I just bought a 90 integra. The motor is all stock LS. When I bought it the guy said he had the timing retarded so no one could hot rod it while test driving. This was no biggie I would just reset timing when I get back to me house. Then I go to find out it all the way advanced. Its gutless as hell. Say when you were to take off from a stand still it would lag around 1500 rpm. You could floor it and nothing would happen. It will stedaly pick up and go but lacks power. I noticed the distributor look pretty new. Is it posible its the wrong one? It looks identical to other LS models. Im going to run some tests on it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Im a little new to the import world, I have only built domestics in the past. Same principal but diferent parts. Any feedback would help, thanks!

 

Since this car is new to you, look at all the basics first. Pull the valve cover and rotate the crank until the cam gears have their up marks pointing straight up. Then look down at your crank pulley and look for the white line, it should be directly under the lower cover pointer. This is how you time the engine, in other words, setting the cams with up marks up when the crank is at TDC for the #1 piston. If it is off, your car will run like a dog, and if the intake cam is off, it will change your ignition timing to where you might not even be able to get it back to stock 16 degrees BTDC. The other end of the intake cam directly spins the rotor on the distributer, which affects your ignition timing.

Then you have plugs, wires, coil, ignitor, cap, rotor, air filter, blah, blah, blah, to check. Good luck. Oh, ya, and a clogged cat will kill performance too.

 

^^^
This is sound advice. I'll add fuel filter to the list since they are quite often neglected.

You should have asked the seller to fix it for a final test drive before buying the car.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Sam92Teg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Then you have plugs, wires, coil, ignitor, cap, rotor, air filter, blah, blah, blah, to check. Good luck. Oh, ya, and a clogged cat will kill performance too.</TD></TR></TABLE><TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dogginator &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
add fuel filter to the list since they are quite often neglected.

You should have asked the seller to fix it for a final test drive before buying the car.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had about the same problem with a 200k mile DA. Relpaced all above and runs like a champ, couldn't believe how much better it ran.