I have a 1989 Prelude S (carb) and after starting my car I notice that it idles at about 500 rpms and has no fast idle when warming it up in the morning.Plus, the idle is a bit rough. Then while driving it accelerates slowly and sputters a bit when I push on the gas peddal to get some speed out of it. Sometines It accelerates on a hill ok and sometimes I barely get 15 mph out of it with the gas all the way to the floor. I have had new plugs, wires and vaccum advance put on the car as well as new fuel filters. What could this be? It's driving me nuts and killing my gas milage.

Also, I have a power steering leak in the high pressure line located at a small piece that seems to connect the line in front of the engine but just befor bending down to the rack. Do I have to replace the whole line frome the pump to the rack or can I just replace this little piece?

 

I would guess your carb needs a good cleaning.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thewizard &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have a 1989 Prelude S (carb) and after starting my car I notice that it idles at about 500 rpms and has no fast idle when warming it up in the morning.Plus, the idle is a bit rough. Then while driving it accelerates slowly and sputters a bit when I push on the gas peddal to get some speed out of it. Sometines It accelerates on a hill ok and sometimes I barely get 15 mph out of it with the gas all the way to the floor. I have had new plugs, wires and vaccum advance put on the car as well as new fuel filters. What could this be? It's driving me nuts and killing my gas milage.

Also, I have a power steering leak in the high pressure line located at a small piece that seems to connect the line in front of the engine but just befor bending down to the rack. Do I have to replace the whole line frome the pump to the rack or can I just replace this little piece?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have come across this on my previous Ludes and there is a part called the Thermowax valve, that controls cold idling it connects the carbs and has a small connection to a coolant pipe somewhere, speaking from memory this has a habit of corroding over time, I think you will need a good manual to identify it but usually a new one cures this problem, it senses when car is cold & raises idle speed it works via the coolant temp and keeps the car on choke till it senses via the coolant that it's warming up, and slowly alters the carb to put it on normal idle. Because all the symptoms your having are typical of a cold engine running without choke/enriched fuel mix.

 

My Lude had the same problem, except it's an 89' Si. I took the airfilter off and it turns out the previous owner had cut a can of beans and jerry rigged it in there to make his Spectre Air Filter fit.......I replaced it and problem solved lol