maxum17ft

ok, i'll give the cars details first:
2000 civic si with 73k miles. engine was rebuilt with je 9:1 slugs, eagle rods, acl and honda bearings, and all arp hardware, and an oem headgasket. it was rebuilt 1800 miles ago, block and head were all checked out to be sure cylenders were round and head was flat and all. im running gsr cams with a new oem timing belt, water pump, and oil pump.it has been boosted since 48k miles and all the turbo stuff is the same since then.

it has a walbro 255 pump, rc 550cc injectors, tuned on crome, egt's-wbo2-oil pres.-water temp-boost all monitered constantly since the build and all are good. it has a full race ram mani with a xs power t3/t4 57 trim(going over 30k mi. strong now!), its got the tial 38mm wg, vortech mongo bov, hallman pro rx mbc, tunertoys oil kit, a big fmic, and thats about all i can think of. its running on 12psi daily btw.

heres the problem:
its been running great ever since the rebuild 1800 miles ago. i broke it in for 1k miles, and since then i have been racing alot, hitting boost ALOT, cruised down to the carlisle car show 130miles last week at 6k rpm in boost the whole way, and not one problem.

yesterday i was on my way into work and i was almost on Empty. i pulled onto the road where i work, hit boost in 2nd, and as soon as it hit like 6krpm, or like 6psi, it just broke up, smelled like pure 93 octane, and popped, backfired, etc, and fell off, i let off, and pulled into work i thought i ran out of gas. i came home, same thing, as soon as it gets any big load, it falls on its face with a full tank of gas.

i have changed the plugs, the wires, the cap and rotor, the coil is putting out good voltage, i checked the injectors and harness, i even reburned my chip, same outcome.

im down to a few things left. my fuel pump is seizing up, taking a crap, something in the distributor is bad, fuel filter is bad(but it was replaced 5k miles ago), or some other thing i cant come up with.

so, it runs perfectly fine otherwise, idles great, light load is fine, even right to 8k rpm, but any load, and poop, it breaks up.

any ideas? i have the stock fuel pump i can throw in, and turn the boost down to 5psi, if the stock pump would be good enough for that just to see if thats the problem.

i'd really appreciate any help, ideas, or advice, cause its driving me nuts.

thanks

EDIT: i forgot to mention i also just did a leakdown and compression test, and it was all good, and the turbo is still like new, no play or oil, and it doesnt burn or use oil or anything like that.

Dunc

I have one guess that is very easy to check for. I have had the exact same problem in the past, and on my way back from Alabama (9 hour trip) it started doing it again this weekend. Pull off the distributor cap. Do the contacts look like this? If they do, then replace the cap and rotor.....and I'd bet $10 your problem will be solved. So in 5 minutes or less you can fix it, that's if you have another cap handy haha.

maxum17ft

haha, i knew my post was too long. i already changed the cap and rotor, theyre brand new, and the old ones didnt even look bad, but i figured i would try that anyway.

thanks for the input though

nsxmatt

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by maxum17ft &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> cruised down to the carlisle car show 130miles last week at 6k rpm in boost the whole way, and not one problem.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

You did what?

alex_s817

check your plug wires, i thought mine were fine, and the metal connector that goes on over the plug had ripped off and was barely touching the rest of the wire. my car was breaking up very badly too

maxum17ft

in response to... "you did what?" i drove over 130 miles to a car show in 5th gear at 6k rpm in boost the whole way with no problems was alot of fun

and to the last reply, the plug wires are brand new, i bought them today, tried them and my old ones, same thing. but thanks for the input!


who here thinks its the fuel pump?

rsmotors

Try another distributor

Sound Streamin'

What are your spark plugs gapped to?

boosted timebomb

i was having the same problem and it turned out to be the plugs. go by some ngk bkr7e's advanced auto should have them in stock. just make sure you gap them between .025 and .030 i gapped mine to .028 and never had a problem since then... until i snapped a rod two weeks ago.

Sound Streamin'

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by boosted timebomb &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i was having the same problem and it turned out to be the plugs. go by some ngk bkr7e's advanced auto should have them in stock. just make sure you gap them between .025 and .030 i gapped mine to .028 and never had a problem since then... until i snapped a rod two weeks ago. </TD></TR></TABLE>

My brothers car did the same thing. Had them gapped .040 and it miss fired badly up top. Gapped em down to .28 and it went away. If you gap the plugs too wide the boost actually blows the spark out.

rdtech

It may be the distributor problem. I've ran into that problem a lot.

nsxmatt

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by maxum17ft &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">in response to... "you did what?" i drove over 130 miles to a car show in 5th gear at 6k rpm in boost the whole way with no problems was alot of fun

</TD></TR></TABLE>

God there are some stupid kids on this board.

mighty137

R u running any add on ignition systems such as a MSD box. The car would drive fine, but when boost comes in the signal would break.....pops, backfires, cuts off. May be a bad box. Other wise replace your distributor with a know good one....just like another person said! GL

SOHC_MShue

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxmatt &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">God there are some stupid kids on this board.</TD></TR></TABLE>
yea no joke

IN VTEC

iTrader: (3)

We had a similar issue. At 15 to 17psi (~350whp), a plug gap of .025" worked fine. Anything higher would misfire. After we regapped to .024", it runs fine up to our current maximum of 20psi (~380 to 400whp). I never expected .001" would make such a big difference.

nsxmatt

Alot of igniton problems such as this are a sign of a weak or failing ignitor.

Flashmn

Yeah, doesnt sound smart to go 130miles at 6k and boost the whole way.

Chris Tune

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Flashmn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yeah, doesnt sound smart to go 130miles at 6k and boost the whole way. </TD></TR></TABLE>

COME ON B SERIES are MEANT to be boosted ALL THE WAYYYY and u all know it.. hehehehe

maxum17ft

ok, well it wasnt the whole way, but it was just a reference that the car was running great, im not stupid enough to go and do that for 130 miles. im just saying i cruised to the show in a pack of alot of cars and we were having some fun. when this started to happen i wasnt even beating on it, i got on it a little bit and hit boost right be4 i pulled into work on an empty tank and this happened.

i have a feeling its the ignitor or icm or something going out. its wierd that it happened out of the blue and when i was on empty though, thats where the fuel pump worrying came into play.

my plugs are 6097 bkr7e, gapped to .028, have been since its boosted, changed rigorously almost every oil change.

thanks for all the help so far. im gonna go call around and see if anyone has a b series dist i can borrow for the day, if that dont fix it, then i guess time for a new pump.

Chris Tune

check that u are not getting low fuel pressures on WOT and boost.. even thou usually WOT you are on boost but u know what i mean

maxum17ft

thats just it, i cant, every1 i know in town that has a garage or fp gauges are out of town.

im basically doing trial and error now, im starting by finding somebody in town with a good dist. if that dont fix it, i will check the stock fpr, and change the pump to the stock one and see what happens(boost will be down to 5.7psi for this).

b16a4

did u check your injectors

maxum17ft

just wanted to post and say problem solved. it was the fuel filter, yea, the fuel filter, it was clogged, so it was a fuel issue. thanks to everybody for the help!! :-)

alex_s817

glad it was an easy fix

maxum17ft

well, SON OF A BITCH. it wasnt the fuel filter, i cant explain it, but it ran great for a few miles after changing it and now its doin it again