I have an 89 Civic which stalls in neutral (not all the time). During winter I don't experience this problem, only during summers because it is very humid up here. It usually will stall if I go over a bumpy road, or even if the car is parked and running and somebody would slam (hard) the right front door (never tried other doors though ).
Actually my RPM drops too low, sometimes even at 0, and the car might still run if I don't give it gas right away.

I thought it was my pulley because it died on me and after replacing it, the car stopped losing RPMS. That actually also fixed my hard starts (or no starts at all) in humid weather. Anyways, after that I didn't have any problems at all with stalling...may be for a few months.

I have a feeling that something under the hood gets wet and drops the RPMs and eventually it stalls. I think this April-May I sprayed with water everything under my hood (and yeah, it looked all shiny after that ). The next day I drove it and came back home fine. Then when I had to leave again, I started the car and noticed my RPM dropped again but I gave it gas and it came back ok. I just approached the road (driving out of the driveway) and then it stalled (was kind of disappointed because I thought I fixed that problem forever)! Anyways, after that my car started to play the same story of losing rpms and stalling, however, because of the new pulley it became stronger and could hold the engine running at very very low rpms of 0, no joke, I'm serious, it sometimes goes down to 0 and still runs, but I can hear how the engine choaks (I feel for him ).


OK, when all is said, would anyone have any clue what could be the problem?

 

whats your idle RPM at?

 

you might want to try adjusting your idle screw...
what kind of civic do you have anyway?

 

Hello,

My idle speed is 750 RPMs, which is totally normal. And my idle screw is fine, no need to adjust it. It just that sometimes it would for unknown reason drop down and you have to give it some gas. I know that if I run an AC, then there are more chances the car will stall as the AC takes power from the engine. I rember that one time I turned on my windshield washers and the car stalled..that was just too stupid

The car will stall in a sudden or hard brakes (if neutral). So I actually figured out if I'm stopping, I don't put my car in neutral (as I usually do), but stop almost fully until I feel like this is absolutely the right time to hit the clutch, or the car will stall for the reason of not enough power to turn the wheels. Then it works alright (most of the times). However, I can stop while in neutral, but then I have to brake very softly and you kind of have to get used to it in order to do it right and not stall.

Yeah, and nothing special about my car, it is all stock, 89 Civic LX (sedan), 5spd.

So why does it die in neutral? What is the cause?

 

So did anyone solve this mystery??

 

it can be many things; a vacuum leak, check your all your vacuum lines. could've gotten water into the distributor, sticky throttle body, dirty injectors, dirty fuel filter, etc... can't really tell by your limited info you provided to us.

 

I can provide more info if you want, just ask what you want to know??

 

checked your vacuum lines? any leaks?

 

check your idle fuel pressure.

 

And how do I check these?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Odessa &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">And how do I check these?</TD></TR></TABLE>

if you don't know what we're talking about I suggest you take it to a competent mechanic. don't bother screwing around with a engine if you don't know how it works. I'm not trying to put you down but you need to understand a engine is a complex machinery that doesn't respond well to people who tinkers without proper knowledge of the basic operation of an engine. just my .02