Wish Me Luck I'm doing My Smog Test Today

[nswst8]

Just to throw it out there,

What about the EGR valve if it is bad it could throw your emission off.

[2oodoor]

Check, advance curve.. using a timing light find your current base idle setting. Now unhook and plug your vacuum advance line(s) at the dizzy(also any wire connection your cars underhood sticker asks you to unhook when checking base timing), now watch the timing mark with the light as you gas the motor to a steady rpm of around 2 to 3K rpm (cruise speed) ok your mark should have moved around and no longer in site (actually if you had a fully marked degree crank pulley you could mark what your total advance is.
Ok if it did not move then your centrifigal advance is frozen , under the pickup plate in the dizzy.
There are some other ways to do check this, but these cars have a bit of vacuum advance at idle, then get more at just off idle so it is hard to check that. In other words you have "four diff advance point" so to speak. One with out any vacuum assist, two diff vacuum assist primary and secondary, and then final advance centrifrigal. Also some cars have computer assisted advance, OBD ,1,2
LIke I said before your idle and final cruise CO was good, it was your just off idle , or movement of the throttle from idle CO that was high, then it settled.
More ign advance would burn off the mixture quicker, probably would not take much. You have to still stay inside a perimeter though or you will cause the ECU to make adjustements that could throw off either end , idle CO or cruise CO.
If you ever had the head cut any, also, through the life span of the head 20 years of resurfacing can make the cam and crank closer and throw off your valve/cam timing.. God bless the Adj cam gears cause your car will always be rich unless you correct that spec by advancing the cam a little to put it back to factory specs, not necessarly for hot rodding purposes..

[2oodoor]

true as well, if it is sticky or slow to open . the egr is closed at idle , then opens up fully at acceleration and from there it moves in and out according to engine load. if it is sticky it will be slow to move, thus making electronics slow to read and compensate. This all happens in like nano seconds.. lol
If it is stuck opem bad enough you have to replace egr, cause you will have very unstable idle, if it stuck closed it will be like not having one at all.
Pico, sorry to give you so many diff avenues to look into, I know it is confusing sometimes if you dont do this everyday..
Remember , on my prevous post, ign timing and cam timing are two totally different adjustments, and if you change the cam timing, you MUST readjust the ign dizzy timng to catch it up. But.. not visa versa changing dizzy timing does not affect cam timing.

[2oodoor]

another thing,, lol
is your LXI one that originally had black box, i think 86 and some 87 did. yours is 89 but just makeing sure.
there was some things you have to do if you intalled CAI if so.
AND make sure your cone filter is new, they get damp sometimes and cause these type problems.

[Pico]

yeah i have herd of the thermostat making the car run rich. aparently getting a higher temp one makes your car run better. my mate has the same problem in his civic, it runs rich and sometimes misses and pisses round when its cold.

I'll try that Thanks wohdog

better put those old injectors in before you put that in your tank, Iso alchohol reaks havoc on your electronic injectors and injector circuit to the ECM

Do they check your timing at teh smog station? if not see my first couple of posts on this thread
I thought you maybe knew somebody that had an old CO meter and tailpipe sniffer to see what is up so you can check it good before the test ??? this equipment has been around for years although it is not as sufisticaked .lol as the new stuff

edit.. Hey I just thought of something else too that could drive you nuts.. evap system. does your gas cap swoossh when you open it? lol.. sometimes the fuel pickup screen and lines going to the tank from the filler neck, charcoal cansiter.. can get obstructed and cause a lot of fumes to build up in the system that is powered by ... engine vacuum.. so it can back up to the point that is sucks fumes into the mixture at the vacuum source

Yup they did check the timing and everything and even swapped in another set of injectors.
I'll check the canister it does make that swooshing sound when I take the cap off. Thanks roodoo2

Just to throw it out there,

What about the EGR valve if it is bad it could throw your emission off.

I believe the shop did some kind of test on that to see if that was the problem
Thanks nswst

