Doing a stage 4 vacuum removal, few questions...

[poor_red_neck]

Few questions.

What happens to the blue circles with numbers in them (I put those there for reference)

I have removed EVERYTHING. Car is a 5spd 89 LX.

All the white vacuum solenoids are gone. Everything. I've taken off the choke, converted to manual secondary.

Also, will it be safe to plug the firewall hose for the evap cannister?

I want to get rid of it.

http://www.sarahyoungdesign.com/carb.gif

Now on #6... do I take that solenoid out? Or just plug the vacuum line next to it?

[2oodoor]

The tree you show in blue are all air suctin valve, you can remove that whole thing and plug it off. I will post a pic of what it looks like off.
The firewal vent thing, I have had mine capped of over a year, no problems. You can however put a breather on it like the picture show in the Stage 3 thread.
I think you leave the solenoid alone, I have to look and see what work arounds there were for that vac signal for it.

[2oodoor]

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t280/roodoo2/Picture016.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t280/roodoo2/Picture003.jpg
The large pipe was removed and I welded a short bolt n washer inside the flare nut to make it a plug.

[A20A1]

Leave the Solenoid there, and make sure the wire is still connected to it.

[poor_red_neck]

Ok, just out of curiosity (I'm learning about carbs as I go) what does that solenoid do? I took it off to see what it was... looks like its just a plunger.

I wanted to take that black air suction thing off, along with all the EGR crap, but didn't want to mess with having to make a block off plate. I have a welder and some 18 gauge steel laying around.. I may be able to use that, but I thought it might be too thin. I'd love to take the EGR crap off. Eh, I might do it if I get frisky. Have to get the project done by 5pm tomorrow to get to work. Heh.

So what about #4 and #5 in the picture?


EDIT:

Also...

The whole thing that started this was the primary venturi being loose. Well, the screw was MISSING. After taking the venturi out for inspection, I notice that the o-ring was pretty "flat". Is this infact an o-ring or a gasket of some sort? I have an o-ring kit, so I might have one that is that size. Should I replace it? I just don't want to get this thing put all back together and the damn venturi still leak.

[2oodoor]

plug those as long as your brake booster and pvc have large vac from intake. if not one of those needs go to it.
not sure what o ring you are talking about

[poor_red_neck]

Whoops... I didn't see the pic... My number 4 is for the Air jet controller letter A I think. Sorry.

I still don't know where " #14 Power Valve " connects to. On my labeled pic... it's the blue circle with number 5

[poor_red_neck]

The o-ring I'm talking about is on the primary booster venturi. The side that gets fuel from the carb. When you tighten that set screw, it presses one half of the booster venturi to the carb with the o-ring.

[poor_red_neck]

plug those as long as your brake booster and pvc have large vac from intake. if not one of those needs go to it.
not sure what o ring you are talking about


I was just going to put a breather filter on the PCV. The tube coming off the valve cover right?

[shepherd79]

#4 is for your coolant. you need that in the winter or you can bypass that at the coolant metal pipe. just put the hose back on.

Keep the 6 and make sure it is plugged in other vise your car won't idle at all.

#5 should be connected to intake manifold vacuum.

where blue arrows point, plug them.
where red arrows point jump it with vacuum hose.

basically you want vacuum system to look like in first picture where it says Stage 1.
you want to have one vacuum line connecting intake manifold/carburetor and distributor.

[poor_red_neck]

OH, OK... so looking at it again, I now see where the AJC letter "A" goes. So coolant goes through #4 huh. Is this only for the warm-up period during the winter, or does it need hot coolant flowing all the time during the winter... either way I'll just hook it back up I suppose.

Now where you say there is two red arrows that should be jumpered together... I just have them capped off. Why do they need to be jumpered?

I have two vacuum lines going to the distributor, number 25 and 2 I think... From the pics, should I just take a vacuum source and tee it off to both lines? I don't have any problems with detonation at high RPMs... so I suppose I can keep the advance.

