Help, very depressed about car

[jdmaccordnut]

I love my 89 accord, but it has a carb. And now it isn't running right. I tried taking it to the dealership for an estimate, and they wanted $200 to even look at it. Screw that! Pricks!

I want to fix this car, I've put time and money into it, and getting something else would suck. The weber conversion looks annoying and hard to do. Where can I get a replacement carb for a decent price?

Thanks!

[turabaka]

Weber conversion is way easier than you probably think it is. I had the whole thing on and running in the space of a couple of hours. The only hard part was pulling the intake manifold off so that I could port the plenum in the middle, but you don't even have to do that.

[2oodoor]

yeah and you could put a brand spanking new carb on it and still have the same problem because it could be something that controls a carb function. Things in the 'black box', vaccum lines, solenoids, thermowax valves, blah blah blah.. nothing at all more annoying than that. Weber conversion eliminates all of that.
Look at the picture, everything in that chair was no longer needed, add to that another pile about just as big I took off inner fenderwells.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t280/roodoo2/1212264091.jpg

[lostforawhile]

if you don't have emissions do the webber,otherwise look at importcarbs.com even if it's not the carb at the age these carbs are, time for a rebuild anyway. that will narrow it down a lot as to the problem.

[2oodoor]

^^^^ absolutley !

[greentee76]

Well let me jump on the Get a Weber! bandwagon. The install is very straightfoward and not difficult at all. It has been the best investment I have made in this car.

[2oodoor]

I dont think jdmaccordnut is all that confident about their mechanical ability, and trying to get a quote from shop to do the weber install would indeed be annoying.

[turabaka]

I dont think jdmaccordnut is all that confident about their mechanical ability, and trying to get a quote from shop to do the weber install would indeed be annoying.

that could be true, but I'd never even worked on a car before I did mine. The most work I did was a tune-up, installing a blaster 2 coil, and helping my dad build an exhaust. I didn't even help that much with the exhaust. basically as long as you have common sense you'll be able to install a weber.

[greentee76]

Well to that end I would say in my opinion that swapping OEM carbs was harder than doing the weber conversion.

[russiankid]

Don't be afraid of doing the conversion. There are plenty of well knowledged people on this forum that will help you if you run into any problems.

P.S. I had issues with my OEM carb, I was ready to get a new carb because I couldn't solve the issue. Then my brother told me to try and see if a ground wire on the thermostat housing was broken, sure enough it was. After replacement, it ran like a champ. I spent about a week trying to diagnose the issue, but the fix was 10 minutes.

[2oodoor]

good point turabaka, you have to have some kind of background though , legos, knex.megablocks.. something. lol
If you even want to begin to understand the oem carb system you need to DL the manual and read up in the carbs section.
Also a good point about replacing the oem carb being harder, it is. You have to rememeber and mark each one of those vac lines, reaching around the metal speghetti trap to get to things, and be concerned with every single connection. On the weber swap it is like all the fun of knocking down someone elses house of cards or sand castle, just start ripping stuff out with no regrets.. never looking back.:chainsaw:

[turabaka]

good point turabaka, you have to have some kind of background though , legos, knex.megablocks.. something. lol
If you even want to begin to understand the oem carb system you need to DL the manual and read up in the carbs section.
Also a good point about replacing the oem carb being harder, it is. You have to rememeber and mark each one of those vac lines, reaching around the metal speghetti trap to get to things, and be concerned with every single connection. On the weber swap it is like all the fun of knocking down someone elses house of cards or sand castle, just start ripping stuff out with no regrets.. never looking back.:chainsaw:

Yup. I attacked my engine bay with a box knife, hammer, and 10mm socket.

[jdmaccordnut]

I'm confident in my abilities, or was, until I tried to change the carb base gasket. I've torn heads off cars, replaced engines, done entire suspensions, installed cams, but ... I stress this... NOTHING was more frustrating than the 800 hoses of crap underneath the hood of my accord. When I got to hose like 25 or 30, I gave up, and put everything back together. It wins. I cannot stand carbs. I really have almost come close to selling this car over the carb issue, even though it has fresh exhaust, radiator, suspension, stereo, speakers, and is pretty clean. But this carb crap is just BEYOND frustrating, and even if I do switch to weber, I'm not confident in winter performance, or tuning the carb. I've adjusted the idle before on an old musclecar I used to have, but that's it. Carbs are complete voodoo to me. I hate them, and I wish my car was EFI so badly. I'll look into the weber kit, again... I guess. Fucking Honda. Why the hell were they still using carbs in 89?! ARGH.

[2oodoor]

hey I empathize with you big time. I have been working on cars a long time. I have mastered rochesters, variable venturi motorcraft carb, several mopar carbs but when I got this Accord I was lost. Never have I seen so many controls, it is very hard to stay focused on the purpose of all of them. And it is just aggrivating to even remove the air cleaner housing. They have seperate pull offs for the choke and the fast idle, plus a throttle controller, who in their right mind would do that?
Ok I will play devils advocate for Honda and say they did this to have perfectly smooth operation and emmissions from a carbed engine in mulitple environments. When it works it works well but when it isnt working it is a chain reaction of drivability issues.
So yes, the weber 32/36 conversion was a sight for sore eyes and it totally changed the personality of the car for the good.
I have not had big issues with cold weather on any of these webers. Ok the only thing is you may have to screw in (or out) the air mix idle screw ( which you can do by hand, not even needing a screwdriver) about a quarter turn sometimes if it is going to be super cold all day for weeks. That's it, and it is accesable, you have no huge air cleaner assy to take off , no vaccumm lines to disconnect, easy as pie !
If you have done all those other things , you will have no problem installing this carb.

