backinblue92

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In my never-ending quest to diagnose the rivh condition, its led me to a random misfire. After careful consideration of all accessories, I've found my intake mani pressure is fluctuating between 21" and 22" so rapidly the needle is hard to see. Some searching led me to many different places and alot of dead ends, however did find an article that stated if manifold vacuum is bouncing within 1", it indicates an ignition problem. I've already replaced my cap, rotor, wires and plugs. Outside of a scope, which I don't have, is there anything I can do or use to simply check that the spark is consistent?

backinblue92

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A top technician that I fully trust, however, still doesn't believe that the fluctuating needle on my vac guage means it's misfiring since he doesn't feel it missing when he's driven it. He thinks it's solely a low speed rich condition.

Please, anyone, any ideas? I've done everything and am a couple days from taking it to honda to have them use their vertrans with honda software to detect it. I've come this far without paying a mechanic. I know somebody has idea for low speed/rpm rich condition that disappears over 2500rpm.

Again, I've done: cap, rotor, wires, plugs, seafoam, new catalyst, o2, valve lash, iacv, fitv, tps, map (all voltage tested and cleaned), have new egr valve waiting and h22 plenum being hot tanked to install.

I know this is a good community full of helpful people. I'd appreciate any input. Everybody I know is stumped.

backinblue92

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Well, a friend generously hot tanked a spare h22 intake manifold he had lying around for me. With a new egr valve and nice clean egr ports (the manifold already has plugs in it so future cleaning will be a piece of cake) I got it in within a couple hours sat evening and my low end throttle response feels 10x better.

I also found a bent injector that was sitting slightly cockeyed in the cushion ring, and another injector that had two cushion rings. Either of the two injector issues could have caused my fuel burn issues, but I'm not certain.

I'm only keeping this updated on the off chance someone comes across it with any ideas I haven't thought of yet. Will take the car to the smog station thuemrs and hope its all solved now, though after all this my manifold pressure is still flutuating between 21-22". A few other cars I've tested show the same thing, fast 1" fluctuation, so maybe it's normal?
Thanks in advance.

snobordboy

<p>My goodness you find all sorts of goofy stuff as you work through this problem.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Hopefully this solves your issues and you finally pass! I would hate to deal with CARB, much worse than the dyno test stuff&nbsp;I have to do in Colorado.</p>

backinblue92

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Yeah I've certainly found alot of wonky stuff, luckily nothing that can't be easily redone. Guess that's what happens when u buy a car with a blown motor and the seller provides an engine that u have to install under a deadline so u don't check the small stuff. Used cars. Like hookers. Never know where they've been. Lol!

For what it's worth, I don't smell gas in my exhaust anymore since I did the manifold and fixed up the injectors (I straightened out that injector with vice grips for now haha.

Hoping for a pass Thursday am. I will add that I give up if it doesn't pass this time. I will pay somebody I trust

backinblue92

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Well, I failed smog at all 3 gasses 15mph, passed all at 25. I gave up and paid the smog tech. He found not a thing wrong with my car, except...

Wait for it...

The brand new cat I bought in July wasn't working at all. The o2 sensors were mimicking each other; what was going in was exactly what was coming out. The inlet and outlet temps were less than 50 degrees from each other. So, I got a bad cat. And had ruled that out long ago, instead assuming the high hc at 15mph meant a misfire (which I'd never felt) or a rich fuel problem (which I never really found any proof of on my spark plugs nor in fuel trims on obd2 scan tools). The cat has a CA carb dar # that is legit, made by carsound aka magnaflow. It's not lighting off, for reasons unknown. It is looking like it will be replaced under warranty and hopefully will smog just fine.

Throw one more thing into the pile of strange stuff I've encountered on this 2+ month ordeal. I ain't even mad anymore. This is becoming the craziest thing I've ever heard of. Bad parts, false readings, odd findings.

holmesnmanny

The excess fuel being dumped in has killed your cat in no short time. I know this because this same exact thing has happened to me.

When you fix the root cause of the fuel being dumped in you will stop killing your cat and you will pass smog.

I already told you what I think the root cause is but you don't want to really test to see what would take only about 5 minutes to rule out.

backinblue92

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I honestly don't remember what u told me but I'm all ears if you'd care to repeat it. I've spend enough time on this already, what's another 5min..

I have not tested the injectors with my voltmeter yet, if that is what u r referring to. But like I said, I'm all ears

backinblue92

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And the saga continues...

After borrowing an injector tester, my injectors came out fine. Original fuel pressure with key in run position was 42psi, triggered injectors one by one, all dropped psi to 21 in 6millisecond bursts. In single bursts, same story. All injectors fired the same.

