I just bought a 99 Civic lx with 93k on it. I notice that when I am doing light load accel or accel off the line, I will get pinging. I have not ruled out bad gas yet. As I havent run a tank through it yet. But I would like to make sure everything is ok with the car. It runs great. Smooth idle and decent pep once I get the RPMs up a little. Like over 3500 or so. It isnt like really slow or nothing, but I know the car isnt built for speed. Anyway, I am getting some ping from it. I am not certain, but isnt the timing belt due for replacement at 100k. If it is, I think it is something that I would like to just take care of.

Could it be possible I am getting ping from a worn timing belt?
Also, I looked online and the belt ranges from 29-50 bucks. So thats not bad. What kind of difficulty am I looking at to install this? I am fairly mechanicly inclined but this is my first Honda. Or car for that matter. Always had trucks.
Any tricks to doing it. Special tools. Perhaps is there a DIY thread somewhere?

Thanks guys.

 

make sure that when you buy the timing belt that you also buy the water pump and all the drive belts seeing as you have to take all the belts off any wayse and the fact that if you go through all the trouble of doing the timing belt your only about 6 10mm bolts away from having the water pump out.

 

Do you think that the belt could be a cause of my pinging?

Also, would I be able to just check the timing on the car to see if it was worn or off before taking everything apart. I will prob try and check to make sure it hasnt jumped any, but checking timing is quick and easy...

 

TTT

 

its a rare posibility but the belt is actually due for replacement every 100k or 7 years which ever comes first so id do it and see if it goes away it might just be so streched that the car is detonating because the dis thinks that the piston is at tds when its not.

 

ok. Cool. Thanks.

How much should I expect to pay to have someone do this? I dont want to get riped. I may just attempt it myself.

 

Make sure your dizzy assembly isn't seizing. This happened to me and it stretched my timing belt. I had pinging at low rpms, low load. The pinging is very bad for the engine since it will probably run lean. I had a broken valve and had to take it all apart and replace the valve. It doesn't ping anymore after i fixed it up and replaced the timing belt. The pinging caused massive deposits on all of the valves which I cleaned off. I haven't replaced the dizzy yet but plan to. It very slowly stretches the timing belt over time.