Well a bad cat would most likely turn up a bad O2 sensor right..?? But my car doesn't have any CEL's and i've replaced plugs, wires, cap, rotor, and fuel filter and my car still bogs really bad... I'm thinkin maybe my cat is clogged up or something, but i don't hear any rattling, just super annoying bogging out under acceleration and sometimes at an idle as well.. Also, when the a/c is turned on, its like 100x worse... I guess it could be fuel pump, but I hear it turn on and it seems to function half decent as far as I can tell.. I get pretty good gas mileage, although in the past couple weeks my MPG has gone down a lot, and thats not right cuz the gas prices are going down as well so if anything I should be getting more MPG and/or saving money at the pump... Anyone have any similar instances, if so what'd u do next..??

 

If it's OBD2, you should see a catalyst efficiency code along with possibly a rear o2 slow response. However, if you are OBD1, there is no code for defective catalyst.

 

Yeah I don't ever remember seeing a CEL for a bad cat, and yes i'm OBD-1... So chances my cat going bad and me not having any lights turn on because of it, are pretty high i'm assuming... I'm just used to it only being a 5 minute fix anytime my car's ever have bogged, but it seems like im running outta options here... Would it be more consistent to assume it was a bad fuel pump or clogged up cat... Car is a 92 dx hatch, 100% stock, ran great prior to this issue, now it's just getting worse and worse... I figured a fuel pump would just go bad instead of showing signs, so it's most likely my catalytic converter here, but could I be wrong..??

 

To give the effect of what my car is doing, it almost sounds like a WRX when I drive it.. Sputters outrageously, and after forcefully driving it a short distance the idle well turn horribly bad and sound like its sputtering and gasping just to stay running...

 

If you want to find out the easy way, unbolt the cat from your exhaust manifold. Kick the cat over and put one bolt back in so the midpipe is held off to the side and the exhaust manifold is just venting wide open. Go drive. If it runs good again, cat is trash.

 

Good thinkin, i'll give that a shot tomorrow and report back..

 

ok well i did that and my car was still bogging/sputtering when i started it....

Rundown - my car doesn't have any CEL's and i've replaced plugs, wires, cap, rotor, and fuel filter and it still bogs/sputters really bad....

If my o2 sensor were to go bad i'm sure i'd throw a CEL, i'm not sure if the fuel pump carries a CEL code on OBD-1 setups, but i'm starting to ponder the idea of maybe it being my fuel pump or maybe injector or something..??? Should I try like a fuel injector cleaner before anything else...?? I have some seafoam in the garage I could dump some of that in the gas tank I suppose...?? Anyone...??

 

Hmmmmm, could this possibly be a fouled injector..??? I just read some dude's hell of a headache writeup on the Teg forum and he had 100% the symptoms i'm having, and it turned out to be he had a bad injector....

 

My guess would be possibly a bad distributor/coil/ignitor.

With Richporter Technologies/Distributor King dizzies going so cheap you might as well buy their entire brand new unit including ignitor and coil included if you diagose the issue being one of those three items.

Do you have another dizzy available for testing? Borrow one from a friend?

Also is the car ever more difficult to start, as in it spins over fine, but won't actually start?

 

Naa bro it starts perfect... And while driving it even drives normal, it just hesitates so bad sometimes that instead of actually accelerating, at WOT i'll be decelerating...

Here's a vid my lil bro help me make about 2 minutes ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XyhXInnuU

You can hear the sputtering really bad and thats just giving it gas parked in my driveway...

 

Also, this started out about two weeks ago and it was very very random, and once it started sputtering it would go away very promptly and run normal... Than it started getting to where it'd sputter more and more, now its like consistently sputtering and there's no getting away from it...

 

I checked out the video - definately some hard core sputterage.

Do you have a spare distributor you can pop in?

 

BTW:

Have you checked for stored codes? I know you aren't seeing the CEL, but it won't hurt to check for codes.

Also you might want to pull those fresh plugs out and see if any of them look sooted up as in flooding on any particular cylinder, or all of them.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C5-EH2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">BTW:

Have you checked for stored codes? I know you aren't seeing the CEL, but it won't hurt to check for codes.

Also you might want to pull those fresh plugs out and see if any of them look sooted up as in flooding on any particular cylinder, or all of them.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Good thinkin bro, I didn't think of checking the stored codes... Im'a give that a whirl right now "that's the same process as checking for regular codes right" just jump the lil plug near ECU..??

And yeah, I pulled the new NGK's out and they seem to be decent... Before replacing them I had 2 bad spark plug seals that caused cylinder 3 to fill up with oil so I took old plugs out, let the oil drain into cylinder, an used a lint free cloth to dry out the spark plug cylinders, put in new plugs and wires, an the hesitation was still there....

 

I would check to see if the rotor came loose, also check to see if the two contacts are in the cap.

You might want to check the cam timing to see if you skipped a tooth.

Injectors you can check for ohm's to see if they are in range I believe it is .22 to .27ohms. But this doesn't check for flow!

Check the fuel pressure too.

Just throwing some out there for you!

