I built my civic a few years ago with a custom turbo setup, I've had plugs fouling problems for a little while now. My spark plugs are fouling very quickly and while slow speed driving, for example like driving around parking lots lookign for parking spaces, my car rpms just drop down to nothing and stall out. It happens every once in a while.

My sparkplugs themselves foul completely black within a few weeks of driving as well and during winter, the colder it gets particularly below freezing, the car won't start period. If the car does start, it sounds horrible and you can hear your occasional loud popping sound from the exhaust.

Sound pretty cool actually.

Anyway, a friend of mine who's a mechanic told me I should look into getting a ignition, MSD or some sort of something that will help me burn the fuel because my spark isn't hot enough etc.., my plugs are fouled black in a 2 months or so, and in the winter, as soon as 2 weeks I've had them foul bad enough that I can no longer start the car unless I put in new plugs.

This has been a problem for the last few years (so why am I fixing it now?) I've had a beater CR-V to drive during the winter months in the past few years but currently it is not available, so I have to drive my Civic to work when I can, I had just stored my civic in my garage for 2-3 months but now that I have to drive it, it's a pain in the ***. Car runs fine for the most part during summer plugs still foul badly but at least the car starts up. Winter it runs like crap until I get it at operation temp.

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody could help expand on this and if they could recommend what kind of Ignition I could get, what model specifically, or some other things like I was told there was a MSD distrubutor cap that is cheap that would also help.

Short list of crap on my Civic SI is:

1999 Civici SI
Garret T3/T4
Hondata 2B
RC440 injectors
8mm wires NGK
Tuned at Payn Tech, Troy Mich.


There are more things on the car I just figured that those are enough to go on, if more info is needed, let me know.

Thanks.

 

An ignition would always help.

What plugs are you running and a what gap?

 

my turbo GSR also has a hard time running around town once it is warmed up...i actually have to boost it in order to get it to idle. I'm getting an MSD ignition and blaster coil so that i have a stronger spark....not a bad option i've heard

 

FIND A NEW TUNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the car should have no problems with them TINY injectors.

 

You sure that your injectors or FPR are anygood? Did it run like this right after the tune, and or did you change anything? I can't believe that Tom would let a car go like that!

 

I have the same problem with my turboed ls. I think I'm going to try running a new ignition, but I believe the problem is because the car is running rich. I'm not sure how your car was tuned, but I have been street and dyno tuned with my hondata s200 and the shop had to run it rich at idle with the 750cc injectors without the 02 sensors. That's what causes it to idle bad and sometimes kill. I guess I just live with it

 

it sounds like u had a small vacumm leak when it got tuned, and now it doesnt, causing it to run rich.

If not, find a better tuner.

 

It is not your ignition. Something is off in the tune that needs to be looked at. You shouldn't be having problems like that with 440's thats for damn sure.

 

Ya I didn't realize that they we're 440's. I run my boosted d on 440's and it has no problems unless the plugs are way out of heat range or gaped down to low .02's"

 

show a pic of the fouled plugs. would help alot

 

Car was tuned at Payn Tech in Troy Michigan by Tom Payn on Mustang Dyno

Currently using NGK BKR7E sparkplugs gaped I THINK at .032 I think... I can't remembr for sure, I'll go check.

I'll take a picture of it and get one posted up when I can.

 

I seem to notice that I'm getting better gas mileage DRIVING the car than I do letting it IDLE.....

I'm getting about 15 miles per gallon.

When I first got it tuned years ago, I use to still get around 200-250 miles per tank.

I'm lucky to even come close to 200 now.

I haven't added, or taken away anything since I got it tuned years ago. When I did get it tuned, it was on some Iridium NGK plugs, and I had switched to BKR7E's since then.

Occasionally my engine light comes on, but goes away everytime I turn the car off and turn the car back on right away, after that it doesn't come back on.

I'm hoping there's a cost effective solution but I know I'm kidding myself, there's never a cost effective way to fix anything. Which is why I've stopped putting anything into my car for the past 3 years.

Only thing I spend money on is keeping regular maintence on it regularly.

oh and btw, gap was at .032-.033

 

post pics

 

You could spend all the money you want on aftermarket ignition parts, and you won't see any real benefit. Something has changed with your setup, throwing the tune off.

Replace all of the typical wear items in the ignition system with OEM grade parts, and pick up a new set of NGK 7s. Drive to your tuner, pull it on the dyno, then drop in the new plugs gapped at .030" - .032". Now proceed to re-tune the car. It sounds like your IAT and ECT corrections are off. 15mpg is not logical in any way.

 

what code does the CEL give you?

 

thanks for all the replies, I really didn't want to shell out the money for ignition parts if I didn't even need it. I'll get some pics on my plugs as soon as I can.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Got_soy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what code does the CEL give you?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Beh I forget how to check

Light blinks on, and never turns off, stays on.

 

You do not need ignition components with your setup... bad tune sounds to be the culprit