Several symptoms, cant pinpoint issue

[BrownEye02]

Hi, Im new member here but have been digging around the forms for a while. I was hoping to find a solution to my problem with out having to post but it seams that's not gonna be the case. Recent symptoms have popped up that are quite serous and cant wait to be fixed any longer. Ill try and make this short yet detailed. Let me know if you need any more info.

The car is a 89 Accord DX that had 120,000 miles on it when I got it. The timing belt had been replaced about a month before it came into my possession. When it was replaced the A/C pump was removed. It looks to me like it was yanked because the insides were rusted out. When I first got the car it wasn't running so hot. Me and my step dad did some tests and could only come up with adjusting the choke open a bit more. This didn't help much but during this time we tested the compression and every cylinder tested at about 165 psi ranging no more then 5 psi between cylinders. I then went and got my emissions tested and failed. I barley failed but failed due to not burning all my fuel. I replaced my air filter, got a oil change, and ran 2 tanks full of carb cleaner. After all that I passed with flying colors. About a month or two later I figured out the PCV valve was bad and this fixed several of my issues.

Parts replaced:
PCV valve (Old valve only had spring left in it)
Spark Plugs (day 1)
Spark Plug Wires (day 1)
Distributor Cap (day 1)
Air Filter
All 4 Struts

Symptoms: (order in worst to moderate)
1. When motor is in between being fully warm up and cold it will idle at about 3500 rpm. If I tap the gas it will bog down about 100 - 200 rpm but will rev right back up to 3500 rpm. Turning the motor off and back on does not fix the issue. Only way to stop this is to let the motor sit and cool back down. (This rarely happens. About once a month. I cant seem to find any way to repeat the symptom either.)
2. This recently started happening and is starting to happen more and more but is still quite rare. It starts on a fresh start. The motor will run on 1 - 3 cylinders during warm up and will smoke a bit. It will sometime die on initial start but a quick rev of about 2000 rpm for 5 - 10 sec will fix this. When the motor is in between warm and cold it will start idling at about 2000 rpm (most common when happening), or it will slowly rough idle its way to stalling. If this happens I have to hold the gas to the floor to de-flood the motor. This will continue to happen even when the motor is fully warmed up. I can sometimes fix this by turning the car off then back on (having to de-flood the motor). This worked the other day and the motor ran perfect the rest of the day. No matter whats happening the car will stutter when driving at around 2000 rpm. (Gas millage is in the toilet when this happens.)
3. (Happens every day) Almost same as above; On initial start the motor will rev up to about 2000 rpm for 10 sec then bog down to about 1000 - 500 rpm. The motor will be running on 1 - 3 cylinders smoking. Rarely will the motor stall but if it does, revving to 2000 rpm for 10 sec will stop it form stalling again. If I let the car sit for about 5 min it will be running on all 4 cylinders and be revving at about 2500 - 3000 rpm. A quick tap of the gas peddle will bring the idle down (still running on all 4). After the motor is warm it will be at normal idle and run fine.
4. (Happens every day) When shifting between gears the motor revs up about 100 rpm. This is not due to bad foot work. I have been driving manuals since day 1. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes. God knows I do. I'm just saying this is something not caused by me. You can really notice it when the car is between being fully warmed up and cold. Once the motor is warm a slight rev happens between gears but is barley noticeable.
5. I doubt this has anything to do with my other symptoms but I'm still putting this in here just to be safe. The cruse control randomly works. Most of the time Ill go to set the cruse control. The light next to the cruse control button lights up and when I push set the dash light comes on but no speed is held. The dash light will turn off after about 3 sec. Maybe once or twice a week Ill go to set the cruse control and it will work but will slowly decel until the cruse control turns off completely. This rarely happens about once a month but when it does my cruse control will work flawlessly. It some times will work for about an hour then randomly shut off. But most times when it works and will work till I stop driving.

I love this car to death and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. My dad has a LXi that's two years older then mine. Its been in the family for years and still runs like a champ. I mainly use this car to get back and forth to class. The main reason for getting it though is to drive my buddies and my self up to the mountains. Besides the first two symptoms nothing is really serous. If it weren't for me and the way I think your average person would just ignore everything and drive. I just cant stand it when a car doesn't run perfect. I just believe a car represents a person. When my car runs crappy I feel crappy. I'm sick of feeling crappy and would love to finally fix it all. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. THANKS!

My vacuum hoses look very good. I've skimmed over them several times and have never seen a crack or crusty line. I've never sprayed starter fluid on them but plan to when its warm enough outside. I'm hoping to post a pick so you can see the conditioned everything's in. I know it will help with diagnosing. Ive skimmed through the thread quite a bit like I stated above. The recent thread Trick to Cold Weather? is close to some of my symptoms but is not quite there. Ill still be keeping an eye on it though.

