. Either under no-load or also at stop lights with transmission in drive, and evrey 28 seconds. The engine will struggle to keep idle for about a total of 3 seconds, by the end of the three seconds, it has recovered to a normal idle, or has stalled. If it stalls it starts again normally and idles normally for another 28 seconds, when the struglle repeats. This is the scenario that was happening last night after the test drive, back in the driveway.
The car runs fine except for the 28 second stall at idle, and some occassional stalls in traffic on freeway, which have not happened recently. Also for what its worth, I cleaned the throttle body when replacing the IACV-AAC valve, which was a little sooty past and around the throttle plate.
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009 AT 3:47 PM
Tiny
KHLOW2008
  • MECHANIC
  • 41,815 POSTS
This is a bizarre problem, occuring on a repeated cycle and there is no known possible causes.

The only item I can link with this problem is the MAF. It could be showing no fault but signals to the ECU might be incorect causing the stalling.
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Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 AT 12:10 PM
Tiny
MTPS37
  • MEMBER
  • 1 POST
Hi.

Looking for solutions for my Nissan Tino (an european car), I've found this site. My ploblem is exactly the same than the cwilkes one: QG18DE engine, 77500 miles, everything looks fine, but the engine stalls exactly every 28 seconds. I've cleaned MAF sensor (although it really looked fine), I replaced the IACV - AAC valve, not DTC shown, . I wondered if cwilkes fixed the problem and how he did it.

Javier.
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Monday, February 11th, 2013 AT 7:17 PM
Tiny
BLACKVR4TT
  • MEMBER
  • 1 POST
I'm having the exact same problem - has anyone isolated the issue?
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Thursday, October 30th, 2014 AT 1:29 AM

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