I am absolutely stumped on these problems I am having. Background on the car: 1995 Civic DX. Original engine. Only mods are DC Sports intake and Magnaflow catback exhaust. My head gasket got replaced about 2 months ago. While I did that we put in a new water pump and timing belt. Spark plugs and plug wires are new too. When the gasket blew and the car would get warm it would sound like it would misfire, causing it to sound like a STI. It still does that occasionally now after it gets warm. One morning I came out and started it to go to work and the exhaust sounds like it is popping popcorn. I jumped the ECU this weekend and pulled code 15. Ignition output system. The distributor has a new cap, rotor, and ignition coil. Problems still persist. Also the car only has those problems at idle. Once in gear and driving everything goes away. It doesn't leak anything nor does it overheat. If anybody could possibly point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Did you do anything with the head when you took it off resurfaced or checked?

also manual or auto?

and is this only on cold start it does this or every time you take it out of gear?


only thing that comes to mind for me is fuel burning in the cat

 

Yeah. The head got resurfaced. It is an automatic. It happens every start up. Once it gets out of park it is fine. I ended up returning the distributor parts and put a new one in. I started it up and the exhaust was still popping. I played with the timing with the distributor and got the popping to go away. I am not sure if I just have a timing issue now or what. I haven't checked for codes again yet.