Check, advance curve.. using a timing light find your current base idle setting. Now unhook and plug your vacuum advance line(s) at the dizzy(also any wire connection your cars underhood sticker asks you to unhook when checking base timing), now watch the timing mark with the light as you gas the motor to a steady rpm of around 2 to 3K rpm (cruise speed) ok your mark should have moved around and no longer in site (actually if you had a fully marked degree crank pulley you could mark what your total advance is.
Ok if it did not move then your centrifigal advance is frozen , under the pickup plate in the dizzy.
There are some other ways to do check this, but these cars have a bit of vacuum advance at idle, then get more at just off idle so it is hard to check that. In other words you have "four diff advance point" so to speak. One with out any vacuum assist, two diff vacuum assist primary and secondary, and then final advance centrifrigal. Also some cars have computer assisted advance, OBD ,1,2
LIke I said before your idle and final cruise CO was good, it was your just off idle , or movement of the throttle from idle CO that was high, then it settled.
More ign advance would burn off the mixture quicker, probably would not take much. You have to still stay inside a perimeter though or you will cause the ECU to make adjustements that could throw off either end , idle CO or cruise CO.
If you ever had the head cut any, also, through the life span of the head 20 years of resurfacing can make the cam and crank closer and throw off your valve/cam timing.. God bless the Adj cam gears cause your car will always be rich unless you correct that spec by advancing the cam a little to put it back to factory specs, not necessarly for hot rodding purposes..

true as well, if it is sticky or slow to open . the egr is closed at idle , then opens up fully at acceleration and from there it moves in and out according to engine load. if it is sticky it will be slow to move, thus making electronics slow to read and compensate. This all happens in like nano seconds.. lol
If it is stuck opem bad enough you have to replace egr, cause you will have very unstable idle, if it stuck closed it will be like not having one at all.
Pico, sorry to give you so many diff avenues to look into, I know it is confusing sometimes if you dont do this everyday..
Remember , on my prevous post, ign timing and cam timing are two totally different adjustments, and if you change the cam timing, you MUST readjust the ign dizzy timng to catch it up. But.. not visa versa changing dizzy timing does not affect cam timing.

another thing,, lol
is your LXI one that originally had black box, i think 86 and some 87 did. yours is 89 but just makeing sure.
there was some things you have to do if you intalled CAI if so.
AND make sure your cone filter is new, they get damp sometimes and cause these type problems.

She has the black box, and Thanks roodoo for all the info, it will help me get started in the right direction of getting this problem fixed hopefully. I'll keep you and everyone posted on the situation.
I also have one more shop that I talked too and they said for a nominal fee he can get the car to pass no questions asked, so for now to get this done I may do that route.
Thanks again everyone

[Hoy_LDT]

k i got word that iso is able to run in your car but

Best not run iso or hydrogen peroxide in your car.
How the plastic fuel lines will handle it is abit on the iffy side.
the american market might not have them but my jdm si duz , and i'm not to keen on a petrol fire in the passenger compartment.

is right

Iso alchohol reaks havoc on your electronic injectors and injector circuit to the ECM

also is right

but i must say...im not responsible for any damage....just to let you know!!!!

[88Accord-DX]

Yeah picopop, you might need to get one of your buddies to pass it with 'no questions asked'.

Or one of them emission solutions on the market. http://www.autobarn.net/ch05063.html

[russiankid]

Not sure if this could be a problem, or if this was mentioned, but from reading the thread wohdog made, got me thinking. If i am correct the LX-i has 2 temp sensors, one for the ECU and one for the gauge cluster. Could the ECU sensor be reading the temp wrong causing the ECU to give a rich mixture?

[Pico]

Yeah picopop, you might need to get one of your buddies to pass it with 'no questions asked'.

Or one of them emission solutions on the market. http://www.autobarn.net/ch05063.html

All done Derek, I got it to pass with a little help

Not sure if this could be a problem, or if this was mentioned, but from reading the thread wohdog made, got me thinking. If i am correct the LX-i has 2 temp sensors, one for the ECU and one for the gauge cluster. Could the ECU sensor be reading the temp wrong causing the ECU to give a rich mixture?

I thought about that Sam, then I went thru all my receipts from the rebuild and found that I had bought and replaced both sensors from the dealer



Thanks to everyone for your suggestions I'm still going to work on the car in order to get the emissions levels down

[A18A]

good to hear you passed, i was afraid of seeing something bad when i was waiting for this thread to loaded

[Pico]

good to hear you passed, i was afraid of seeing something bad when i was waiting for this thread to loaded

I'm glad that it did too......

[russiankid]

Glad you passed but you should find the problem to the rich mixture.

[redaztec]

Congrats, I'm glad you passed! I'm looking forward to hearing what else you try, since mine's probably going to have to go in for an emissions check at some point, and I know it's not even close to passing right now.

[Pico]

Glad you passed but you should find the problem to the rich mixture.

Congrats, I'm glad you passed! I'm looking forward to hearing what else you try, since mine's probably going to have to go in for an emissions check at some point, and I know it's not even close to passing right now.

When I get the time I'll do more work and research on it and post what I find the problem turned out to be

[MessyHonda]

When I get the time I'll do more work and research on it and post what I find the problem turned out to be

its OBD1 swap time.