guitarguychris

OK...here's the history.
I have a 95 Civic LX 1.5L non vtech...I know...quit laughing..ha.
A few weeks ago the head gasket blew...then all of a sudden the distributor went out as well. I have a mechanic that has worked on other cars for my family and I went to him. He changed the head gasket out. We got a distributor from a junk yard...turned out to be the wrong one so he took the coil and the igniter off of it and rebuilt my original. Car was running...just not right. Changed the catalytic converter as the old one was clogged up. Changed the fuel filter. The yellow wire on the A/T lock up control solenoid pulled out of the connector..removed that..pushed the wire back in and it is working fine now...was getting code 19 for it. I also changed out the pcv valve. Now I am getting no codes. The idle is really choppy...when I try to accelerate it hits a rev limiter at 3k rpms...have to let foot off the gas to get it to shift. If I unplug the map sensor..check engine light comes on for it...it raises the rev limiter to about 4000-4500..but I can't get the car above 60mph and the car has no power. I've read about limp mode but there are no check engine codes when I have everything plugged in. I know the ECU is good because it will throw a code when I unplug something. Does anyone have any idea what my problem could be? Is it possible to get into limp mode without any codes??

300whpej

try another ecu? it seems like you and the mechanic have tried almost everything else.

guitarguychris

Oh and forgot to add...it's got a new distributor cap and new spark plugs. I'm getting tired of putting money into the car and it not fixing it. I took it back to the mechanic to double check the timing. Other than that I'm not sure.

guitarguychris

I also forgot to mention...before all of this happened the speedometer would sometimes work and sometimes not...I know that's the VSS going out. Could this be my problem...the VSS finally dying and putting the TCU into limp mode??

300whpej

yes, a bad vss would make the car run in limp mode.

guitarguychris

Wouldn't I get a CEL or something though?? I should note that the speedometer still does work every once in a while...so it's not completely dead yet.

300whpej

i ran about 5 minutes with my vss unplugged (like a dumbass) and my car wouldnt rev past 3500 and my speedo didnt work at all. i had no cel tho. my car is a 95 dx btw

guitarguychris

Is yours an automatic? How was your idle and performance with it unplugged?? Did it seem like it was bogged down and bad idle??

300whpej

its manual. idle was off because i was using my d15 TB on a b16, but it ran fine until about 3500rpms when it felt like i was hitting a wall. the motor would fall out its face and act/sound like i was hitting redline/fuel cut.

guitarguychris

That is similar to what mine is doing....however it seems like I have no power though even before the rpm limit. Mine is an automatic btw.

guitarguychris

I unplugged the VSS and no code! Ha...gonna clean the connections and see if that helps as it still works sometimes. Still had a rev limiter even when it was working though. I also un-plugged the O2 sensor and the idle seemed to get better but the car still hit a rev limit. I have no clue what to do on this thing. I think I'm gonna just break down and take it to the honda dealership to see if they can diagnose it and tell me what I need to fix.

Jimster480

can you rev above 3k if your in park/neutral?

guitarguychris

yeah

guitarguychris

When the O2 sensor was unplugged it had a higher rev limit...like around 4000-4500 rpms

Jimster480

so you can take it to redline in park/neutral?

guitarguychris

I haven't been brave enough to try and take it all the way to redline...haha. Don't wanna blow anything up!

guitarguychris

It will go up to about 5000 rpm in park/neutral though

Jimster480

hmm, thats pretty weird. is it misfiring? it could be that your tranny is ****ed :/

guitarguychris

It definitely doesn't idle very smooth...unless I unplug the O2 sensor and that improves it some...definitely not like it was before though. I've done some reading about limp mode and it sure seems like that's what my car is doing but I've got no CEL or codes. However if I unplug the O2 sensor or something it does give me a code for that so I know the ECU is working properly.

Jimster480

hmm, it sounds like you have a short somewhere or a bad ECU.

guitarguychris

Ok...my wife was driving the car home from work...about 2 miles. At one point she said it acted like it didn't want to get over 2k rpms. Then while she was holding a steady speed it started jerking on her a bit....

300whpej

sounds like a bad ecu and is making the car run in limp mode! see if you can find another one to test.

guitarguychris

Any idea what computer goes in mine??
95 Civic LX Automatic-D15B7 engine

300whpej

p06

guitarguychris

Ok...well I took the car to the Honda dealership friday. They checked everything and then wanted to check the timing. I had this double checked by the guy that did the head gasket...and wasn't convinced he had it right. Well they called me and said it was off by 4 teeth!!