Soo... since I'm capping off the thermovalve, I shouldn't need #14 then correct? It gets capped. I can't tell from the pictures what exactly happens to it. I only see it for stage 1 and it is still connected to the thermovalve.

[tuxdreamerx]

thats almost kinda scary. its so... empty....

[poor_red_neck]

thats almost kinda scary. its so... empty....

I know... I LOVE it!!!

Sooo much easier to work on. I can't wait until mine is done.

I was dreading have to do like a head gasket on it or something, those vacuum lines are QUITE intimidating.

Only other car I've seen close to as many lines was my 89 RX-7. My god. It was EFI but STILL, it took me a good 2 days of studying to get my knowledge up to par.

[poor_red_neck]

Ok, another question....

That heater element under the carb. Is it needed? If I were to remove it would I need any special gasket to seal it? It seems like it's nothing more than an obstruction for the primary. If I do need a special gasket, I'm thinking about taking it off and just taking a dremel to that heating element and calling it a day. How long does that element stay on? Don't tell me all the time. Like I've said in this post. If the car runs like crap for 5-10 minutes until it's warmed up, that's fine. I'm still under the impression that cooler air=denser air=more power. I think I might just leave it unless it really is a "not so needed" part or is a bigger PITA to take off than its worth.



When everything is re-installed the only vacuum hoses I should have hooked up is the air jet controller A, B, C, and then intake manifold vacuum source going to the distributor (#25 and #2) with a check valve, #14 gets a straight vacuum source from the intake manifold too. I also have the large vacuum hose going to the brake booster, and the coolant hose connected to the back of the carb. That should be it correct?

I removed the charcoal cannister, and as stated by "roodoo2" I'm just going to cap it for now. My gas cap is a tight sealing type, not a "self vented" gas cap... so I don't know if that is going to cause a problem or not. Only one way to find out. If it does, I'll attach a breather.

I also removed that black air box (the air suction box and solenoid) but I'm having a hard time removing that large pipe and metal housing the solenoid is connected to. I may just leave it there for now. Not trying to make the engine bay "look pretty" just get rid of the headache incase of an overhaul or something. I may get around to it if I ever have to do a headgasket or something.

As far as the air filter box goes. I've decided to keep the PCV hose attached to the air box for now, but capped off any other holes leading into the box and removed the air inlet tube coming from the passenger fender, as well as that hot air pipe from the exhaust manifold. I'm going to try that flipped lid trick.

It's amazing the difference in what the engine bay looks like. Soooo much easier to work on now. I could probably have the head ripped off in less than 2 hours now. Almost as easy as a Jeep 4L I-6! :p:



EDIT!


AH shucks!!!

I just read this thread over again...

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5350

I hope he's not serious about flipping the carb upside down. I've had this thing upside down left right front back yada yada yada. Why on earth would that mess it up? Something to do with the float?

Now I'm worried.

[2oodoor]

you got it, it can send the trash and gas in the bottom of the bowl into places it shouldnt be and it would involve disassembly to clean it out.

there is nothing wrong with having the charcoal canister, but most of the time these cars are so old the canister is shot anyway.
The carb preheater element is harmless, I would leave it alone unless you already have it all off anyway.

I thought the abc controller was deleted with stage 4 maybe I looked at it wrong.

The large pipe, you can try a really tight fitting wrench and tap it with a hammer as if to impact.... otherwise I think I hacked mine off because the wrench turned on the nut. You can use a die grinder or a hand grinder with a 8 inch cutting wheel and the guard removed,,, handle with care!

and hey, jeep 4.0 FTW ! I love those but they are a wee bit thirsty..

[poor_red_neck]

Awesome...

I think the thread says some people prefer the air jet controller, so it could be removed in any stage.

I honestly have no idea what the hell it does. I'm going to see how rich the car runs with it on. I'm going to imagine it might run a little rich. If so, taking the air jet controller off would probably just make it run even more rich.

