Michael's 180B Sedan Z18ET

[Mikewazowski]

Unless you have points, you wont have a condenser.

this is true in the sense that your thinking, but Nissan sometimes see's fit to install a small capacitor on the side of electronic distributors and it looks exactly like a "points type condenser" but has something to do with smoothing out some current or reducing ignition noise or something.

Mine broke, I never got a new one and it never made a difference.

Yeah sorry about that,....I meant capacitor.

As far as I'm aware, the only temp sensor I have is the one that gives the reading on the temp gauge...

[datsunboy]

pretty sure Z18's have 2 temperature sensors Mike.....

but not 100% sure lol
it should do really

[Mikewazowski]

pretty sure Z18's have 2 temperature sensors Mike.....

but not 100% sure lol
it should do really

Hmm...I shall investigate. They wouldn't just take two readings from the same sensor would they?

[Bartman]

they can't. The load of a guage would mean the other recipiant of the signal would get an erronous reading.

[Mikewazowski]

Ok well I know where the sensor is that the temp wire from the ECU plugs into, so I guess this is the one that gingofthesouth would have been talking about? How would I go about testing it? It it's just a thermistor, then is it even going to tell me anything useful? (bear in mind that the car can start and run fine but the fault in intermittant).

On a separate note: I took the sedan for a cruise last night (about 15 min worth of driving) and it didn't skip a beat. Frustrating, since I was kinda hoping it would cut out and fail to start so I could chuck the multimeter on and test some stuff.

[datsunboy]

the temp sensor for the ECU will be a 2-wire sensor.....and then elsewhere on the engine there will be a 1-wire temp sensor that is used for the dash temp gauge.

to test them, you just need to stick them in some water of a known temperature, and measure the resistance across it. Then you have to compare that to what it should be factory (but good luck finding that out)......but its probably the same for most nissan engines around that time (L18E, Z20E, FJ20E e.t.c.)

[Mikewazowski]

Yeah, it's a two wire jobby. I was afraid that I might have to take it out and do the water test. Isn't it quite likely that the water test will not show anything wrong with the sensor as my car can start and run fine (get up to temperature), and the cutting out appears to happen at random times?

I think you are right and there is little chance of me getting a resistance value for a Z18ET, do you have one for the L18E or one of the other Z engines/FJ20 Dan?

[datsunboy]

na, I dont, but I havent looked lol.

is the problem random....but only when it is hot or cold?
or random and temperature regardless?

It's possible its not the temp sensor....they dont usually intermittantly fail.
could be more something like coil failing (these often fail intermittantly), or simply a loose or broken wire somewhere

[Mikewazowski]

The problem seems to be completely random. It happened twice to me. It cut out while I was driving to work two days in a row. The car was warm when it cut out. Both times I was unable to start it while it was still warm, but then once Dad came and picked it up he was able to start it and drive it most of the way home (it cut out again so they towed the rest of the way).
I tested the coils and thought it might have been my inlet coil so I swapped the coils over (using exhaust coil to run inlet plugs now). I then drove it to work and up to Hamilton and back (2 hr jouney each way) I think, and it seemed to run fine.

Then just the other day Dad took it down for a WOF while I was at work and it cut out multiple times driving there and back (apparently it would cut out when hot or cold). He said that it wouldn't start unless he put the accel pedal to the floor while starting it.

Perhaps this is not the same issue as before (maybe I fixed the other cutting out by swapping coils?), but it does seem like quite a coincidence.
I drove the car last night for about 15 minutes and it didn't skip a beat. Got it up to temperature and it didn't cut out at all.

Hopefully that ^ explains where I'm up to at this stage. Stupid frustrating intermittent problem/s!

If you have ideas of things I could check (I have a very, very basic understanding of electrical stuff) then I'm all ears. I'd be tempted to take it to an auto-electrician but I can imagine getting charged the earth and them being unable to find anything since it's intermittent.

[datsunboy]

what exactly does it do when it cuts out?