So, I bought this 92 accord coupe about a week ago for 500 dollars. Drove it sixty miles back home, and it was a bit of an adventure. Basically, it starts just fine. Idle seems a maybe a little rough out of gear, and smells rich. The guy had removed the cat, so, that could be the reason it smells rich. But, put it into gear (its an automatic by the way) and the idle drops to near 400 rpm, and when attempting to accelerate, it gets bogged down like a big dog. Doesn't stall out, thankfully for my purposes of getting it back home, but getting it up to highway speed was a chore, and a bit scary when merging into traffic. In D4 it would struggle to get to 70 mph on a flat run. It would struggle less on a decline, which I suspect makes sense. Going up an incline of any size, I would downshift to D3 to keep it from slowing below 60 mph. It would keep and hold about 4000 rpm that way and make the climb. It would keep 2k to 3k rpm in D4 with no climb struggle in D4. Taking off from a dead stop, I would take it down to 1st or 2nd gear to get rpms to a level where it would sustain, but it was sputtering and it smelled rich as hell.

Got it home, and started digging around a bit. The IACV had maybe a quarter of the gasket seal left, and the rest was blue silicone which was partially obstructing the airflow. I dont know if it was attempting to behave in a normal fashion. I assumed that I could have a vacume leak there. Later, when checking the ODB1 codes, it only gave me a code for the IACV. Code said either that or the ECU. Im not looking to replace the ECU just this moment. (I know, it doesn't matter what I want, just what is.). I took the valve cover off to see how that looked, and it had plenty of stains and build up, but there wasnt sludge or milky oil. Nothing that said anything to the effect of blown head gasket. But, the lil engine has 301k miles on it, and its reasonable to assume that a lot of things are going to need changing. I did get replacement EGR port plugs from a nearby Honda dealership for 83 cents apiece. Helluva lot cheaper than on the internet where they seem to be commonly sold at 2 dollar a pop or more.

I noticed some oil on the spark plug connectors when i pulled them out. I bought lower and upper spark plug tube seals in a kit with a replacement valve cover seal. So, gonna have to take the rocker arm assembly out for the intake side and replace those seals. Probably a good time to adjust valves at that point.

I got a new IACV in the mail yesterday when I got home from work. So, thats going on after I service the EGR valve ports. I do intent to take the EGR valve off and have a look in there too.

Suffice it to say, theres work to be done.

Im also gonna make it pretty after all this is done. Probably going to need to replace the struts, and I am guess ball joints and such. Its a little spongey feeling ride at the moment.

Anyway, I guess I am curious what else I need to anticipate. Guy I bought it from said that he put a new distro on it, and new plugs and wires. I think the ignition timing might be off...

Whatever insights you got to offer, I will sure take.


Thanks!



Brock Miller

 

With that mileage, I would take out the insurance and change the timing belt and what goes with it.
Check the timing
replace the valve cover gasket, spark plug gaskets (usually comes with valve cover) they are probably hard as rocks
check grounds to make sure solid and not rusted
clean transmission solenoids
replace o2 sensors as they are probably pretty tired at this point
replace belts for cheap insurance
get a cat and put it on
Change transmission fluid (not flush, just drain and replace a few times to get most of the old crap out).

 

Thats solid advice. I got the fel pro spark plug tube seals and valve cover gasket. Picked up and o2 sensor socket. I just cleaned out the egr ports. Managed to pinch the hell out of myself with my slide hammer. Im thinking thats my bone headed deed of the day. Thanks for the input. I'll keep ya posted.

 

Sounds like a project, but I suspect you wanted something fun to do!

 

In the event anybody is looking in on this thread, I am commenting on the matter here under a seperate entry regarding the idle post servicing of the egr ports... which had a bunch of carbon in them.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-...start-3350539/