Hmm... I gave my carb a REAL good cleaning before doing this (I think you read my thread about hyrdo-locking the motor with sea foam) so I think I'll be ok.

[2oodoor]

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38108
^^^ thread on making another air intake from a Civic airbox. I thought of maybe using one of those Jeep 4.0 throttle body air intake 90 degree deals to make this work too, that one could be use to do a cold air or short ram intake.I think the civic uses a similar size carb/tb top around 85-90 models.

[poor_red_neck]

Hmm, now I'm worried about capping the firewall vent.

As I said, my fuel cap is a sealing type, not a venting type. Well, I come home from the parts store today and fuel is literally dripping out of the hose (it's just dangling there). I open the gas cap and there is a helluva lot of pressure in there.

I just hope that when the fuel is connected to the carb, it won't over fill the bowl.

[poor_red_neck]

Car is up and running great.

I decided to just plug the air jet controller lines as I didn't have enough hose laying around and now way to get to the parts store.

Only thing is it seems to have a good amount more low end and mid range torque (I'm assuming thanks to the manual secondaries) but its having a hard time getting to 6K-6250. Usually it'll get there with no problem.

The float level is slightly high... about 2-2.5mm above where it should be... If you're looking in the sight glass, about 3/4 of the way full I suppose in relation to the glass.

I have not touched ANY adjustment screw as I honestly don't know what I'm doing. Going to look into it later, but this will get me to work :)

I'm really happy with it. Wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.
GREAT write up, and thanks a million to everyone that helped me.

[forrest89sei]

Congrats :thumbup:

Take Some Pictures

[crucial]

Happy to see you got it running good. Good job man!

[2oodoor]

you are going to want to readjust the idle air, get the float level righ, and I bet it could use some more ign advance now.
Is your car automatic trans? I forgot

[poor_red_neck]

No, its a 5spd.

The idle air... is that the black knob? I have it set right. Had to clean the linkage a little bit, it idles at 900 or so. A little high, but with the A/C on it'll kick down to 600 or so. Smooth so its no problem. I can live with a 900 idle.

I think its running decently rich. Like I said, its losing some top end. I honestly doubt its running lean. I know for sure it's not detonating.

Hmm, I need to dig out the ol' timing gun. I haven't looked, is the distributor adjustable?

[poor_red_neck]

Congrats :thumbup:

Take Some Pictures

:cheers:

I'm going to finish modifying the airbox then I'll snap some pics. It looks weird with that big black box on there with the inlet tube with nothing connected to it. Hard to admire the nakedness of the carb with that on there :)

I think I've seen someone's engine bay shot where it looks like they cut off the brim of the bottom side of the airbox, so it is essentially just the bottom of the air box and the flipped lid. Left a lot of the filter nice and exposed. I saw some of the civic air boxes mounted... Looks pretty small to me, might be a bit of a restriction. But what do I know... I know more about rotaries than piston motors, so :wtf:



What exactly is the air jet controller doing with all the rest of the emissions off? I thought it was a sort of air pump or something. Taking the vacuum caps off didn't seem to affect anything other than the one for idle. It dropped down the idle about 100 rpms but it was rougher. I'm assuming that was nothing more than a vacuum leak.

Only other complaint is if I'm at say... 3000 RPM and I get on it real hard, there is a very short slight hiccup then boom it gets power. I can feel the resistance of the secondary plates on the pedal now and it's right when I go from partial throttle to WOT. It's something I can definitely live with, but if there's an easy fix, hey why not fix it.

I drive about 50 miles to work normally, and by judging the gas gauge, I can almost see that it is running too rich. The loss of power at higher RPM is also leaning me torwards that as well.

I need to re-gap the plugs after reading that thread about the NGK's and the effects of the "E-10" gasoline out now. Just noticed at the pump today that our gas is E10, so I have them set to .042 or something like that. If I read that thread correctly it says to lower it by .010 or as low as .035

roodoo...

How many more degrees you think she can take? Hell, I don't even know what it is at factory. I'll have to see if I can find my timing gun.

