hello all, i have a 1991 civic hatch with a d15b motor, but with a d16a6 intake, i've been driving the car regularly for the past year with no problems except for now. i was in traffic, and all the sudden my idleing rps start to go haywire, i step on the gas and it gets worse, sounds like it's flooded. it threw a Check engine light #20 (electric load detector). i checked all amps going to and from the electric load detector, but everything seems to be fine, i cleaned and checked the distributor and plugs but nothing seemed to be wrong. so i started it up, runs fine, until it gets to the normal running temp, then the idle starts messing up again and the car slowly shuts itself off.

if anyone has a clue where i should start looking please, i'd love the advise!!

thank you!!!!

 

anyone? i'd really rather not take it to a shop, i'm a broke college kid haha

 

Check your ground wires, and check for a loose connector.
Good luck

 

i just checked the ground wires and all connections, everything seems to be fine, hmm, this seems so confusing

 

Grounds will cause weird shot to happen, on d15 the two external pcm grounds that are important are located on the top of the thermostat housing near the intake (back of block towards firewall) but what is happening is most likely not a ground.
Reason is once its at normal operating temp a sensor is most likely failing and is sending the incorrect info to the pcm causing it to run like *** when it warms up

Locate and disconnect cooltant temp sensor, this way pcm will never go into closed loop and verify problem exists or goes away (this will flag codes, and it will run consistantly rich this way)

To clear codes remove hazzards fuse after disconnecting negative battery cable for 15 seconds, OR remove both battery cables and clamp together for 30 seconds (the seccond. May cause pcm problems, but I've never seen it happen)

Once this is tested if problem still exists with cts(coolant temp sensor) disconnected reconnect sensor and clear codes.

Then run until normal operating temp and check codes again

 

thanks for the advice, i will definatly try that in the morning!!

 

Best bet would be to take a can of carb cleaner and soak the small passage in front of the throttle plate while working the throttle back and forth (open and close) this will cause nasty **** to burn out your exhaust and your idle will stumble when carb cleans sprayed in iac passage

Again this should flag codes, but it cleans out the iac passage and normally can fix this issue.
If this doesn't work and problem went away when cts (coolant temp sensor) was disconnected then one sensor was or is sending missinformation to the pcm and making it run like ***. At that point I would take it to a shop and pay the one hour diagnostic fee cause without the equipment (a dmm scan tool is useless here thanks obd 1) or access to technical information (such as mitchell on demand, alldata, napa fix, etc... chitlon is garbage btw) and without an understanding of how the system functions it can take a lot of time to fix the root cause of the problem, not just the symptom

 

try a new altenator...i hear eletric load detector i thin of voltage reg.