Carb Floods

[HondaBoy]

well i did a rebuild on this carb i have now a few months back. now its doing the same pretty much. i can push the throttal with only the primary barrel opened, but as soon as i give it WOT and the secondary opens, it gushes fuel and floods the manifold. i had problems with my original carb that i rebuilt with the O rings deteriorating fairly quickly it looked like. i wonder if the rubber the O rings are made of in the rebuild kits available from most parts stores are of low quality? i'm to believe that is true. would it be such a bad idea to get a rebuild kit from Honda? the price online is cheaper than what i've been paying at the parts stores. about $30 from honda. with shipping about $45 i'm sure. but would it be worth ordering that? i dunno if they use the same brand of rebuild kits, but if its like other rubber gaskets and whatnot that i've ordered, its OEM high quality stuff that doesnt deteriorate fast.

[A20A1]

probably need gas resistant o-rings, napa sells them I think.
https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5350
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[HondaBoy]

so its really not a far fetched idea that maybe the quality of the rubber the O rings are made of that are in the rebuild kits arent gasoline resistant? i may try napa and see what they have. as far as the paper gaskets, they are pretty good and i havent had trouble with them. i'm about ready to go FI though. this is pissing me off and i'm about tired of having a carb on my daily driver. when its running correctly, its great and performs superior to a lot of FI cars.

[HondaBoy]

ok, i just disabled the secondary barrel. at WOT it is now fine. so i'm guessing that narrows it down to being something to do with the secondary. in this case, i'm thinking the O ring that is on the venturi is busted. but why? i guess when i take it apart i will figure it out. man does it make a huge difference in acceleration, its sluggish now to say the least. haha. but i guess i can drive it like that for now until i have time and some cash to fix it.

[A20A1]

Your booster isn't loose is it?

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48568


I doubt this but maybe your vacuum lines are hooked up wrong to the rear of the carb... you could have vacuum being applied to one of the ( A , B , C , ) vacuum ports... and there should be no vacuum... if vacuum is hooked up to those it actually sucks up fuel.... but thats usually at idle... so maybe you have venturi vacuum mistakenly hooked to ABC...

or something much simpler like a TOP HAT gasket leak.

[HondaBoy]

could be the top hat gasket. i had to take it off after i rebuilt it, but that was a short time after. i dont see any leaks around it, but that would be logical. i dunno if i should buy another rebuild kit or not though. i tried making that top hat gasket but it was hard to cut the gasket material, even with a sharp hobby knife. also, the carb was working well up until a few days ago. it was pretty sudden, but happened after driving it somewhat hard. last time i drove it hard, the venturi O rings needed replacement for some reason. i know venturi vacuum isnt that great, so i dont understand why that happened. but i guess i can get another carb kit and try my luck again. the probelm with that is if i have to take it apart after i rebuild it, i'm screwed again.

[A20A1]

are you using the royze(sp) kit?

[HondaBoy]

it was the Walker brand kit i've used, thats what most places carry. i dont know if its worth the money to order from Napa, their kit is running about $60 or more depending on which one i go with. i forget what brand they said it was though. honda has one which is listed as a "gasket set", i dont know what to expect with that though. hopefully it would have the rubber O rings and gaskets included, thats about $35. i might see what Pepboy's offers.

[HondaBoy]

could a combination of being off timing and a bad carb maybe cause the carb to flood at idle but be fine at higher rpms? i'm begining to think maybe so along with the bad brake booster. the carb is in fine condition now, but still randomly will start flooding. so pretty much, at idle it its drawing in so much fuel i have to turn up the idle screw. right now, it will be doing fine, then will start drawing too much fuel in making it flood. i can rev the engine to a high rpm and it will sometimes clear up but soon after do this flooding crap again. could a broken piston ring do this? i think it could, but i would notice oil burning from the tail pipe. i may also try and replace the whole intake manifold just to make sure thats not screwed up, maybe cracked where i cant see. did a compression test, it ran about 180 psi in each cylinder, but i will do this again to verify that one isnt maybe leaking. so i will also do a leak down test. perhaps this could be all caused by a broken valve spring? i've been thinking that along with the other things i thought of. i might just take it to school and leave it if it gets worse. it'll keep running i'm sure, even if like shit. is there any way to check the cam timing without really taking everything apart and lining things up properly? its kinda hard to see, but i'm guessing the knotch i could feel on the crank pulley is the timing mark?

hey also, maybe the belt tensioner? maybe it is getting loose and tight changing the timing? i dunno, its an idea.

[steveko]

Check the float seat & needle sounds like the float may be hanging up.

steveko

[ahmad89]

I have a carb issue i think, awhile ago my car idling at 3k and it wouldnt go down no matter what i did, i loosened the idle screw and blipped the gas and it just stayed at 3k. I check vacuum lines and they were all plugged in and fine, i heard that it could be my choke but how do i check for it and what does it look like?

