Like the fool I am I decided to convert my car to an electronic advance distributor only 2 weeks before my license test. I got all the parts and hooked everything up and the car isn’t running right. It car fires up just fine and I can get the car to idle two different ways, both of which are unacceptable.

1. The car fires up and idles around 1200 rpm then dies within 10-20 seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t idle but it I rev the engine it stalls when the revs drop back down.

2. I can set the throttle stop bolt to keep the throttle at 4% and the car idles at 2000 rpm, doesn’t stall and I can rev the car without it stalling. The problem here is that at part throttle the car really runs like crap.

I assume that most of the crap running is due to a poor a/f mix but it doesn’t explain the sudden stalling from idle or rev dropping. I tried adjusting the overall fuel map +/- 10% and neither direction seems to help the idle. The intake manifold gasket was leaking and replaced but the same problems exist. The ECU is giving no codes (ELD and ICV disabled).

Any suggestions on what could cause the engine to shut off like this?

I don't have a VSS wired to the ECU but I assume this wouldn't cause a problem.

Car: 87 CRX Si (stock motor)
Mods: OBD1 Distributor, OBD1 P28 w/ S300, 4 wire O2 sensor.

 

Do you have a wideband hooked up? That will speak volumes as to whether it is a fuel or spark problem.

 

I put it on the dyno w/ wideband using the second idle setup described above. For some reason I couldn't get a reading below 3k rpm but at WOT the car was a little lean from 3k to 5k then progressively more rich from 5k to 6.5k. This was with the leaking intake manifold gasket which I believe was causing the low RPM lean levels.