[2oodoor]

on the timing, I will say pay close attention that you dont have detonation, I dont want to advise someone to advance ign beyond factory US specs and then they burn a pistion from detonation. So
So that said, you can stand up to 8 degrees advance over factory spec on some cars without detonation issues, and it makes a HUGE difference how the car runs and MPG.
I cant tell what mine is set at because I only put a light on it for a reference point, from there I just turned it a little, drive it to make sure it is not pinging at dropping the throttle, cruise speed, or loading it up a hill. Turned it a little more until it starts then back it off a bit. Power timing I think someone called it. It is true that a lot of imports give us timing retarded a good bit (as a spec) for emmissions and emmissions equipment to function properly overall the entire product line. In other words ideal timing for one identical car may not be the same number BTC as its sister car ...so they give an averaged figure as the spec. From what you describe it sounds like your timing is back pretty good, you need to see where it is at and then proceed from there.
I am sure there are plenty that would disagree with that, but it works for me... you can also run into other problems such as hard starting and running hot if you over advance, so just be careful and observant. EGR issues can cause detonation problems too . NOTE I am speaking of mostly carbed cars here.

Also the air purge what ya ma call it, is the manifold looking thing on the intake, and the abc air jet controller is on the Ps fender area.

How about that float level?

also can you copy paste the link to the e-10 thread here?

[poor_red_neck]

Here's the link about the NGK service bulletin...

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60398


I know where the air jet controller is... just not what its function is with all the rest of the emissions off the car.

EGR, air intake manifold thing (the black box with the white solenoids) was completely removed. The ONLY thing on the motor now is the stripped down carb (no a/c idle boost, no choke, no nothing) with the vacuum advance, and the #14 line still attached.

I haven't fixed the float yet, a little nervous about messing with those screws.

Can't find my damn timing gun anywhere, so I think I'm just going to buy another one on payday.

[MessyHonda]

Here's the link about the NGK service bulletin...

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60398


I know where the air jet controller is... just not what its function is with all the rest of the emissions off the car.

EGR, air intake manifold thing (the black box with the white solenoids) was completely removed. The ONLY thing on the motor now is the stripped down carb (no a/c idle boost, no choke, no nothing) with the vacuum advance, and the #14 line still attached.

I haven't fixed the float yet, a little nervous about messing with those screws.

Can't find my damn timing gun anywhere, so I think I'm just going to buy another one on payday.




i think lab8ed staker has a timing gun but im not sure if he sold it.

[2oodoor]

just go to auto zone and do the rent thing on the timing light, its basically free

[poor_red_neck]

Just got back from autozone... they don't rent timing lights :(

Ah, I'll just get one on payday..

Had something weird happen on the way home. 2400ish RPM at 25-50 percent throttle (which by the way with an open intake sounds pretty cool now that I have manual secondary barrel) I started to get some mild detonation. Never has happened before. I'm going to just say it was a fluke as it went away.
Nothing at WOT, and nothing at higher RPM other than less power than usual (before doing the vac removal)

[poor_red_neck]

Hah!!! Wow....

So I go to get something to eat... Now I live out in the middle of nowhere on a state highway. No traffic, no streetlights, just a dark highway.

Well, I make a turn and give it some gas, and when I shifted from 3rd to 4th it looked like a camera flash went off in my side mirror. Hmm I wondered, so I rev-matched and down shifted into 3rd.

Little background, my car does have a nasty exhaust leak where the flex pipe meets the catalytic converter. I don't know how large it is but it's kind of loud. The car does "gurgle" (not quite backfire) when coasting in gear.

Well, as I'm slowing down to see if I can re-create this flash, next thing I know the road is glowing white/orage. HAH, IT'S SHOOTING FLAMES!!!

Now this time I paid attention to it, and it is definitely popping a little flame every time I shift from WOT/High RPM, and a few good pops when coasting.

So.... I'd say she's definitely running a little rich!