Fuel pressure stood at 37psi, 47psi w/ vac unplugged. Fpr is good. Pressure seems high? I read anywhere from 24-32 is normal, then I read 42 is normal too. So idk.

I've decided I'm not giving up til I find this even though the car runs and idles perfectly. Which tells me some major things. Whatever this is, it's not causing any drivability issues.

I'm racking my brain trying to think.. low rpm =low volumetric efficiency. What conditions affect that most? Or play the largest role?

I've passed 2 smogs in prior years with this car. So something changed.

JRCivic1

What about the possibility of a voltage problem... like the voltage regulator inside the alternator cycling on/off, a weakened battery (dead cell ?) or corroded charging wire between alternator and battery, or maybe even a PSP switch freaking out, causing the ELD to cycle on/off ???

Just thinking outside the box here, but slight voltage changes can produce the symptom you describe.

By the way, your fuel pressure IS within parameters (both with and without vacuum connected) and fixing the CAT will get you passed the smog *****... the fluctuating idle/vacuum isn't what is causing you to fail.

98vtec

I remember a ASE question back in the day that talked about fluctuating vacuum and the answer was a broken or damaged valve spring. Doesn't hurt to take a real hard look at all the springs.

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

Let's see, the alternator took a heavy saturation of power steering fluid after I made a mistake a while back, but some electrical cleaner and brake clean restored it well. My battery is in the "replace" section, pushing 323 CA on a 535 rating. It's 8 years old and runs DRLs and fogs at all times, but I never considered that as a relevant option. It'd kill me if it was just a battery the whole time. Lol. I'll replace it anyways, I need to, was hoping to see how far it would go before crapping out.

I do appreciate the outside the box thinking, because that's what I feel will solve this mystery. PS- I did fix the catalytic with a new one. Same result.

Are you thinking just hooking the voltmeter to the battery and watching idle voltage is a good way to check possible voltage flutuations? Or do I need to dig deeper? I suppose the coil could be failing, but that's something i believe I'd feel in non-starts and cutting out.

And to 98vtec, since idk how to quote two different posts- I've heard that too, but from what I know 3-4" fluctuation tends to deal with valve and spring issues. Smaller fluctuations indicate ignition, according to

http://www.gregsengine.com/using-a-vacuum-gauge.html

Who knows how accurate that is, but it seems well thought out. I will give all the valve springs a visual unless u have a preferred method to test them? I can check google.


I did forget to mention that after I decided to leave my fuel guage on the car overnight, I found my fuel pressure near gone this am. I primed the system and watched it, 45min dropped 20 psi off the rail. I haven't had a chance to remove the injectors, but my plan is to prime the rail with injectors out of block and put a dry towel under each one, though since the pulsing netted the same results among them, I'm not hopeful I'll find one leaking. The engine off rail pressure could be coming from somewhere else that doesn't affect engine performance. Or it even could be normal for all I know?

backinblue92

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Well, I was able to pull out the rail with injectors connected and prime the system. None of the injectors bled for over 2 hours I left dry cardboard under them until I pulsed them. There is bleed off of psi, 1" for a few minutes until it hits 30psi where it slowly bleeds off down to 10 pounds 3 hours later. Who knows if that is normal, but I have no hard start issues.

So, the update is nothing. My godfather lives in Tuolumne county, smog free. My dad said he'd call and ask tomorrow if I can register it at his house. Pending that outcome, I think I give up. It's not like I have an actual drivability problem.

snobordboy

<p>With that low of a bleed rate, it is probably a check valve in the fuel pump letting it bleed back to the tank. Probabaly not fast enough to worry about.</p><p>Have you replaced the cat under warranty yet? I would think if all other issues are dealt with, a fresh cat should get you that pass you need.</p>

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

Sadly, I did replace the cat under warranty, and ponied up another 80 bucks for an even better bigger cat. Went from a Magnaflow to a much larger Walker catalyst, and my HCs went down to 165. With the Magnaflow, the HCs went from 220 to 180. So the new cat is indeed better.

But passing is like 55 HCs. So I'm still way off pace. I'm thinking if a new cat can't even cover em up, yet a blown cat isn't showing much more than a new one would clean up, it's some very strange issue that isn't spewing HCs yet no cat can clean up. I'm 100% out of ideas.

I haven't had time to inspect my valve springs like 98vtec mentioned. I'm gonna buy a stock exhaust header and downpipe tomorrow because I have heard that ceramic dc headers can cool exhaust heavily to where the cat Doesn't get hot enough. Also, so I can be 10000000% sure there is no exhaust leak (even though my live scan o2 shows no sign of a rich condition). I'm pretty much at the point where I'm doing things twice now.

