# Any idea? 2001 Nissan Senra 1.8 liter pulsing at 2000 rpms



## smokestacks (Sep 14, 2019)

Folks, I have a 2001 Nissan Sentra GXE with the 1.8 liter. My teen son recently crashed into McDonalds. Rookie driver. Anyway, we pulled it back into shape and got it back on the road and a new problem just emerged that I can't figure out how to fix and i'm not sure if it's at all related to the crash since the car wasn't doing this immediately after the crash. It starts and idles fine. But when you start driving or even just rev the engine while in park, it won't get past 2000 rpms. if you leave your foot on the gas, it just kind of pulses in this steady rhythm, vroom, vroom, vroom, getting up to 2000 rpms, dropping, and then going up again. I replace the fuel pump and the mass air flow sensor, and that didn't help. When i pull off the electric connector to the mass air flow sensor, the car keeps running and does the same thing. Wondering if maybe the ECU, but i'm about $160 in on new parts for this sucker and getting ready to throw in the towel and scrap it for parts. Any ideas on other things I can try? Especially if there's a way to diagnose without running out and dropping a bundle on a new part? Many thanks


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## smokestacks (Sep 14, 2019)

one other thing. went to autozone and they couldn't pick up any codes. it just keeps cycling through. that and the fact that car keeps going when mass air flow sensor disconnected made me thing it might be the ECU.


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## rogoman (Dec 16, 2004)

It looks like the system is running in fail-safe mode. Here's a chart taken from the FSM for your vehicle:


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