querada

1992 Accord EX 2.2L Standard

I’m looking for some of that damn-that’s-useful advice that I’ve seen in so many places on this forum.

I recently changed the lower spark plug o-rings, valve cover gasket and spark plugs as well as cleaned the ERG plugs, IACV and FITV. Now the engine idles at low RPM, I can’t seem to set the timing and it’s throwing a CEL 9.

Here’s the back-story…

I recently got this Accord from my sister-in-law to use as a winter car. Her mother bought it new and it was meticulously maintained at a dealership until 8 years ago. After my sister-in-law got it it saw a bit less of the dealership and more of the back yard mechanics. The car only has 140k and has always ran OK… maybe the rear bumper is held on by wood screws, but free was a pretty good price for me to take it off her hands after she got her new Civic.

It started with my brother saying spark plug number 3 was stripped and there was some oil in the tube. After googling around and landing on these forums I figured I could tackle that as well as perform some probably-needed tune-ups before the -40deg winter started. So I called Honda and ordered a valve cover gasket, ERG gasket, lower spark plug o-rings and some ERG plugs. Also picked up slide hammer, air filter, oil filter, oil, new plugs and 3 cans of carb cleaner.

First I disconnected the IAC and FITV but left the coolant lines attached. Removed fuel rail and the injectors were filthy. Cleaned those as well as the rubber gaskets and plastic rings inside the injector cavities. Plugged the holes with bits of rags and moved fuel rail to the side.
Center-punched and drilled the 6 ERG plugs. I wasn’t completely sure about depth and ended up drilling straight through 2 of them. Pulled out the plugs using a wood screw, it worked a lot better than the crappy screws that came with the 5lb Bondo slide hammer. Cleaned the grit out of the openings with a drill bit and vacuumed out the holes with 3/8” tubing duct-taped to a shop vac. Hammered in the new ERG plugs and thought “damn, that was easy”.

Removed valve cover. Cam shaft had a little bit of gunk on it and the inside of the cover was coated with layers of old oil. Used can #1 of carb cleaner to remove some of that. I wasn’t quite sure how the cams came off after loosening all the bolts so I loosened all three bolts on the distributer as well. Probably should have only done the top one. Oops. Turns out it was just kinda stuck. Pried up the dist side with a screwdriver and got the cams off.
Got the lower o-rings out. They were a little brittle. Though at first Honda gave me the wrong ones bec they were circular whereas the ones I took out were formed to the grooves. The new ones fit in though and seemed fine.

Took a look at the “stripped” plug 3. Bunch of oil in the tube so I tried to soak it out with a rag. Was still pretty black down there but noticed that the hole was shallower than the rest. Turns out it was just ¾” of burnt oil covering the hex nut on the spark plug. Banged the socket on, loosened the grime, spent an hour removing it with a tiny screwdriver and shopvac then was able to get plug out. Changed all the spark plugs. Couldn’t find my feeler gauge right away so I didn’t set valve clearences.

Alright, “installation is the reverse of removal” time. Put it all back together. Started it up and it was running pretty rough. No kidding, timing was out. Played with adjusting the distributer but it never really “ran OK”. When cold it idles at 1500 rpm then when it warms up it drops to 600. When I pressed on the gas it would hesitate before revving up and as I let off the gas the car would die.

OK, fine, I’ll clean the FITV. Disconnected coolant hoses. Never having worked on a Honda before I mistook the IACV for the FITV. I thought it was kinda weird that the part had 3 three-sided screws in it (kinda like a Philips, but with three prongs instead of four). Meh, I had some security bits from work so I used those. Still stripped them. Drilled the screws out expecting to find a white disc I could tighten to fix my idle issue. There was only a coolant reservoir. Dangit, wrong part. Cleaned it anyway. Put that back together with new bolts and took off the actual FITV. Once I got that apart the white plastic turney thing was already tight. Dang.

Put FITV back on. Checked timing. Set the light to 0 and 15deg advance but I didn’t ever see a red 15 deg marker. At 15 it looked like there were 3 scratches on the flywheel which I assumed were made whenever the last guy timed it. Car was running rough though and there was a weird kinda humming that seemed to be coming from the engine. When warm the gun was saying it was just shy of 600 rpm. Bridged that little blue jumper under glove compartment and CEL was flashing 9 times. Pulled back-up fuse, started car without touching gas, still CEL 9.

Checked for vacuum leaks by spraying carb cleaner on all the hoses. Idle never changed. Changed oil/filter just to feel like I accomplished something. Googled. Read something about setting base idle when IACV was disconnected. I had tried unplugging that connector before but the car had always died. Started and let it warm up. Pulled on throttle a little to keep car running and disconnected IACV electrical connector. Engine rpm still around 5-600. Played with idle a bit but engine never seemed to smooth out unless I took it up to around 800. Even then if I pulled the throttle the engine would hesitate then rev up. Stopped dying after I took the throttle off though, so that was good. Thought 800 was a little high for base idle so I took it back down to 600. Plugged IACV back in and the idle jumped, then went back down to 600. Pulled back-up fuse and there was still a CEL 9 after. When IACV was disconnectd it was alternating CEL 9 then 14. 14 went away after reconnecting IACV. Upped idle half a turn to 750ish warm just to see if it would help.

Tried to set the timing again. Engine still running rough. I set it back to where those three scratches were showing when the gun was set to 15deg. Took car out for a spin. Car would hesitate when I first hit the gas. Needed to rev up to 2k rpm to get it into gear or else it felt like it was about to stall.

Anyway, I was hoping to get some suggestions for next steps. This has me stumped. All I _thought_ I did was clean crap out and change a few gaskets but something more seems to have gone on. I thought the car would be running GREAT after I was finished but… not so much.

So, is there anything else that needs to be reset for Honda idle controls besides pulling back-up fuse?
I bought a new ERG gasket but didn’t feel like taking the ERG off. Is that worth doing? Should I bypass the ERG altogether? That FAQ is missing pics so I wasn't entirely sure how to go about doing that...
How the heck do I get the timing done if I can’t run the car smooth enough to set it?
Besides vacuum leaks, based on what I have done is there anything I could have accidentally knicked/bent/dirtied that would cause a low weak idle? Banged up an injector maybe? Dirt in cylinder? Overtightening a bolt somewhere (like on the cam)? Anything?

Thanks for reading, lol. Hopefully there’s a good explanation for all this

sony224422

http://www.cb7tuner.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=146242 read up

joe_accord23

wow thats some story, this is the first time i see a post that long its kool!