Just thought I'd share. I'm cutting out the flex pipe and deleting the cat converter soon anyways, so I wonder if flames will make its way all the way to the tailpipe! Hah... not exactly what I want, draws all the wrong kind of attention.

[Blk87dx]

currently i am work ing on the same setup... yay

[2oodoor]

sounds like a mess, a little lightening between shifts ususally means its dumping some gas that is being burned on the opposite cyl from combustion, like 1-4, 2-3 example,.. extra gas in #1 while #4 is on compression stroke and the extra #1 gas is push out into the manifold and ignited by the following cylinder. #1 and #4 are up at the same time as are 2-3, but only one of the pair is on the compression/combustion stroke.
Also it sounds like a rich and lean condition, like too much gas yet with a vacuum leak somewhere. Make dam sure those secondary butterflys are closing completely with no throttle applied.

[poor_red_neck]

Secondaries close completely. Literally water tight.

The lean condition I think was just a random fluke. As it only lasted about 4 seconds and has never happened before.

Could the idle adjustment screw be off? I mean, I'm releasing the throttle when I shift... and it doesn't pop until it's in gear clutch released and I'm back on the gas.

[poor_red_neck]

Well, I'm pretty sure I've found the problem for the bowl being too full in the carb.

Got to be a leaking o-ring...

I didn't know which way to turn the screw to lower the level, so I figured... I'd tighten before loosening. Just to be safe..

I turned the screw maybe 3 degrees, just a hair touch and fuel started coming out. SHIT. So I turned it back to where it was. I marked it before I moved it. Stopped leaking. So then I decided to turn it the opposite way. Started leaking. Crap. So I left it where I started and it no longer leaks.

Can I just remove the screw to replace the o-ring or is this going to involve removing the tophat? Where do I find the o-rings? I have an o-ring kit but they're not meant for fuel contact.

[2oodoor]

you should be able to get an oring from a good parts house or appliance parts house without buying a whole bunch of crap you dont need. A lot have o ring assortments you can rummage thru.
I just remembered, you are right, part of the throttle control that is removed with the Stage4, you need something that it does.. dashpot, it keeps the throttle from snapping shut too early before the gas is out of the jet and venturi. There are dashpots on a lot of ford , weber and holley carbs. .you may be able to retrofit something.
You may be able to adjust the throttle linkage some to let move a split second slower. Just an idea.. also the solenoid on the back of the carb, that is supposed to do kinda the same thing too, is it getting power?
I am not thinking very clearly today so don't listen to me too close..lol

[poor_red_neck]

Dashpot... correct.. didn't think of that.

I'm not too worried about it honestly. The solenoid is definitely working, when I unplug it the car shuts off.

[-=89 LX-I=-*A20A3*]

A little off topic, but is it possible to bypass the egr on a FI motor and make it to where the computer still thinks its there?

[forrest89sei]

A little off topic, but is it possible to bypass the egr on a FI motor and make it to where the computer still thinks its there?


First Off Welcome to the Forum :welcome:

Second, This Thread Belongs in EFI Tech, Not Carb Tech

Third, Though I Am not a Expert, I belive if you leave the EGR Valve Plugged In but not Bolted on, the ECU will still think it's there, Other wise you might need a EDM or JDM ECU

[A20A1]

Well, I'm pretty sure I've found the problem for the bowl being too full in the carb.

Got to be a leaking o-ring...

I didn't know which way to turn the screw to lower the level, so I figured... I'd tighten before loosening. Just to be safe..

I turned the screw maybe 3 degrees, just a hair touch and fuel started coming out. SHIT. So I turned it back to where it was. I marked it before I moved it. Stopped leaking. So then I decided to turn it the opposite way. Started leaking. Crap. So I left it where I started and it no longer leaks.

Can I just remove the screw to replace the o-ring or is this going to involve removing the tophat? Where do I find the o-rings? I have an o-ring kit but they're not meant for fuel contact.


Your o-rings are gone for sure and yes you need to remove the top hat.
try napa
http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5350