I'm meeting my godfather for lunch tomorrow to discuss registering my car at his house, which is in a smog-free county. If that works, I'm forgetting this ever happened. Haha

backinblue92

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No go on the registration out of county. Bah. I guess some people don't think it's right to cheat the government while the gov't is doing me over me with their asinine smog &smog repair laws.

Anyways, for now I took it to a genius smog tech I heard of through a friend. He is incredibly intelligent and good with people, which makes for a great combo of him being able to coherently explain what's going on and his ideas.

He found my h22 was going to open loop anytime acceleration load was sensed, not just under what would normally be heavy acceleration only. I never found that because all my obd scanning was done at idle. Not that I'd even know what to do with that info yet. Which would explain why my throttle response and acceleration has felt so much better than other mostly stock h22s. He thought my ecu may have been wrong for the car, but turned out not to be the case. Luckily I'd taken pics of my obd2 p13 when I checked it recently. So for now, that idea is on the backburner while he drills and assesses pre-cat emissions to verify actual numbers and does his own leakdown and compression tests. I feel very confident in his abilities so that's good. I'm leaving him the car overnight and I'll have an update tomorrow.

Although I'm curious. Say he somehow finds no real answers like everyone else (at which point it's time to start a corporation in Montana and make the car my corporate car LOL). And I hit the $650 waiver limit. Does my engine being a 1993 model in a 1996 mean the referee can still not give me my tags? Simply because the engine is older than the car even if it was an engine that did come in that model? I know this is a CA specific question.

backinblue92

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And we finally have a resolution. I'm so excited. Lol. $405 to the most diligent, genius smog tech I've ever met. Mass kudos to my buddy for finding him.

It passed a pretest with stunningly low numbers. He accidentally triggered a code while doing some diagnostics, so I'm driving the car all weekend to get through a drive cycle and dropping it back off Monday for the real pass.

Now, I doubt anyone is even following this anymore, but for those that are curious.. he found a fault in open/closed loop operation. There was a piggyback controller hidden in the wiring that old car guys used (apparently, idk much about it) to use to trigger open loop instantly to gain power and throttle response at a touch of the throttle. So it was even going open loop on smog dynos. Whoever owned my car before me did this, I'd imagine. Why I passed smog two other times, I don't know but do remember the numbers were high. He said tighter regulations on the numbers could have caused the fail this time. He cut a couple wires and bypassed it for now, and will reconnect it after I pass if I want to keep the car the way it was.

He also found a cracked spark plug, which is odd because I just replaced the plugs 2 weeks ago with ngk coppers. There's a chance I fixed most of the issue unknowingly but the cracked plug was preventing it from being seen, and the controller was a big piece of the puzzle.

There was a little disconcerting news, however, that one exhaust valve is leaking 30% while the rest are fine. It just means I'll have to start my g23 build sooner than anticipated, but for now, all is well and I will be happy to have this behind me.

This_thread_sucks_now

You should have just uploaded the VW emissions software and you'd pass with flying colors.

v4lu3s

I want to know about the piggy back device in there.

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

I've only seen it, it's a black box, don't have a pic of it cuz it's tucked way up in there and honestly, I'm gonna keep it in there lol cuz I do love the throttle feel as is.

Anyhow, yeah it's a simple black box with harness in, harness out. The tech said only a couple wires were tapped into that he bypassed, the others just went through the box with the rest of the engine harness. The box is super simple. It takes ecu voltage re: engine load and forces open loop when it senses the voltage. Just like a relay of sorts.

Once open loop, well, yknow what that is. It dumps fuel, emissions go to **** but the car accelerates and revs pretty quick. My opinion? Someone should mass market these things. Maybe I should take it apart, see how it works, and get rich. Lol. They don't seem to have ever caught on, considering most people have never heard of em.

thirsk66

iTrader: (2)

I want to make one of these open loop relays for my car just need the items to make it all work

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

I'm weary of pulling it apart for fear I may break something as I don't know how the internals are put together. I'll ask my smog tech for some advice.. if it's a relatively easy thing, I may start making and selling them. I looked on Google and they are nowhere to be found. I drove the car with the open loop controller disabled, and it felt so much less responsive, lol. So it def makes driving much more fun.

On another note, I suppose that 1" of incredibly fast flutuation in my intake manifold is coming from the exhaust valve that's leaking. The speed of the needle would make sense. Starting a g23 build soon in prep of the valve burning eventually. The compression is still within 10% variance to other cylinders, so I'm not sure what to expect as to how long a 30% leaking valve will last. I'm still driving her hard tho!