Hello everyone, I just joined the "ricer" gang (JK...)

I picked up a 1991 Honda Civic Hatch with the d15b1 16 valve PGM-FI and a 5 speed tranny (fast motor, I know ) with 260k miles.
I am turning it into a rally car for a snow rally I have organized with some guys up in Canada.... should be a blast. Will also be having some fun down here in the States on gravel, etc...
Don't worry, it's staying stock.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I have searched around for over a day online and I'm not finding a thread with my answer. I know how re-posts drive people nuts.

Anyways it has been sitting for 4 months according to the owner... I want to say its more like 3 years.

The motor has a very bad case of pinging, it sounds like the ignition is too far advanced. (owner said the gas is bad, but hear me out... again, i doubt gas goes bad that fast which is why i said its been sitting longer)

I changed the spark plugs with NGK R series and gapped to .044 per auto zone's records (correct me if that's wrong). Still pings.
I checked the timing belt (crankshaft and camshaft marks) and it is timed correctly.

I checked with a timing light and ignition timing is way off. Even with the distributor all the way toward the front of the car (retarded?), the red mark on the pulley is still about a half an inch or so off. (to the right when looking down from the top)
Yes, I had the service plug (by the passenger feet) shorted out/jumped with a paperclip, and the car was warmed up.

I am familiar with setting timing on my miata, but never messed with a distributor/cap/wheel system. Could there be an internal setting/placement that is off? A bad cap/rotor would cause poor spark, not premature spark, correct?

My next step after work today is to remove the old fuel and run premium w/ sea foam to see if it helps... but I have my doubts because I don't see why ignition timing would be so advanced.

PS. Battery was dead. I removed it, cleaned terminals and put the battery on charge. It now starts the car (not sure if it has charge today, that was last night).
But the problem persists whether I'm at idle and hit the throttle, or driving on the highway. Gets bad whenever you ad load (up hill) or first rev the motor at idle.
If I had to describe the idle I would say it doesn't purr like a kitten... it sounds like timing it off... its not super rough but you can tell something is off.

All help/advice is appreciated.
Thank you.

 

sounds like you know what your talking about
and from what youve said so far
all i can think of is this
you said that you checked the timing belt timing by going with the timing marks
but if with the timing light your off by half a inch then your timing is off by two teeth easy
so check the timing again but this time remove the crank pulley BOLT and make sure that the small pin is still inside the crank pulley


also make sure that the pin is also there on the cam gear
and if all that checks out fine
then you can move on to looking around at your rotor inside the dizzy

hope this helps

 

Thank you, and yes I know exactly what you are referring to checking.

I could not help but have nightmares of the "SNC Failures" in the miata world. Long story short, the crank bolt becomes loose and the pulley starts to have some play because the key/pin then has a little room to move. This movement eats away at the crankshaft until timing is so far off the car will not move... Does a similar issue exist in the honda world?

As for when I checked the marks, I lined up TDC on both crank and cam and then rotated the crank 2 revolutions to verify they lined back up... they do.
If I am off by 2 teeth, wouldn't they not line up again? Or, is the ratio parallel and it will remain the same?

I will check them this evening if its not pouring rain.
Also going to line up the cam and crank marks to TDC and then remove the distributor cap to verify the rotor pin is lined up with cylinder one. (I already removed cylinder 1 spark plug to verify TDC)

From my understanding, all honda motors are interference. If this motor is non-interfrence, then I can try changing the cam timing belt by one tooth (rotate 1 tooth clockwise to retard a CCW direction motor)

NOTE: The youtube timing how-to I reviewed showed the timing mark on the cam being slightly to the right of the timing mark on the cover. He stated that was normal. If it is not, and it should be lined up exactly, then yes, I believe it is advanced one to two teeth. But how can I test this safely on an interference motor (if it is one)?

 

 

Thank you, I too stumbled across this and already took a picture of it.
If I recall correctly, the style gear I have is similar to the SI model... with a mark on the bottom. It's weird because I do not have an Si. The seller listed it as an Si but the motor is what I listed in the beginning of this post.

I will take pictures and post up my results. Until then, I am just keeping my finger's crossed that it is off one tooth and has no damage. Will perform a compression test if I find it out of timing to verify no bent valves.

 

I think you should try a different distributor before checking anything else. I've heard of aftermarket/parts store distributors requiring a wild amount of adjustment and still not getting the car timed correctly. Try to find an OEM one.

