Hot truck four wheeling, and then splashing colder water up onto it may have indeed cracked one or both of your headers, they seem to be prone for it anyways. That may explain the ticking. The sputtering and/or missing could be coming from some of the electronic coil packs getting wet......

Now for the biggy....Take off your intake tube and see if there is ANY discoloration/dirty water remnants going into the intake manifold at the butterfly .....That would be very bad. If you were running hard-lol-and then you suck a bunch of cold water in there, you could really have fouled some stuff up. Such as warped valves, cracked pistons, and on and on. But this would cause the truck to buck and spit, oil smoke from the pipe, etc, etc......

Maybe it just died when water vapor hit the maf in the intake tube, and you've just got cracked headers.......IDK, get that intake tube off and look at your manifolds, you'll have to take the heat shields off for a thorough inspection, and I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!!

 

Thanks for the good wishes, I think it helped lol. So I drove the truck this morning and the sputtering and coughing is gone, but the ticking is still there and I feel like I've lost a little bit of power. I think it was water in some electrical stuff and the ticking seems like it's an exhaust manifold leak. If that was the case, would I throw a CEL? And the power loss could very well be from the exhaust leak, right?

 

Maybe just a cracked exhaust manifold. The ticking could be your valves. You can hear mine tick but thats just how my truck is.

 

clean your MAF sencor also. It could have skanked up with crap

 

thanks for the tips guys, I'll start pulling off the intake tube and maf and see what i find.

 

Obviously look at the air filter also. There have been a couple of prior threads about water being channeled from the tire along the inside of the driver side front fender liner and into the intake from spinning in a deep puddle in reverse.

 

Happens in forward too. Back at a Titan meet in Nov. '08 all four of the Titans going through one big muddy puddle, (probably 12" deep at the deepest), at medium speed, sucked up water into our filters, (and past, into the tube leading to the TB), This was with fender liners in place.

The wheel well is a very stupid place for a air intake. Especially on the "Off Road" package. Nissan knows better too. They have their Patrol setup for snorkels, and have their plug wires water proofed etc. :bangit:

 

I've got the Injen intake and no fender liners, I should definitely take a look at the filter. thanks bestatchess

 

Good luck man, let us know how it works out!

 

same happened to me a few weeks ago, but mine didn't die, just wouldn't go over 2500 rpm. Took out the intake, used my shirt to dry out the rest of the tube, and went on my way. Now, i'm getting the ticking noise and lost some power as well. Also got a gross exhaust leak code. Didn't have a chance to take up to the stealership, but i'm pretty sure my headers are cracked.

 

Seems exactly like what happened to me, i'm a little relieved now that i'm getting closer to narrowing what the problem might be. Is there a difference in sound to what an exhaust leak and and valve problem would be?

 

Sounds exactly like an exhaust leak. I should know, I had both of my exhaust manifolds go out sounds kinda like a snake hissing when press the gas and you can feel a power loss.

 

Well I changed the oil this morning and it came out pretty dark, didn't look like there was any water mixed in. I'll be changing it again in a couple hundred miles for safety's sake, but the ticking is still there. I'm dropping off the truck at Nissan tomorrow morning to find out where it's coming from, hopefully it'll be good news. I'll post up what they say tomorrow

 

Yeah, I think they're gonna find some cracked manifolds. I think your engine is good, and I am really glad for you!!

 

thanks mde! I was a little worried this morning when the truck sputtered and was stalling while i was revving it, but after warming up it disappeared. Do you think there's still some water in some plugs or something, or could that still be from the exhaust leak?

 

I'm not really sure about that, except to say that after washing off my engine EXTENSIVELY, mine sputtered and whatnot until I ran it and cooked it off. As to your manifolds causing the "miss" or sputtering, I wouldn't know or have anything to compare it to. I don't see how anything could be that wrong with the engine itself.

How did the intake tube and sensor look?? Did your clean the MAF? I could see the miss if that thing were still dirty. They're sensitive little ba$tards, lol.

 

the intake tube was pretty dirty and the maf and throttle body had mud on em. I cleaned em all of the best I could. If it does it again tomorrow morning, I'll have the dealer look at it too.

 

Will it rev up relatively normal, just a little miss? Or does it sound like a rev limiter? I'm trying to determine if it's in "limp mode"?

 

it seems like a rev limiter, it'll hit a random spot in the rpms and just stop revving and drop. After a few times of doing this, it stops and rev's normal:huh:

 

i dont think changing oil is going to change it all that much. If its the manifolds, the tickin/ hissing will be there a while. I'd clean out the intake and mostly the MAF really good one more time, and let it run in idle for a while before stepping on it. I ran some seafoam trough it, but it didn't make diff with the ticking.

 

The oil change was just to make sure there wasn't water in the motor. The service tech at Nissan listened to it and said it sounded like an exhaust leak also. I've already pulled off the intake and cleaned off the tube, filter, maf and throttle body pretty well. There were a couple new symptoms on the 20 mile drive to the dealership, which I'm having them look at also. The water temp spiked to about 200 and the trans temp was at 180. I've never had the water temp hit over 180 and the trans temp has never hit over about 140. :dunno:

 

I used to have the temp go up in a Jeep when I got too much mud blocking air flow through the radiator.

 

Just got a call from Nissan, I guess there was impact damage on the flywheel cover plate and they think it was pushed in and damaged some other parts. It's going to be 600 for them to take it out and have a look and put it back in, then any extra parts are going to cost extra.

 

Any starting issues? Any weird tranny vibrations? I haven't heard you mention these, but I guess the weird "rev limiter" actions could've been caused by this.

 

Any skid plates?

 

I don't think so, the nuts from the engine skid plate broke and I never got around to getting them fixed. I never had a tranny skid plate, do any titans come with em?

Any starting issues? Any weird tranny vibrations? I haven't heard you mention these, but I guess the weird "rev limiter" actions could've been caused by this.

There weren't any tranny vibrations that I noticed and there weren't any starting issues. I hope it won't be too much to fix, I should know by tomorrow.

They also said that my torque converter could have been damaged. If that's the case, would it be better to get a torque converter from ipt or level 10? What are the differences between does and stock, I know they handle more horsepower, but how is the driveability of em? It's for my daily driver and I don't plan on ever getting cams for a power adder.

 

Just got another call from Nissan, apparantly the ticking noise is coming from the bottom end of the motor. The flywheel still had damage but the engine seems to be the main issue now. So they want proof of oil changes and maintenance to see if they can warranty it. My service rep is a real nice guy and told me that any receipts or bank statements I can come up with will help alot. I'm hoping I can come up with enough receipts for Nissan to warranty the motor. He said he know's I've been keeping up with the maintenance just from looking at the vehicle, which I do (mobil 1 full syn every 3k miles, tranny fluid changed, rear diff oil changed), but corporate definitely will want all the info they can get. I now have no idea where the noise could be coming from.

 

As a teenager, I watched (in amazement) an old time mechanic slowly pour a mason jar full of water into the carb of a running small block chevy on the theory that it would "clean the carbon out".

 

That actually does work, but there's a difference between a trickle and a flood.

Slowly adding water, and I mean slowly, will generate steam and the steam will clean off the carbon.

 

State farm paid for my wifes car when she drove thru water and killed the engine. The things for them to cover this was it was on a public street or highway that was not closed etc. It bent the rods so bad, I wouldn't hardly run. This was in a Toyota Corolla.

 

Well it looks like Nissan is giving me a new long block! They said they think the piston sleeve broke and the piston was clanging back and forth in the cylinder head and that was the ticking noise. Also the compression was real low in that cylinder. I love my service department!

 

glad it worked out for you... what dealership?