[go2eleven]

Certainly not a sure thing, but you might check the green/red wire from the Primary Slow Mixture Cut-Off Solenoid Valve. It's an electrical part on the back of the carburetor. It only has the one wire coming from it. It has a long convoluted path throughout the car -- from the back of the car into a wire bundle that carries it up to the passenger side headlight area and then back through the fender to the firewall and finally to the control unit under the seat. If the wire is fine, perform the diagnostic procedure in the manual. Worth a shot, anyway.

[2oodoor]

You've got a lot going on there, I can't really arrange it in my head right now but I will make some suggestions.
These things, crazy engineers, have the choke pull off and the fast idle pull off as two separate entities Normal cars the choke pull off also takes down the fast idle stepper accordingly.. Take off the air cleanr assy on a cold morning, plug off the vac line that goes to the assy. so you are not losing vac.
Then check the choke setting and all the devices there. Lube with some WD40. Check for rotted or collapsed vac lines that suck themselves together thus blocking flow.

Make sure the clutch cable IS NOT attached to the throttle or cruise cont cable anywhere. Sometimes a tie wrap will be put on those for neatness, and what happens is every time you push in the clutch the cable housing flexes and pulls on the throttle cable some.

Despite the cause of the current issue being fixed or not yet, afterwards Try advancing the ignition timing a few degrees, I haven't seen one yet that couldn't handle a little more advance than the factory says, makes a world of difference BUT do not advance it to the point your valves are rattling with preignition. bad bad.

If you love this car, you will marry it if you did a Weber conversion!

[BrownEye02]

If you love this car, you will marry it if you did a Weber conversion!

Haha, Ive done some research on the Weber carbs but not enough it seems. Besides getting rid of more then half of my vacuum hoses what are the other benefits to the Weber swap? Im guessing a power increase among other things. (Im just scared Ill dumb down the carburetion to much and cause the motor to only run good when its fully warmed up. I had this happen to my VW bus. I Put dual carbs on it. It would run like crap until it was FULLY warmed up and this took almost 15 min. This especially scares me since Im up on a mountain boarding almost every week. I need my car to be as reliable as possible.

Edit: Scratch half of this. After looking at this thread I got quite a few questions answered.

But thanks go2eleven and 2oodoor for the amazingly fast replies. Ill check both of your suggestions today.

[g.frost]

Symptoms related to high idle that won't step down (3500 rpm is way too high) and flooding/running rich points to the choke. Get some carb cleaner and check the choke opener diaphragm for leaks. Just a squirt around the opening where the choke arm comes out. Choke should be fully open after as hort warmup. (this is what failed in my 88DX to produce such symptoms) The choke opener gets vacuum directly from the carb; there is a vacuum port where it mounts. One of the tubes off the end of the choke opener feeds the 'high idle unloader' (via thermovalve A) which allows the idle to step down as the car warms up. Vacuum leaks in this circuit can cause your symptoms. Check it out.

[BrownEye02]

Well I did some digging today. go2eleven I was able to locate the cable. Its plugged in and looks OK up to the headlight but I cant follow it from there. I didn't get enough time to test it though. I'm hoping to get that done asap. 2oodoor I was able to look at my carb while it warmed up. Everything looked ok and nothing was collapsing or cracked. I still would like to shoot some starter fluid around there when I test the Primary Slow Mixture Cut-Off Solenoid Valve. I was able however to advance my timing a bit. Got a huge power increase. I listened to it all day and even had my dad take it for a spin to see if there were any ping sounds. None so far.
I was able to make a trip to the junkyard today to pick up some little things. Couple door sensors, replacement clock, air control valve, etc.. I was even able to find the rubber tubes that attach the pipe to the air cleaner (cant find out what its called but here is where it connects to.

The new air control valve and rubber tubes brought my idle down a bit so Ill see if it affected any of my symptoms.
g.frost, Ill check that out when I do everything else. I should find out if the tubes are bad when I do my starter fluid test. Again I will post the results when I am able to do this.

[Dr_Snooz]

For the cruise, download the manual and work through the troubleshooting section starting on p. 25-71.

[BrownEye02]

Well it was finally warm enough to do some testing today. I was able to test the primary slow mixture cut-off solenoid valve and it tested OK. The O ring that was on it was in rough shape so I replaced it. Didn't effect my cold idle issue but I'm gonna wait and see if my run on issue goes away. While I did this I shot WD-40 all over my throttle and choke joints. It sadly had no effect. But I figured it wouldn't since I could move every joint with ease. If I don't go snowboarding tomorrow I'm hoping to test the choke opener diaphragm. Ill post back when Ive done some more testing.

Edit: Oh I also wanted to post in I have not had symptoms 1 and 2 happen since I started this post. I'm hoping when I replaced those hoses it was fixed. Ill post if it comes back.