 

even though the picture doesn't show it, they all have the 3 marks - one at 9 o'clock one at 3 o'clock and one at about 7 o'clock - the 7 o'clock is used for the Si only - for the others, line up the ones at 9 and 3 with the top of the head and forget the one at 7.

make sure you are using the correct TDC mark on the crank pulley - the one off to the right of the 3 ignition timing marks

 

I will take note of the distributor brandpart number when I take it apart today to verify position and condition.
If it is OEM and a little worn, I should be able to replace with OEM cap and rotor correct? The rest should be good?

What is the honda website you recommend for good priced OEM units. Seems ebay doesn't have oem distributors listed.
I just called the stealership: 48 for the cap and rotor but I have to wait for the shipping (not bad)... but get this... $872.00 for the distributor (although he said they dont distribute it anymore... if they did that's how much it would be)... crazies.

 

Excellent.
I am finding this forum to be better than I expected. I only have experience with one other forum that I approve of.

I will use the non-si method then.

I am using the correct timing mark for TDC (The lonely one to the right), and the middle of the 3 marks (red) for ignition timing. I painted then both white so they stand out very clearly with the timing gun.

You think being one tooth off would cause bent valves in these motors? The thing drove 20 miles back to my place and didn't seem too bad considering its 70hp new.

 

you should be o.k. - my guess is that it is off by about 2 teeth

 

Same question exists regarding 2 teeth. How many teeth off is too far off for these?

I would have to agree with you...

 

Cap, rotor, and igniter should cover everything.

 

not sure how many teeth that would be, but a lot - if you were that far off, it probably wouldn't even run - the interference comes in to play when you break the belt and some of the valves are sitting open when the piston comes up and smacks them - these engines have quite a bit of piston to valve clearance and the closest the pistons come to the valves is when the camshaft is at overlap - at that point, the exhaust valves are almost closed and the intake valves are just opening

 

Appreciate you.

Thanks, that makes me much more comfortable. I'll still check by turning over with my hand first.

Time to head home and check it out. Will update later this evening assuming I don't get rained out or pass out.

 

Ding ding ding!!!! We have a winner!

the camshaft was 2 teeth ahead of the crank timing mark. I lined it up to what is parallel to the head (they don't really line up in line with it, ameach are a little below but parellel).

I also adjusted the timing to the red mark and drove around to burn off the old fuel. It still pinged a little, especially when I blip the throttle at idle.
I finally got it to red line and filled up the tank with fresh gas. Drive around another 15 miles or so. Sounded a little better, but still pinged. I decided to adjust timing back to the original mark that was there (I had to advance almost half way past the midpoint to reach the red mark). After this it was reading about 3 degrees retarded but the Ponting was down appt more. Did that the last 5 minutes of the drive with better results. Was out there 2 hours before then. I think I still need to drive it more. I'm taking it to work tomorrow. Almost 100 mile round trip.

I believe the idle is set too low. I never have a high idle hanging issue but it drops way down, especially with accessories running. To the point when I hit the gas real quick, blip it, it makes the knock sound... The same sound that happens in a manual tranny when you go to take off but let the rpms drop too much before acceleration. I don't have a tachometer but I think when I raise the idle to a healthy sound that it might help eliminate the ping/knock on initial medium throttle... It's like I bogged it out because rpms are too low.

sorry for the typos... It's almost 1 am and I didn't sleep well to begin with and get up early for work. I'll see how my 45 mile commute goes in the morning and update on anything new.

Thanks again all, and sorry for the longer read on this comment.

 

Well it ran fine, besides idle, and the timing makrs are within range so this will be the last comment on this thread.

WARNING
Be careful when setting timing belt tension. I set the tension using a wire to pull the tensioner up, as recommended online, and It set so high that the teeth on the top of the tensioner contacted the Motor mount bracket and destroyed half the width of the belt. Belt is effectively half the width now.
Time to replace... and it was a Gates. Bummer.
WARNING

Current issue is poor idle. Id drops very low, even when I adjust the throttle idle screw. It idles good for a few seconds then I think the motor is correcting for it and dropping it back down to ****.
I will chase this issue in other threads. If it pertains to timing/this thread, please comment.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

 

 

This was my next move exactly. Clean the IACV and set the idle with it unplugged.

I don't mind continuing discussion, I just didnt want to throw this thread in another direction, since I solved the issue I posted about.
Not sure how big of a deal everyone makes out of it over here in the honda forum.