this morning my crx did some strange stuff. first time i started it, it revved to about 3k (by itself) then died. after that it cranked, but wouldn't start for a few minutes. then smoke started coming out of my intake as when i cranked it! so i stopped cranking it for a minute and tried again and it started right up. no more smoke. now it starts fine, but my idle problem is back. here's a brief history on what ive done to it.

purchased 1 week ago. it had a slight hesitation below 3k rpms, idle goes up and down from 800-2000 WHEN ENGINE IS WARM (this is the idle problem i mentioned before that is back), and it was throwing a code 9 . I replaced the distributor, wires, and plugs. No more codes, hesitation, and idle was fine after that. this was all done 2 days ago. now the idle problem is back after what happened this morning.


i'm going to go through the idle troubleshooting faq tomorrow, but i'm thinking its something that may not be covered in that because of the smoke out of the intake. car also has new pcv valve and air filter.

anyone got any ideas?

 

one of my friends just suggested an intake valve might be stuck open....

could this be it or is it likely something else?

 

Did you set the timing when you replaced the distributor?

 

i marked where the bolts were and bolted the new one on in the same locations. i couldn't get a signal to actually set it. where do you hook up the inductive pickup? i couldn't get a signal from the spark plug wire. also, where is the scale on this car?

do you think that could be it? (18 degrees is stock right?)

 

I thought 17 degrees was stock but i'm not 100% sure. Timing guns only have three wires. Red to the positive terminal on the battery, black to a ground, and the last one goes to the number one 1 plug wire.

Timing took care of the same thing for my car.

As for the idle surge, make sure all of your vaccuum lines are connected and not cut anywhere.

 

If it's obd0, there's usually a caped 2-wire connector behind the strut tower with brown & green/white wires. Jump that, then let it warm it up, then check timing with gun on wire #1 (driver's side) while it idles. The manuals say that 1.6L sohc's should run 18* timing

Otherwise all the helms manuals say to jump the service plug (obd1) or connect the "2p service check connector to the SPS service connector" (I've only worked on obd1 cars).


Otherwise I'd almost say its a headgasket problem. White smoke would be antifreeze. Water being sucked into the motor and air being blown past the hg would lead to weird compression, smoke, and bad idling. It would also allow water to be drawn into the cylinders while the air inside them cools & contracts while off. Blown hg's can cause lots of issues.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HiProfile &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If it's obd0, there's usually a caped 2-wire connector behind the strut tower </TD></TR></TABLE>

yes. but if it's a 90-91, that connector is inside the car by the passenger door and glovebox.

 

damn man smoke cominmg from intake mani that cant be a good thing!!!!!!!!!!

 

update: compression is 165, 162, 159, 165

after speaking with a couple mechanics i know, they both suggested that i flooded it while trying to start it ( i did pump the gas several times while cranking it) and it just backfired. havn't had any smoke since then in exhaust or intake.

idle problem is still there tho