[HondaBoy]

when it has been doing this i have checked the float level, and it is normal. not to mention i have put new float needle each time the carb is rebuilt. as of now, if i keep the idle set kinda high, i have no problems with the carb acting up. when it starts running fine and i set the idle down to a normal speed, it starts acting up again. so i dunno. its getting decent fuel mileage and still has a good amount of power. all of this started happening after i put a new transmission in my accord. i dont know but some how suspect that turning the engine the wrong way could have had something to do with all of this? my uncle was working on it and turned the engine clockwise instead of counter clockwise at the crank. could that have f'ed anything up?

[HondaBoy]

ok, i had my idle screw on the carb set to a high idle for a few days and it was running great. i set the idle back to about 1000 rpm and all was well until i drove on the freeway this evening. started chugging fuel again and running like shit. i just got through doing a compression test. the results were 190 psi consistantly on every cylinder. i'm pretty stumpped on what the cause of this carb problem is. next week i will probably do a cylinder leakdown test to make sure they arent leaking compression when running. i dont know how that could cause the carb to gush fuel, but might be whats doing it. anyone have any idea? even a wild idea would be of some help. i may just buy an fi car and swap everything into mine because this carb is a pain in the ass and i'm quite tired of it. or even better, an engine swap from another car, something at least 2 litres. but yeah, this problem isnt an easy fix. maybe the float could be defective? but then again, that would cause the fuel level to be out of whack, i can adjust the fuel level in the bowl so i dont totally think thats it.

[HondaBoy]

again this week it started flooding. today it stopped for now. anyways, i had an idea of what could be getting stuck. i took a few pix of the top hat from one of my spare carbs. dunno if this would have anything to do with it because it aparently isnt the float, or else the bowl would be filling up past the set line. here's what i'm thinking could be stuck or getting stuck at times. what is it, what oporates it and what does it do. my guess is that the bowl's fuel level or maybe vacuum would be oporating this. but i have no idea what it is .

[steveko]

It could be that not sure but, it may bleed off too much pressure in the float bowl. If memory serves me right it's in with the float bowl from the last time I have replaced the gaskets on my carb.

[HondaBoy]

well i decided enough was enough and looked into what else it could be causing my problem. i wasnt aware that this valve thing pictured had an O ring on it. decided to take my spare carb apart and found there was an O ring. thought maybe this was it. i took my carbs top hat off, took the valve thing out, replaced the O ring and reassembled it. then i retuned the carb, check the timing and took it for a drive. i drove the hell out of it to see if the problem was going to come back since it seemed of occur after hard driving. seems to be problem solved. hopefully this was all it was and will be the right corrective action. still has a lumpyish idle due to the leaking brake booster. disconnected and with the port capped, the lumpy idle goes away. so there is another problem to be addressed when i have the time to replace the booster unit.

[steveko]

FYI I believe that's the power valve. Good find on that problem. I wonder how many other people had this same problem.,That you solved for yourself and others who will read this later.

[HondaBoy]

i have replaced the brake booster. at first, it made carb run like it was before. i drove it a while and it has since cleared up. runs so much smoother than it has in a while.

[HondaBoy]

on friday i was running the car kind of hard. it started back up with the flooding crap. so i put a fuel pressure regulator on it and it has kept it from doing that again. i think maybe this carb is just fuked or something, along with the other one. i dunno. its running great now and is tuned right. but i'm still unsure of the carb. i'll see if the regulator will help it out. i have it set to about 3 psi of fuel.

[steveko]

Is the fuel pump stock or OEM. Just curious because I don't see the need for a regulator unless it's a higher pressure pump.

[BenAthar]

I was thinking of swapping out my fuel pump with an electric one, but not sure for an 88 accord if it would work out ok. I just need a little bit more pressure in the fuel delivery, but also was wondering if I could use the fuel pump from an EFI accord in the same year, and see if that would work. What do anyone else think? I have yet to adjust my carb to a better idle, but will do that this weekend. Now I am wondering about emissions, but will deal with that when I have to take the test. Just wondering about the fuel pump, I might have to clean out my tank and get a new screen for the pump for now.

[HondaBoy]

the pump i have is aftermarket. its supposed to be an OEM replacement, but i've had suspicions about it having a bit more pressure than the stock one before. i had this regulator on the car a while back, but took it off. as for using one from a fuel injected car, no. you'd have to get new fuel injection spec fuel lines and use a regulator so you dont mess up the carb. fi pumps are not to be used on carbureted cars.

[steveko]

I agree the pressure is way higher then a carborated car. I have a 88LX carborated and my pressure seems a little low but it said in Chiltons manual (not a great source.) from 2.5 too 3 psi. Mine is borderline about 2.5.

[carotman]

If the pump has too much pressure, it can press against the float needle and allow more gas to get into the carb than it's supposed to be. Having a regulator shouldn't be necessary but if you have an aftermarket pump, it's a good safety measure.

[A20A1]

Good work, I stripped my powervalve trying to get it out once.

EFI pump is okay but only with upgraded fuel lines, adding a return line to the tank, and getting a pressure regulator.