[turabaka]

Yes to all that roodoo said. You don't have to be worried about winter performance either. I live in Idaho, and it's below 30 consistently from November through February. I've never had a problem with it during the winter. In fact I never even had to let my car warm up in the mornings. It was just ready to go.

[cygnus x-1]

I'm confident in my abilities, or was, until I tried to change the carb base gasket. I've torn heads off cars, replaced engines, done entire suspensions, installed cams, but ... I stress this... NOTHING was more frustrating than the 800 hoses of crap underneath the hood of my accord.

Then the only solution is to banish those 800 hoses of crap to furthest reaches of hell. :chainsaw:
It is the simplest setup you can possibly have. The carb itself has no vacuum lines. There will only be 3 vacuum lines from the manifold; one to the distributor, one to the brake booster, and one to the climate controls.
Winter performance is not that big a deal. Mine needed a little feathering for the first minute but was fine after that. Jet changes are super easy. After you've done it once you can do it in 10 minutes. Enough people have done the conversion here that you can just copy their jetting setups.



Carbs are complete voodoo to me. I hate them, and I wish my car was EFI so badly. I'll look into the weber kit, again... I guess. Fucking Honda. Why the hell were they still using carbs in 89?! ARGH.

EFI is awesome no doubt. But it's much more complicated than carburetion. EFI tuning is easier in some respects (retuning with a laptop) but there are far more variables to play with.

Get a Weber. You won't be sorry.

C|

[carotman]

Anyone made a list of the jets people used?

It would be nice to have such a list and compare.

[turabaka]

Anyone made a list of the jets people used?

It would be nice to have such a list and compare.

I thought there was a sticky for that in the carburetor section already.

edit: here's the thread http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4223

[jdmaccordnut]

Well... turns out it might be dead. I was driving at 80mph and my lower balljoint disintegrated on the passenger side front wheel. I almost hit another car, and wrestled it to the side of the road. The lower control arm dragged on the ground for a few hundred feet, and the wheel was pushed sideways and back grinding into the fenderwell. Left a bunch of chunks of rubber and crap behind it. Then it started oozing fluids, the axle was ripped out, but it might have hit the pan too. I'm not sure, it was all so quick.

What's weird was that these are fairly new balljoints, only 2 years old. WTF?! Anyway, the tow truck came, and yanked it up onto a flatbed, wrecking the front fender. They aren't responsible for damage because I had to sign a waiver in order to get them to tow it. What a fucking joke.

Anyway.... I'm going to fix the balljoint, get it rolling/slightly driveable, then it's probably for sale. I'm sad. I loved this car so much, but the lack of EFI and now this is just getting to be too much.

$500 obo, bad idle, drives fine, fresh KYB GR2s, Nuespeeds, Integra front lip, walker exhaust, Sony MP3 CD player, new speakers.

[lostforawhile]

Well... turns out it might be dead. I was driving at 80mph and my lower balljoint disintegrated on the passenger side front wheel. I almost hit another car, and wrestled it to the side of the road. The lower control arm dragged on the ground for a few hundred feet, and the wheel was pushed sideways and back grinding into the fenderwell. Left a bunch of chunks of rubber and crap behind it. Then it started oozing fluids, the axle was ripped out, but it might have hit the pan too. I'm not sure, it was all so quick.

What's weird was that these are fairly new balljoints, only 2 years old. WTF?! Anyway, the tow truck came, and yanked it up onto a flatbed, wrecking the front fender. They aren't responsible for damage because I had to sign a waiver in order to get them to tow it. What a fucking joke.

Anyway.... I'm going to fix the balljoint, get it rolling/slightly driveable, then it's probably for sale. I'm sad. I loved this car so much, but the lack of EFI and now this is just getting to be too much.

$500 obo, bad idle, drives fine, fresh KYB GR2s, Nuespeeds, Integra front lip, walker exhaust, Sony MP3 CD player, new speakers.thats not that bad,all those parts can be gotten dirt cheap at a junkyard .even the fender

[cygnus x-1]

Sell it and get one with EFI. Buy the new car first so you can swap all the parts you want to keep.

C|

[2oodoor]

now the thread title fits pretty good

where is this car anyway?

[jdmaccordnut]

So I test drove a 1994 Volvo 850 Turbo. Piece of crap. Not in good shape, despite the seller claiming it was. I test drove a crappy Contour SVT. And I test drove a repainted 94 Prelude.

>sigh<

I'm thinking I'm just going to fix the Accord. Everything else sucks.

[2oodoor]

makes good cents sense:cheers:

[cygnus x-1]

You didn't like the Prelude?

C|

[jdmaccordnut]

Nope. I want a sedan, and the Prelude was... I dunno. Just didn't dig it.

[knifemind]

Nope. I want a sedan, and the Prelude was... I dunno. Just didn't dig it.

That's because it was a 4th gen. They're the bastard child of Preludes.

[Dr_Snooz]

Get FI. Honda's FI is awesome! Car starts ALWAYS on the first rev. It never dies and when something goes wrong, it tells you what the problem is!

[jdmaccordnut]

Get FI. Honda's FI is awesome! Car starts ALWAYS on the first rev. It never dies and when something goes wrong, it tells you what the problem is!

Do you realize what is required for EFI conversion? At all?

[Dr_Snooz]

Do you realize what is required for EFI conversion? At all?

The conversion takes this much:

http://www.geocities.com/carotman/howto/eficonv/EFIconversion.

Anyway, I didn't say you had to do the conversion.You sound like you really are depressed about having a carb. If it's that much of a bummer, why not buy an LX-i and be happy?

[2oodoor]

didnt he get a weber?

[jdmaccordnut]

I did.