Hey guys -

Recently bought a 97 HX - stock from an auction for a daily driver, 5-speed, 125k, all stocked out. Got it home, dumped ~4k miles on it, and the check engine light came on, throwing a random misfire code for spark plug #4. Fuel economy has not a hit so I ignored it but now this happened.

Idle on start is really low, idling like the car is warmed up (idle @0.75). On colder days it stalls, on not so cold days it manages to stay on. After it warms up, it's fine @0.75 and rocks like a champ.

Any ideas?

Thanks,


Modified by mohater at 7:15 AM 2/18/2008


Modified by mohater at 7:30 AM 2/18/2008

 

pull cylinder 4 spark plug and wires off for inspection and in fact, pull all spark plugs off, replace them if needed.if problem still exists, clean iacv.replace fuel filter, replace dizzy rotor and cap.

 

New wires, new plugs, new dizzy rotor and cap all in as of last week - still throwing a code and low idle problem still around.

I'll do the fuel filter and clean iacv this weekend.

Thanks,

 

check your fuel injectors. increase the idle control a little to prevent it from stalling for now, but i'd say if it was throwing a misfire code and your plugs, wires, cap, and rotor button are all good, it's probably a fuel injector. go ahead and replace the fuel filter anyway just cause it's good to do for tune up purposes and it's only $13 for your car. fuel injectors on the other hand are a little more expensive.

 

Excuse the n00bness, but how do you check injectors/adjust them?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mohater &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Excuse the n00bness, but how do you check injectors/adjust them?</TD></TR></TABLE>
the way i check injecotrs is, i let the car on idel and disconnect the injector clip one at the time and reinstall the clip before i move to next one. until u hear the one that does not make much difference when the clip is on or off.then u find your bad injector. this happened to me once. i found out my cylinder 1 injector was shot. to remove and replace the fuel injecotr. u need to depressurize the gas tank. take out 3 botls on the intake manifold and 2 nuts that holding the fuel rail and carefully pull the fuel rail off.... for more detail..pm me

 

Was your car throwing a code to indicate the fuel injector or was it throwing a different code?

 

crazy guy is right. also, take the tip of a screw driver and put it on the injector, put your ear on the other end, an automotive stethoscope works better, but you can use a screw driver. listen for a clicking. it's funny because i just had to check and replace my fuel injectors yesterday. hey not tryin to thread jack here, but crazy guy, i gotta replace my injector going to the #2 cylinder, they are $80 per injector so my question is, do i have to replace them all. i know with something like spark plugs you'd want to replace them all, but does it really matter with the injectors?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mohater &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Was your car throwing a code to indicate the fuel injector or was it throwing a different code?</TD></TR></TABLE>

mine went bad, didn't get a single code. took me a week to figure out why i was riding so crappy.

 

Thanks to all - I'll have plenty to do this weekend now.

 

Ok, all the new parts are in (dizzy, rotor, plugs, wires). Only thing not done is new fuel filter or cleaning the iacv, but I still have the same problem. Low idle (stalls sometimes) on cold days, still throwing a misfire code on cylinders 3 and 4.

After all the news parts were in I cleared the codes to see if it would clear itself out. After ~500 miles it gave the same codes.

Edit: I also took off the fuel injector pigtails one by one to see if it would start sputtering (making sure the injectors were working). Looks like all four are working properly. I threw in another bottle of Lucas, since most old guys at places like NAPA or Car Quest tell me it's magic in a bottle



Any other ideas?

Thanks,


Modified by mohater at 7:27 AM 3/17/2008

 

Dizzy and cap look fine, plugs look fine (how dirty should they get after a couple k miles?) and wires seem to be working fine.

Any other ideas?

 

bump - any other suggestions?

 

Hey guys,

just wanted to say thanks again.

Cleaning the IACV fixed the low idle on cold start, and thanks to this:

http://www.epa.gov/OMS/url-fr/fr18jn98.pdf

The dealer is fixing the misfire codes. They had me stumped all the way (still throwing a code on cylinder 3 and 4 and a lower performance on cat code). Getting new plugs, wire, dist cap, wire and cat from the dealer, FTW.