gasketboy

Hi all! Finally rebuilt everything, with both dowel pins this time Civic Dx 1990 1.5L D15B2

Filled with oil, and coolant. Car start pretty much immediately which seemed good. But the idle is very high. There is no tachometer on this civic so I'm not sure how high it is, but it seems higher than a very cold day idle. It could be a vacuum leak but I doubt it, I will check with some soapy water around the intake manifold. My throttle cable was a bit weird as i had to move it around a lot during the head gasket job. Could this affect idle speeds? Also my fly wheel is completely rusted ( thanks Quebec climate) and i can't see any TDC mark. I didnt move anything unless the timing belt was on both crank and cam, so I doubt the timing got changed during the headgasket job, and I took the head off while it was already at TDC. Does anyone have any diagnostics idea I can try tomorrow to figure out where is the problem coming from?
I feel my throttle cable is weird now, it doesn't follow the nice curve it had before, but i'm not sure this would affect idle, unless its constantly pulling on the throttle body?

Edit: forgot to say the cable going to the coolant temp sensor on the side of the head is pretty damaged , close to broken. Could this affect my high idle speed?

This is my troubleshooting list for tomorrow morning! Please help add ideas to it!

1) adjust throttle cable and throttlebody back to specs
2) try to verify crank pulley is at TDC when cam pulley is at TDC
3) look for any vaccum leaks around the intake manifold, including PCV valve, evap hose etc..
4) repair cable that goes to coolant temp sensor
5) take IACV off and see if this affect idling, clean it
6) perhaps an ECU remap is in order? seems unlikely as idle is very stable but high



Thanks for your input!

video_voide

Before you do anything else, check your mechanical timing. Pop off the valve cover and remove the plastic cam wheel cover. Look at the cam wheel, it will have a TDC mark. The crank has one also. With the engine off and in neutral you need to rotate the crank with a socket wrench. Turn it counter clockwise. This takes some trial and error. First position the crank to the TDC indicator then look at the cam's marker. You may have to take the crank around twice.


Throttle cabe could be kinked or on too tight.

gasketboy

Ok will check. Another issue is that if I press the gas pedal and release it, the RPM's don't go back down, it just stays where I put it. It also feels quite rough when cutting off the engine which feels the only way to bring those RPM's back down

video_voide

Sounds like the throttle cable is binding. Have someone sit in the car with the engine off. Tell them to work the gas pedal while you watch the cable actuate. Make sure it retracts into the cable housing when they take their foot off the pedal.

th3pwn3r

My CRX was idling at 3,000, I thought I blew something up because it sounded bad. Then I discovered that the throttle body was hanging half off -_- You might want to check that out yourself. Maybe your gasket got ripped.

flash9

May want to check routing of the throttle cable around the cam on the side of your throttle body.