[Dr_Snooz]

The rev up between shifts is designed in. I think it's a smog control of some kind, so you won't fix that without re-engineering the carb.

Your carb is evidencing a lot of issues. If it were mine, I'd do a complete overhaul. We do have members who can diagnose the individual sub-systems of the carb, but I'm not one of them, unfortunately. If you decide to rebuild, be sure to check the condition of all your solenoids and actuators while you have it apart and replace anything that fails. Replace your floats too.

[BrownEye02]

I figured it was leading up to that. Would it be worth me just putting a weber carb on instead?

[2oodoor]

YES, my default answer

[BrownEye02]

Sorry to bring this back for the grave but I'm getting close to doing an over hall on my car and I had a few more questions. I think my mind is set on a 32/36 Weber carb but I've been hearing that you can kiss passing emissions good by if you install any Weber carb. In Colorado they do the running test where they put you on a dyno and run you through the paces. A few things I've read say if you have perfect jetting you might pass but this is also an issue for me. I don't doubt I could get the jetting perfect but I don't want to with the drastic elevation changes ill be putting my car though. Sure going up the mountains will be fine since I should just be running rich but its going down that scares me. So should I just stick to the new OEM carb due to the emissions test or is this all just lies?

Edit: I also wanted to add that I'm down to just the bad idle on warm up issue (issue 3) and excessive rev between gears (issue 4). I was able to figure out everything else. Most of the hoses I replaced helped but the biggest one was a bad gas cap. Every so often Id go to fill up and the tank would gasp for air. I then realized I was vapor locking. I tested my theory by popping the cap when ever Id start idling high. Every time after a min my idle would drop back down to normal. New gas cap on and haven't had issues ever since. I think this even solve my cruse control issue. After replacing the gas cap I was able to turn off and on the cruse control main switch and still use cruse control the entire drive home.

[Dr_Snooz]

In most smog states, the Weber will be illegal and should fail smog. You can try to sneak it through, but that's risky. If you're down to only one issue, I can't see any good reason not to continue working with the OE carb. Especially if you have smog tests. No need for a rebuild if you can fix the carb cheaply. The OE carbs are notoriously difficult to rebuild, so keep massaging until you get it perfect.

[BrownEye02]

Ok well I'm gonna post some videos of my warm-up issue as well as my rev between shifts to hopefully help troubleshoot shoot them better. I know you said its part of the carb but I'm noticing a jump of almost 1000rpm now in some cases. I also noticed I'm miss firing one cylinder at idle every so often when warmed-up. Ill get a video of this as well. I'm planning on changing my clutch next month and hope to have this fixed or solved by then. I'm hoping to have pretty much a new car by this winter .

[BrownEye02]

Ok so this first video is me starting up my car the first time yesterday. It was probably 75*F out side.


This second one is after my car is completely warmed up and the fan had kicked on several times. I got a little to close so it sounds like its really windy but listen for the popping in the exhaust. If you turn up the base you can really hear it.
VID 20130826 195834 - YouTube

Let me know if these helped at all or if you need better videos.

[HelpMeHonda]

I hear it, like faint backfires. Seems like the system is running too rich.

[Dr_Snooz]

Well, that second video sounds fine for a Cessna taxiing for take-off. LOL

Does this car stay sitting for long periods? I'm not sure why, but cars always have funky idle issues after sitting. Daily drive it and that should clear it up.

For the exhaust, are you hearing gurgling/popping noises? Mine developed those after replacing the cat. I did some reading and that happens with exhausts that are too small or restrictive or improperly shaped.

[BrownEye02]

I'm getting the pop but if you listen to my motor you can hear the miss fire. The muffler was replaced with what looked to be a oem muffler but it was replaced before my time so I'm not sure. The exhaust itself is stock. Infact if you couldn't hear I have a exhaust leak between my flex pipe and cat that will be replaced when I change the clutch.
As for sitting, recently yes. Since my job is a block away I probably only drive my car once a week. But this has been happening way before I got this job. My last job I drove to almost every week day and it would do this. Even after a 2 hour drive to my parents house doesn't fix it.

[HLW]

Well, that second video sounds fine for a Cessna taxiing for take-off. LOL

That second video took me back to taxiing for take-off in my grandpa's Cessna 182!

[BrownEye02]

So after a long waiting period I was finally able to replace my carburetor. New carb is installed and the car is running 10x better. Could use a little adjustment to improve idle speeds but over all a success. The only problem I've run into is one of the fast idle drop off airhose connectors broke off in insulation producing high idle when fully warmed up. Sadly it was something I found after everything was back together. Since the connector is hard to get to I'll have to get a quick fix on it until I get the time to replace the plastic connectors with the one from the old carb. Thanks for all the help on these issues! After this all that's left is to replace the clutch, flex pipe and fix my cruse control and my cars 100%. Well except for the A/C but that's gonna be a nightmare.