i have a 93 civic 1.5 non vtec 5spd and when i bought it it didnt like to start to easily and especially in the rain so i bought a complete loaded distributor and put that on,hopefully correctly, put and alternator on,new batt,new fuel filter,new plugs and the car still runs horrible,it is way under power and you can feel it sputter when trying to accelerate.it has horrible throttle response and it barely makes it up hills. what else could be wrong? the way i put the dist. on?? how do you time these things? or could it be a fuel pump.i really dont have a clue and dont really know anythng about hondas. I also forgot to mention that when i drove it hard on a short ride i took a look under and the cat was glowing red on it so i thought it was clogged,hollowed it out and it still runs horrible.so it must be running lean for some reason but im not sure how to check or what could be a common problem.the car has 265k on it but i has had a new motor installed with 75k

 

Did you set the dizzy timing w/ a timing light? don't use OEM spec, as an engine deteriorates, the optimal degree changes.

It's most likely not the fuel pump, they usually just "go."

Your cat is glowing red? That's not something u see every day.

Okay, it's not supposed to do that, rich or lean. It's probably jammed to high-hell.

Pull it off, use a long screwdriver to break the honey-comb in there and slap it back on, it's probably backing up the exhaust system and the engine is choking.

You set the timing on a Honda the same way you do any other engine a - timing light.

As far as the exhaust goes, it's great that you hollowed it out - but it might be jammed in the B - Pipe...the honeycomb pieces could have fallen back and made a blockage further back...

 

OK ,thanks for the reply,first question is i see no marks on the balancer to time it,second what is factory spec on the timing for this car anyway. as for the cat i took EVERYTHING i mean everything out of it,completely hollow and i dont think there is anything jambed up in the resonator and the muff was taken off and i got a new one too.if a car is running lean it will deff make exhaust components glow read from the heat thats why im thinkin the timing is out of wack and its running super lean. also an specific way to put the dist. on that i may not know about.i basically took the old one of,set the pins to match and put it on.i rotated the thing all the way forward just so i could get some semi normal throttle response out of it,but at this point there is no more adj. out of it unless i go back the other way which made it run worst. any other suggestions????