1995 S14 KA24DE engine light MAF hell

[berto1]

Hello,

my name is Alberto and I've owned my 1995 s14 since 1997. I recently moved to Long Beach for work, and my (near 200k) mile stock KA24de has decided to play some tricks on me.

1. Engine light came on while driving on the 5 from Nor Cal to So Cal. The car bogged, stuttered, lost power and finally died going up the grape vine. I prayed to every god, started the car back up, and made it to Long Beach with more stalling/bogging along the way.

2. Took it to Overseas Garage in LB (Andy, the owner, is great!) scanned it and the MAF came up. Checked wiring at the plug harness and noticed insulation on 2 wires had worn down causing metal to metal rubbing. I fixed the wiring and had the light turned off.

3. The car stuttered and bogged down on the freeway again, causing the light to come back on. This time I installed a rebuilt MAF and had the light cleared again.

4. Rebuilt MAF did nothing, car bogged and lost power on the freeway again going 70 on the 405. Only does this after warmed up and driven at least 15-20 minutes.

I'm at a loss... I am willing to spend the $$ on a new OEM MAF, if that is what the problem is. Ideas? At this point I'm no longer driving the car on the freeway because I don't want to get in an accident.

[hardparkd]

maybe try switching out for another ecu, possibly could of fried something.see if that helps.

[laurentj23]

Sounds like fuel related? Check your fuel pump, filters, plugs, injectors.

[berto1]

Thanks for responding to my post! The problem is intermittent...I drive it around town and there are no problems 95% of the time. It has power and drives just as smooth as it did 100k miles ago. Main issue is on the freeway, going above 70 and especially when I'm going uphill or downhill. I know load changes during this time which effects air/fuel... still, only 1 code has come up, the MAF. Injectors/plugs are new... fuel pump is the stock 1995 unit. A fried computer would cause problems 100% of the time, right?

[laurentj23]

Not sure... If the ecu is fried, you'll be throwing a bunch of codes an unable to start the car. Maybe the wire that connect the maf is bad? Tried looking at the volts and make sure it's up to spec. Did you get a brand new maf or used?

Try cleaning the maf as well.

[idlafie]

Berto,

Check your ground wires - the ones that are on the back portion of your engine block on the driver side right above the Oxygen sensor. Make sure you have a good ground connection. If not, cut the old ground connector off & solder the ground wires together and connect it to a new ground connector and bolt it back to the engine block.

Also, with the engine running, grab a hold of the wiring harness by the back firewall area around where the harness turns & follows the fuel rail and move the entire harness around by hand. If your engine starts to bog & runs like ass, then you probably have a bad pin in one of the wiring harness connectors.

I had this same issue years ago with my 95 S14, except when mine started acting up I was 400 miles away from home. Fortunately I was next to Dublin Nissan when the motor died on me the second time. The first time it died, I was next to Santa Rosa Nissan - they couldn't figure out what the problem was & so they sent me on my merry way. 75 miles later & the second time the motor died, I pulled into Dublin Nissan & showed them my Santa Rosa Nissan report. Fortunately for me the Dublin Nissan guys figured out that it was a bad harness pin on the main wiring harness. I had to spend the night in Dublin while the Dublin Nissan guys tore apart the wiring harness to repin the one bad wire.

Anyhow, hope this helps....

ID

[rwtf]

its def a fuel issue.

[berto1]

Thank you all for helping me out! The problem still stands after trying out your recommendations. I had talk with my friend Bruce (Nomura Tuning in Nor Cal) about the issue and he thinks its the intial wiring problem I found and "fixed".

1. Two wires from my MAF plug harness had worn insulation, causing wire to wire contact. Wires exposed to friction (especially on a car from 1995) are old and brittle, and break.

2. When I separated my wires I did notice some of the wire strands had broken, but I did nothing about it. I just separated and sealed the wires/harness. When they were tested with an Ohm meter at Overseas Garage the wires were intact so no problem shows up...

3. In Bruce's words "You can make a 1000 watt amp work with a small guage wire, until you increase load/demand.". Well, with my car, the problem showed itself most often when I introduced more load to it (driving over the Grape Vine, gunning it after stops)

I'm going to clean/inspect the MAF plug and install new wiring. I'll go a few inches past the point where insulation had worn down causing broken strands. I'll post again afterward with results...

[I'm Redline]

You may have wire breakdown, ie, the length of the wire where it moves is completely broken down. This means you should replece the total length of those two wires where they move because internally each starnd may have several breaks in it. This is basic electricity stuff from my days as a Marine working on stuff with motors and electric things...just sayin

Also, you might want to check your fuel lines from the tank pick up forward. You may have 'junk' that moves over the pick up causing a starvation issue, or junk clogging lines when the demand is greater and flow rates are higher. My lil sporty cafe racer had fuel feeding issues...inner coating of the tank clogging the feed was the problem

[blueshark123]

Just buy a new harness i think that will fix your problem. If u need i can do 100 shipped

[speed3]

I would def start by checking/fixing the wiring. Least expensive of anything and not difficult.
Check and fix wires at all connectors.

If any of the strands are broken/exposed/or corroded you could definitely have a problem. Just like having a bad ground can cause problems.