no power till 3000 rpm

[cedarjunki]

please can anyone tell me why. 89 lxi 5 speed stick, ill take off mat it to the floor and has absolutely no power until it hits 3000 rpms then it will smoke the tires, 2nd gear looses power until i hit 3500 rpms then it takes off again. any help, i havent found any answers yet and im getting ready to junk it. oh its completely stock also, ive only had a couple of months now. thanks



(rpms will slowly rise then all of a sudden its redlined)

[keruhas184]

You mean by no power that it doesn't move, or just not enough to press you into the seat? The powerband for our cars is 3k - 5.5k rpm, so what you describe is in a sense normal. But if the car hardly moves before 3k, then you may have a problem.

[cedarjunki]

well im new to these little 4 bangers but if i had to move out of the way in a hurry i would be creamed before i could get out of the way

[smufguy]

well see if your distributor is retarded all the way, if it is, put it back or have it 5deg advanced.

Does it stumble as it goes up to 3k? if it does that, u could be running too rich and ur O2 sensor might be going bad.

[cedarjunki]

it doesnt really stumble before 3000 rpms its like it holds back and releases all at once. but it kinda spudders running in 4th and 5th normal speeds. kinda like water in gas.

[shepherd79]

sounds like you need to do tune up.
plug, wires, distributor cap and rotor, and make sure you chance O2 sensor as well.
the easy thing you can check is ECU for any codes. it is under the driver seat. Look from behind, you will find a small window. start the car and see if the light is blinking. If it is blinking, count the number of blinks.

[smufguy]

it doesnt really stumble before 3000 rpms its like it holds back and releases all at once. but it kinda spudders running in 4th and 5th normal speeds. kinda like water in gas.

change out your fuel filter. When i had that similar problem. The car ran like it was running on water. Turned out to be a pretty nasty dirty fuel filter.

[cedarjunki]

i appreciate all the help. i just changed my feul filter 2 weeks ago, it was nasty, but wasnt the problem. i was currious, are the converters known to plug on these? it has 140,000 miles on it, but im not sure if the converter has been replaced, or punched. i cant smell any sign of it but my ford pickup was plugged tight and monroe muffler said there was nothing wrong with it. i think im going to punch it out this weekend to see. id stick to my 85 f150 but the price of gas is killing me at 10 miles to the gallon. any other opinions???? i just checked theres no codes flashing :)

[shepherd79]

hmmm, yeah the converter could be cloged up.
punch it out and see if it helps.

[jayshonda]

I'm not a honda vet, but have been around cars for way longer than many people on this forum have been breathing. not that age means anything, but i being around the block a few times you tend to remember a few things. Since this my first honda, I appreciate some darned good advice given by some posters, but it seems some posts are just a guess.

When a cat goes bad, (gets clogged) there is some power at low rpm, then you hit the wall and can't get any rpms out of it. Even reving sitting still can be a challenge. When they really get clogged, it's tough to accelerate past 40 mph. What you describe is exactly what i have in my 89 lxi and no way would a bad cat let it take off at upper rpms. That's completely backwards to what a bad cat would do.

Several people have said too rich and then suggest the fuel filter is clogged. Whoa, clogged filter means less fuel, backwards to what a clogged filter will do. Too rich could be a problem, but with the fuel injection in our cars, i'm not sure that is likely.

I'm leaning towards the distributer being the bad guy. Maybe it's retarded. i'll be checking it this weekend. the vac advance works, at least i can see the plate move by sucking the hose. However, there's another part of the vac advance which moves it backwards (retards) when you suck the other hose. probably something to offset too much advance or something for emissions. when a car is retarded, it burns hotter, maybe that's a way of achieving better emesions.

i'm thinking of plugging that hose to see what it does.




hmmm, yeah the converter could be cloged up.
punch it out and see if it helps.

[shepherd79]

I probably could tell you what the problem is if i had his car in the front of me, but since the car is not here i have to make a guess.
oh and on cloged cats. i have seen them cloged, and when they are cloged the engine won't even idle because it can't push the exhaust gases through it at idle. you have to rev it the hell out of it to get moving.

[Oldblueaccord]

i appreciate all the help. i just changed my feul filter 2 weeks ago, it was nasty, but wasnt the problem. i was currious, are the converters known to plug on these? it has 140,000 miles on it, but im not sure if the converter has been replaced, or punched. i cant smell any sign of it but my ford pickup was plugged tight and monroe muffler said there was nothing wrong with it. i think im going to punch it out this weekend to see. id stick to my 85 f150 but the price of gas is killing me at 10 miles to the gallon. any other opinions???? i just checked theres no codes flashing :)


Hows the air filter look?

Usually you will smell rotten eggs if your cats going bad. Honda runs pretty good not like FOrds where the cats get plugged all the time. Not saying it cant happen but its pretty unusual.


wp

[Yuu89LXi]

I have the same thing going on with mine... and it could be different for you, but I can tell you EXACTLY what mine is.

My #4 Fuel Injector isn't firing.

I chaged the spark plugs, the wires, cap and rotor, checked the injectors etc. Now I know what it is... I got another bad ECU. I'm going shopping...