# Missing Power after rebuild



## Peanut (Mar 23, 2011)

Hey everyone,

First:

06/96 Hardbody XE King Cab, 2.4, MT, 198K miles.

So back in September, skipped teeth on my timing chain because I had shredded my tensioner and oh boy at the mess that made. :balls:

Sent my truck to my mechanic and he had the engine sent off to a machine shop where they rebuilt it, replacing everything in the engine except the block and the cam shaft (which they ended up machining) with new Nissan parts, regardless of whether it was bad or not (at my request.) There is also a new distributor cap in the truck.

Finally got back in town night before last and my mechanic brought the truck over to me, but with a concern that the engine had little power. He wanted me to drive it and see what I thought. It definitely had little power at all and I never managed to get it over 55 mph. His first thought was the Catalytic Converter may be clogged up (this was after we popped the hood and saw that the Exhaust Manifold was glowing red around the O2 sensor.) I picked up a brand new one yesterday and bolted it in, and that has helped a lot. It still doesn't have as much power as it use to though. 

I plugged in my OBDII reader last night and I'm getting a P1130 (Swirl Control Valve, never seen this one on my truck before) and a P1447 (I've replaced my charcoal canister and the purge valve on the canister. EGR Valve is in the garage right now, going to swap it next week when I get an air compressor and can blow out all the lines, this is a problem I've been tinkering at for some time.)

The engine fires up just fine, idles at a normal RPM, doesn't choke, struggle, jump, miss, or do anything else silly while sitting there. While driving, The truck doesn't seem to like being between 1900-2100 RPM and I can feel a little "jumping around" when I'm in that range. Best way to describe it is that it's like something is attached to the back of my truck and yanks backwards on it about twice a second. It's not a hard or heavy feeling, but it is noticeable. Even with that, the truck runs fairly smooth, though it doesn't accelerate out of first as fast as I think it should. I've gotten it up to 65, but haven't put it on the interstate to try any faster (Highest RPM I've seen is 4500 and it didn't mind going up that high at all)

Something I noticed last night after having swapped my CC, is that when I first got back into the garage from driving it around, the Exhaust Manifold was still red hot around the O2 sensor, but I let it sit there for a while idling while I looked around trying to see if maybe something was just unplugged, and after a bit of time, the exhaust manifold cooled back off and the redness went away completely (Engine Still Running.) Should the manifold be getting red hot? I've never noticed it before and can't imagine that's how it's suppose to work.

So, is there a chance of relation between my "Bad Swirl Control Valve" (which by the way, no parts store has a part named that. I called Courtesy Parts and according to them it's actually called a 17372-40U00 Vacuum Cut Valve Assy, never mind what's written in the service manual, and of course they don't have any in stock, :lame and the loss of power that I'm seeing with my truck? Any of you seen something like this before? I picked up a new O2 sensor out of concern for the red hot metal destroying the current one, but haven't put it in, as I haven't fixed the problems around it.

Also, replaced all 4 shocks last night. They've never been replaced before as their own weight is enough to close them up. If anyone else is thinking of doing it, the rears are super simple. Up front, I found it easiest to take off the tire, then undo the upper ball joint and let the hub rotate down. Piece of cake after that. All of my upper and lower ball joint grease boots are split, worth it to try to fix or just replace the entire ball joint?


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## jp2code (Jun 2, 2011)

Your truck is in limp mode. That is something Nissan designed into the ECU so that you get it fixed whenever something goes wrong.

It's working, too, isn't it? 

Anyway, my guess is your mechanic got something plugged up to the wrong port, left something off, or damaged an old part in the process of removing the old engine and installing the new engine. Those vacuum tubes and sensor connectors are about 20 years old, remember.

If you can, I'd try taking it in to a local Nissan dealership. They've got all of the service manuals and all of the tools, but they'll hate working on it because no one is trained on that truck anymore. You will get a dealership fee, but it will be fixed and they will only charge you the book rate for fixing whatever was broke.

Just explain to them that the engine was recently rebuilt, and you suspect something may have been reassembled incorrectly.

As a bonus, when I brought mine into the dealership, there were about 10 different service recalls they did on my truck for free.

Back to your issue, though: Your truck is running much too lean. That's what is causing your manifold to get red hot. That's bad. You could be damaging internal engine parts if you keep doing that for too long.

The 1996 only had the KA24, right? How much was a complete rebuild on that?


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## SPEEDO (Jun 9, 2003)

swirl control valve is also known as a power valve actuator, its on the back of the intake manifold (oem pt# 14517-86G0A)
hope it helps


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

If the ball joints don't have any play in them, I would leave them alone (unless you already have the arm separated and it's easy to pop a new grease boot on). When they go bad, then put new ones on. 
IMO, if you sent your vehicle to a mechanic to have them rebuild it, it should be them who is responsible for fixing the current problems and getting your engine running right. First they need to double check their work and make sure everything is connected correctly. Low power and glowing exhaust could be the sign of a restricted exhaust, so a quick back pressure test wouldn't be a bad idea. Late ignition timing can also cause glowing exhaust. That all said, most of the KA24E engines that I've seen that have had low power after work has been done to it were caused by either the timing chain being put on out of time or the distributor not being installed correctly. 
As far as dealer techs would hate to work on a Hardbody because they weren't trained on them, I don't agree. I've worked as a dealer tech and most Nissan techs love them because they were great trucks, made for a decade with few changes and not bad to work on at all. Any competent auto tech shouldn't have any problems with working on a Hardbody truck. They only time they don't like working on them is when someone who has no clue of what they are doing has gotten to them and messed them up!


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## Peanut (Mar 23, 2011)

jp2code, yeah it's got the KA24E in it. And even with things not being quite right, it does in fact still run. That's why I love this little truck. I could probably drive it through the ocean and so long as I kept gas in it, it would probably run fine. Total rebuild keeping only the block, machining the camshaft (couldn't find a new one easily) and replacing every other moving part with Nissan parts, came out to $1700.00 USD. 

SPEEDO, thanks for that bit of info, I'll look in to it.

smj,

My mechanic is definitely taking it on, I'm just trying to help him with answers. This is his first time working on this engine and with the number of you on this forum that know that thing like the back of your hand, figured it couldn't hurt to ask. That said, the first ideas out of his mouth are also the same things you guys are talking about, so I'm not worried that he's lost or anything. 

I've been away from home since I last posted, just got home a bit ago. Talked to my mechanic earlier and told him about some power returning after swapping the Catalytic Converter. He's gonna come over tomorrow and re-position the distributor cap. 

I'll come back with an update after that.


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