Nissan 200SX S14 wont start

[carjerk]

I'm hoping that somebody here can give my dad and I some advice on getting his S14 200SX running again.

A few weeks ago he started it up and moved it a couple of meters from the driveway to the road. Then a couple of days later he found that it wouldn't start. The engine turns over, but just wont start.

- No fault codes
- He's checked for a spark
- We've got fuel coming through the filter

The only work it's had done recently was a new intercooler pipe a few months ago (old one was cracked).

Prior to this it was running pretty good, but dad thought he could detect a very slight misfire.

Any ideas?

[carjerk]

...and there I was thinking I'd put a nice concise post together, ready for some helpful hints from helpful members of the PistonHeads family. Instead I just get a aggressive response. Cheers!

If you hadn't guessed, we're not professional mechanics, merely people with an interest, trying to learn and run an interesting car on a budget.

When I said that he's checked for a spark I should have said that there is a spark on all four cylinders.

I guess we're looking for advice on how we go about checking "the basics".

closes PistonHeads and loads Google

[carjerk]

I have a bit more info on this...

So we've worked out that by confirming we are getting petrol at the output of the fuel filter the fuel pump is working and the filter is not blocked. We realise that this doesn't mean that fuel is getting to the injectors or into the cylinders. Can anyone suggest a good way of proving that?

Since we know that the spark plugs are capable of producing a spark we know that the plugs are ok, the coil packs are working to some level and the immobiliser doesn't appear to be active. We realise that the spark may not be occurring at the right time but the lack or error codes suggest that the crank shaft position sensor may be working. Once again if anybody has a good tip for checking the timing of the sparks and checking the operation of the crank shaft position sensor we'd appreciate it.

The battery is in good state of charge.

Plugs have been removed and cylinders allowed to 'breath' for a long period so don't think it is suffering from being flooded although that was the first assumption. Did try starting it with the throttle fully open to try and fix that but it made no difference. Not sure if that's the best method with a fuel injected engine?

We don't know if there is any leak in the air inlet system and if that could cause this problem. Any suggestion that a fault with EGR could cause this problem? Any suggestions for finding air intake leaks - there is a lot of 'plumbing' on this car.

[carjerk]

Thanks for everyone's help with this, and sorry I was a bit arsey with my first response. I'm just so used to posting stuff on other forums and getting really unhelpful replies.

Sounds like dad has managed to get it running. Looks like the cylinder bores were dry, and a squirt of oil in each cylinder got it going.

Thanks again!

[carjerk]

stevieturbo said:

Or more likely it was flooded, having the plugs removed for a period dried them out, and refitting it started as normal.

You can be sure squirting some oil in the chamber will have had no effect on it starting or not starting.

He initially thought the problem was that it was flooded, and had tried leaving the plugs out to dry. He even tried new plugs because they weren't in the best condition.

I honestly think the squirt of oil into the cylinders did the trick.