Ashworth80433

I have no other option, I must start a new thread on something that's been covered a million times. Smh please forgive me lol. This happens to actually be my first post ever to any forum. I stood by and watched others bring shamed for not using the search button, I quickly learned from others mistakes. I can only hope some honda gurus can help me solve this nightmare of a problem.
The car-1992 accord lx
F22a1 w/ manual
122xxx original miles
Extras-flawless (peeling, running) rattle can paint
​​​​​​ AEM cold air intake
2.5 tubing from headers to 4" exhaust
​​​​​​Note-the exhaust was done while car was NOT running, I had to take a brake from running in circles with this issue.
A bit of history on the car- I picked up the car for 300 bucks, the owner said it had a vacuum leak somewhere in the clutch or transmission. Myself having my tenured retard in other aspects of life knew it probably wasn't blead right. Had it towed home, tried to bleed and found it was split at the banjo fitting. Tried to start it and no dice, couldn't hear the fuel pump kick on. The owner said the original tank had a hole in it and he had replaced it. I dropped the new tank and the banjo bolt female threads were stripped to heck along with the fuel pump frozen. Drenched it in penetrating oil, beat it with a hammer and voila. Teflon tape for the stripped threads and I was good to go.
The car was great for a month. Changed the oil every 1-2k and everything was gravy. Then...
Bad fuel economy
Worse fuel economy
Slight hesitation at Idol until about 1200rpm and it was smooth from there.
At this point, my genius truely showed. Being the broke SOB I am, used some 116 octane from my shop cause I couldn't afford gas to make it to and from work the next day. About 3 gallons of it. Made all of the previous problems go away momentarily. I wanted fresh gas so I decided to run it as empty as I was comfortable with. En route to fill up it was bogging down horribly, hardly made it back home. Going uphill was almost impossible. Once again being as challenged as I am, decided to put the Cai on the next day.
I'd have to feather the throttle to get any sort of movement under load or not, no response at WOT, running a little rich, small amount of blue smoke, hesiitation and backfiring through intake. Started messing with sensors to see if I could quickly find what was causing it. Nothing made much of a difference. Sprayed carb cleaner to check vacuum lines. Nada. Messing with the sensors and vaccum lines created a vacuum leak somewhere. Idol bouncing all over the place. Still no CEL.
Started with the easy stuff, new plugs and wires, not new but different cap and rotor, iacv wasn't opening just constantly humming so replaced it and blend coolant, checked map, o2, tps, temp to ecu under dizzy, retarded timing 3°, replaced every vacuum line and PCV and finally cracked the valve cover gasket to check each valve at TDC. Everything checked out leaving me scratching my head. (I'm using the 92 accord shop manual as reference btw). Checked mechanical and ignition timing, everything was on point. It idols very rough, unplugging the iacv smooths everything out a tad.

God bored chasing the dragon again and had to put the non running issue on the back burner for a minute. Thought the cat could be the issue so cut piping at the headers, welded and bent 2.5" tubing all the way back to a 4" muffler. Only took me 6 hours due to frustration, I keep cutting the same fckn pipe and it's still too short. I may or may not be kidding.

Replaced the vacuum booster and tightened fiv, bouncing Idol went away but now my problem has worsened. Still no CEL. Now I've gone through 3 map, another egr solenoid. The egr valve was gnarly when I took it off due to it now running so rich you can almost taste the unburnt fuel: although I did not clean the ports as I should have. Replaced fuel filter with 2 different inline filters, checked, cleaned and rechecked grounds. Pulled plugs one at a time, each had spark along with unburnt fuel coming out of the plug hole. Checked timing again.

I thought I finally had it figured out when I tested my ignition coil. Had the proper reading at A-B, A-second (I can't remember exactly right now without the book) and zero resistance from C-D. Voila! Got a new ignition coil thinking this had to be the problem all along. Fml now itll start but idols high (1500) for less than 5 seconds before dying.
The accord must have thought it was a Denver bronco at this point, getting so much attention but killing all hopes and dreams by dying after a mere few seconds. Blue 42, hike!
CEL finally kicked on, you guessed it. Code 42.
Today I picked up a new fuel pump seeing as I afro engineered the last one to get by, along with a new 02 sensor which will be shortly followed with a compression check.
If this doesn't work I see arson in my near future.

What the %&$:@/$& am I missing! I feel like king Midas! Except everything I touch on this car turns to s*_t instead of gold! Getting pretty tired of walking up hill both to and from work.

Replacement recap-
3 map, iacv, fiv, vac boost, all new vac lines, plugs, wires, ig coil, checked tps, in cabin air freshener, new fuel, pcv, egr solenoid, 2 fuel filters, purge solenoid, socks and shoes, cap and rotor, grounds, plus 3 extra grounds, coolant blead, I may have forgotten a few things that were listed above.

Will update tomorrow after killing time with replacing the o2 and fuel pump.

Ashworth80433

Anyone? If I didn't post this in the right place please advise. Like I said, never posted on a forum before so still a bit ignorant in that aspect.
Thanks

2001GSRSC

I do not see how retarding the timing improve the performance. There are no reason for your actions that your listing.

Place timing / idle / valve specs back to stock. Use honda factory parts when possible.
Verify fuel psi, and coolant pressure. No leaks.

Of coarse it does, every time you go in, you are disturbing something else. Plan your moves ahead. Surgical strikes with a manual. Not carpet bombing the thing replacing all.

holmesnmanny

I would unplug the oxygen sensor connector and egr valve connector to turn off both systems and see if those systems cause an issue. If the car runs better you know it's one of those two.

Ashworth80433

I can't tell you how many times I've unplugged egr and o2, along with every other sensor one at a time, two at a time. Didn't really seem to make any difference.

Ashworth80433

Update: didn't get to the o2 sensor like I hoped, but I did make some headway. I was going through my list starting with electrical and of course forgot the menacing one under the thermo. Took a wire brush and green scotch Brite and cleaned it up. Reset ecu for giggles and absolutely no misfire. Tried to reset Idol by disconnecting eiac but fans never came on. They're supposed to before I pull my backup, reconnect eiac and let it sit at 3k tomorrow right? Plus even though there is no misfire and my eyes don't burn from unburnt fuel anymore i still get virtually nothing when I give it WOT. At least now it seems to steadily climb whereas before it killed itself out. If I barely feather throttle it comes to life. The only two things that come to mind could be fpr (which I forgot to mention I swapped for another used one already) and my ignitor. I'll be pulling cap and rotor off in the morning. Any other input would be awesome. Thank you!

holmesnmanny

try swapping in another dizzy