I need all the help I can get!!!

[88lxer]

New to 3geez. I hope someone can help me out. I'd say 18 months ago, I changed the tranny on my 88 LX. I pulled the engine and transmission out together. So there was some potential for me to have damaged or bumped something. Ever since January 04, I haven't been able to get the car to run right. What it is doing is it won't want to run well when I get the idle down to 1000 rpm. I can rev it up all day long with virtually no hesitation, but it sounds like it is missing when it idles at 1500 or below. I've had ignition problems with other vehicles and they wouldn't rev like this car will. I rebuilt the carb with factory Honda parts last month. Same thing still happening. What does this sound like? Any help would be appreciated!!!!

[88lxer]

Well I tried the trick of spraying carb cleaner around things and found a slight leak around the intake to head gasket and replaced it. Still not getting the car to idle right. I bought 16 feet of vacuum line and a few caps. I'm also going to see how my timing is doing. I can't seem to get any vacuum out of line 17. Is this normal? I'm getting 20-21 pounds of vacuum everywhere else. Does anyone know exactly how many full turns out the air/fuel mixture screw should be. I know it differs from car to car, but I was looking for a general answer. Help please.

[88Accord-DX]

I'm not exactly sure how many turns it should be in or out. As a general rule, it should be halfway between all the way in & out. Here is a link (http://members.fortunecity.com/accordex87/carb.htm) to do it. You will have to take the carburetor off the car to remove the cap on the air/fuel mixture screw.

[kcaudill]

New to 3geez. I hope someone can help me out. I'd say 18 months ago, I changed the tranny on my 88 LX. I pulled the engine and transmission out together. So there was some potential for me to have damaged or bumped something. Ever since January 04, I haven't been able to get the car to run right. What it is doing is it won't want to run well when I get the idle down to 1000 rpm. I can rev it up all day long with virtually no hesitation, but it sounds like it is missing when it idles at 1500 or below. I've had ignition problems with other vehicles and they wouldn't rev like this car will. I rebuilt the carb with factory Honda parts last month. Same thing still happening. What does this sound like? Any help would be appreciated!!!!
It sounds like the same problem that I am having with my 89 accord. At idle up to 2000 rpms it will sound like it is missing although replacing all ignition components. It will run smooth at highway speeds with 35 to 37 mpg. I have a topic already asking about this, but no one is relpying to it.

[POS carb]

sounds like a vacuum leak to me. can be a busted/disconnected/missing hose, intake manifold gasket leak, a stuck EGR
it could also be the slow mix solenoid is not getting power (on the back of the carb)

once I had a problem with the ignitor and coil where the car wouldn't idle but ran fine everywhere else in the rev range, then as the day progressed the minimum rpm needed to stay running kept going up and up and up till it wouldn't start anymore

[88lxer]

It's been a while since my last post. I talked to a guy in Honda Parts at my dealership and told him that my timing mark was 12 degrees past the furthest adjustment my distributor would allow. I bought one of those digital timing lights with advance adjustment. That's how I know it is 12 degrees. He said it sounded like my timing belt jumped a tooth. I had my timing light advanced to where it hit the mark on my flywheel and then pointed it at my t belt and then zeroed it out and it looked like it only moved one tooth's length so I believe he is right. And so my journey continues after a year and a half of messing with this car. I've got a fourth gen to daily. You would think that I would have broke down and taken it somewhere. Almost did. But I am too much of a tight wad.

[88lxer]

Has anyone heard of a BS engine code for a 3 gen?

[A20A1]

#17 bleeds vacuum at certain points. it shouldn't be strong.

BS is an A20A1 / A20A2

Did you check timming without the advance? I would do it that way instead of with advance... I never messed with a timing light that had any extra functions on it other then the on off for the strobe. Make sure you disable the vacuum advance lines to the distribtor.

[88lxer]

Well I found out that the BS engine is an engine from an 86. I also found out that my ECU wasn't getting ground. Fixed that. I also took the timing belt off (with caution) and moved it one tooth on the cam sprocket. And of course I had the engine at TDC and the two marks on the cam sprocket parallel with the head. It's getting late and my eyes are heavy, but I got the car to idle without a miss at 1000 RPM. I still need to go through the correct adjustments with the carb. I wouldn't have known or even guessed my car was a tooth off if I hadn't got the digital timing light. I would have guessed that the timing was off because of low vacuum. Not so. I had never used a timing light before working on this car. I timed my 90 accord ex and now it feels like I have more torque in the bottom end and my average mileage went up two MPG. Hopefully now I can sell this car. This really made my day. No one will know how glad I am to get this done! I've been working on the car on and off for 18 months. Now that I had a good timing light and a digital mutimeter, I could diagnose better. Thank you everyone for all your help.

[A20A1]

So you decided to move the belt one tooth or you found the belt was off one tooth using the timing light. But after you adjusted the timing belt was all the TDC marks alligned?
Cam gear and Flywheel or TC Plate.
I mean without a digital gauge, those should be the default TDC. They do not require a gauge.

[88lxer]

Yeah, I got everything lined up right. I'm not sure if I tightened the belt correctly, but my manual told me to loosen the tensioner bolt, turn the crank counter-clockwise three teeth and tighten the tensioner bolt down. I adjusted the carb this morning and while I doing that I saw the temp guage climb to H. So now I will jump the wires in the thermosensor terminal and see if my coolant fan kicks on. If it does, I guess my thermosensor is bad. I'll keep you posted. Thanks.