Car: 88 civic w/zc


I was cruising town and all the sudden nothing was happening when i pressed the gas. The rpms were dropping and the car shut off and i could smell gasoline.

I looked under the hood and the fuel return line from the regulator was leaking at the regulator. I tried tightening it and starting the car but it would only crank but not start. Of all the times i tried to get it start, it only started twice and idled very erratically. Both of those times i couldn't get the engine to rev up, it backfired a little, and both times the engine just shut itself off suddenly. Once, something happened and whiteish smoke came out the intake pipe.

Fuel pump is turning on, i have no codes, and spark plugs are black. Whats going on?? My guess is something wrong with the regulator (i dont have a fuel pressure guage) but i dont know. Can anyone help?

 

use a vacuum pump to check your FPR.

 

if i can find one......is that the only way to test the fpr?

 

When it was ideling very erractically, it was probably because the plugs were fouled. Which could have been cause by a faulty fuel pressure regulator.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Runsw4g4d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if i can find one......is that the only way to test the fpr?</TD></TR></TABLE>Pull the vacuum hose off of the FPR. There shouldn't be any gasoline in there, even after cranking.

That's not the only way for the FPR to fail, but if there's gas in there, you KNOW it's busted.

 

Jims right, if its not returning any fuel to the tank thats your problem.

 

fuel is getting all the way through, into the return line off the regulator

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Runsw4g4d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">fuel is getting all the way through, into the return line off the regulator</TD></TR></TABLE>But if it's ALSO getting into the vacuum hose, your FPR is bad. You didn't really say whether this is happening.

If gas isn't getting into the vacuum hose, your FPR might still be bad, but you need a fuel pressure gauge to tell.

 

Checked, no gas in the vacuum hose

(oh yeah, and one of the times it started it shot a quick flame out the throttle body (intake pipe was off). I dont know why that happened either.)

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Runsw4g4d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">(oh yeah, and one of the times it started it shot a quick flame out the throttle body (intake pipe was off). I dont know why that happened either.)</TD></TR></TABLE>Wow! An injector sticking open so lots of fuel in the manifold? But that might just flood it.

What about your cam timing being off? That's not too hard to check...

 

If it is farting at you back through the intake then the timing could be off, or valves are slightly bent allowing it to combust (somewhat) but not seal during power stroke.

 

vattack has a good thought... so have you checked the timing?

 

sounds like timing to me...........give compression check too