 

Hmmmm, now i've been in the Honda game for about 8 years now, and in every civic/integra i've owned "all obd1" the CEL came on when you turned the key to accessory, but for some reason in my 92 hatch the CEL doesn't turn on at all throughout the whole ignition sequence..?? Is there a chance that the bulb blew out, or does it just not come on in 92 civic's unless you're actually throwing a code..??

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thesmogman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I would check to see if the rotor came loose, also check to see if the two contacts are in the cap.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah brand new cap and rotor...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You might want to check the cam timing to see if you skipped a tooth.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You mean by checking TDC right..?? I have a timing gun available at my neighbors house just gotta wait til he's done work, thats a good thought but can you really skip a tooth on light driving..??

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Injectors you can check for ohm's to see if they are in range I believe it is .22 to .27ohms. But this doesn't check for flow!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah I have a multimeter as well, just need new batteries but i'll check that also...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Check the fuel pressure too.</TD></TR></TABLE>

How do you check fuel pressure without a FPR guage...?? Isn't there like a vacuum line somewhere around the regulator area..??

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just throwing some out there for you! </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks man, im lovin the feedback it's keepin me from thinkin I have a fried fuel pump lol...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDM_SOHC &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hmmmm, now i've been in the Honda game for about 8 years now, and in every civic/integra i've owned "all obd1" the CEL came on when you turned the key to accessory, but for some reason in my 92 hatch the CEL doesn't turn on at all throughout the whole ignition sequence..?? Is there a chance that the bulb blew out, or does it just not come on in 92 civic's unless you're actually throwing a code..??</TD></TR></TABLE>

The CEL should come on every time you turn the key into the "on" position, and it goes back out when the main relay clicks.

...so you probably had a blown bulb, and you're probably also storing a check engine code 15 for ignition output, or possibly a cylinder or crank position code, which would indicate a bad distributor.

I'd replace the bulb first, then check codes.

Let us know what's up.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C5-EH2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The CEL should come on every time you turn the key into the "on" position, and it goes back out when the main relay clicks.

...so you probably had a blown bulb, and you're probably also storing a check engine code 15 for ignition output, or possibly a cylinder or crank position code, which would indicate a bad distributor.

I'd replace the bulb first, then check codes.

Let us know what's up.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah that's what I thought dude, figured a bulb had blown out on me just for that fact that every single honda i've owned had the CEL light pop on once the key was in the "on" position... So looks like it's new bulb time...

PS - not that this matters, but since I just bought this car about 5 weeks ago i've noticed a couple lil dings an dents that lead me to believe it was wrecked and fixed... And to be more precise.. You know how when you're taking off the dash bezel you have to remove the blank piece where the clock would go..?? Well, mine has some like scrape marks as if someone had pried it out before, leaning me towards believing that this car was in an accident and does have **** wrong with it, but someone probably took the damn CEL bulb out or something just so it could be sold with ease as a "perfect running car"... I'm gonna be pissed if i take this cluster out and theres no bulb in there...

 

Well missing bulb or blown bulb - whatever the case once you get the codes it has stoed you know it's fixable. Most regular people and dumbass mechanics would rather go shady and remove the bulb rather than properly diagnose/repair the problem.

Let me know the code(s) - we'll get this thing sorted out for sure.

 

Yeah dude i [freak]in knew it... There was no CEL bulb in the spot where it was supposed to be in the cluster... I put one there from my low oil light temporarily until i goto the store "it'll be fine im sure" and checked the CEL but it was clean... When i jumpered the lil connector the CEL stayed solid so i'm assuming I have no CEL's... I called one of my ASE friends an he told me that it could be a **** injector or possibly bad distributor "like noted before" so I guess i'll try to swap out the injectors with my old ones from before I boosted "stock 94 dx injectors should be same i'm assuming"... I'm going to try and hunt down a friend with a bad distributor but just incase it is the distributor, what are the chances I try one of my friends and for whatever reason mine died, killed theirs..?? Not possible..?? Just wanna make sure because I ain't tryna buy 2 dizzy's lol... Gas cost enough already haha..

 

There's no risk to your friend's dizzy if you swap it into your car.

...just make SURE that the dizzy you use to swap is a good one that runs a car fine with no CELs, etc. It would suck to get a bad dizzy, install it, and be no better off diagnostic wise than you were already. I've seen people do that with Auto Zone shitbox dizzys - they swapped out a legitimately bad dizzy for a "new" bad one, and thought the issue must be "something else" so they ended up rebuilding half the car when they really did need a good dizzy all along.

Injectors from 92-95 Civic DX/LX should all be the same.

 

Yeah now i just gotta find an OBD1 single cam friend "how fun this is gonna be in a B & K series community" haha...

 

does it smell like rotten egg when u drive it?...

 

at this point it's time for a long list of tests to find the problem. there are too many thing i can tell you it "could' be. instead of guessing or spending money on parts you don't need (the most important reason) start checking things like:

1- compression on all cylinders
2- do a cylinder leak-down test
3- confirm ignition timing
4- cam timing
5- idle adjustment even...
6- check the condition of coolant and oil.
7- make sure there is no oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil
8- look for poorly repaired wiring
9- make sure all the grounds are connected to the right place
10- make sure you have the right ecu for the engine.
11- find past maintanence records if possible.

if you find nothing, let me know and i'll give you the next half of the list.