Keith, I also put a DGEV on a CVCC engine. We ran that engine in two different cars for YEARS without issues. It started in a 1982 Prelude that started having serious carb issues. I couldn’t find anyone willing to touch it. A replacement reman carb was way more expensive than the DGEV. The DGEV was a simple replacement and was easy to adjust. I must have put 60,000 more miles on that car until I slipped on some ice and hit a tree with it.
I kept the car, hoping to find a reasonable fix for the bent unibody. 6 months later, a friend told me about a '77 Accord with a worn-out CVCC engine in it for sale. I purchased it for $100, swapped engines with some minor welding required for about $300 total, and we drove that car for another 5 years and about 70,000 miles. Never had an issue with it, ran like a dream. We actually traded it in for a much newer car when we were expecting our first child. I saw that car some 2 years later, still on the road.
Well since you havent already RAN…which you should have done… Roll up your sleeves and fix that ignition system…give her a proper tune up and then tell us where you are at with all this. We have given you a wealth of info here and I bet you can get her running just fine with all this advice…and a tune up… Get to it man.
I took apart the distributor and cleaned it all. The vacuum advance diaphragm was broken (I think) and I need to get one of those.
Note: i think means i could suck as much air as i wanted through the hose going into the diaphragm
Good as this all might sound, there is something strange that might offset it all. So, I put it all back together, minus the air filter and pan. The broken vacuum advance was in place and connected. I started the car and took it for a very short test drive, 1.5 miles or so. It ran perfectly. power, speed… everything. It’s cured!! (yeah right) I got home and put everything back together. It smelled like it was running a little rich so I turned the float screws down a little tiny bit, carefully taking note of the original position. Figuring it was fixed I started out to town to relay the good news to you.
Nothing, the problem was back. Figuring the float screws had really been in the right place and I turned them back the 1/8 turn. no good. I tried manually advancing the spark to see if that would fix it. nope. it would run good, but in little surges like before…
GOD DAMNIT…FIX YOUR IGNITION SYSTEM… Get a working diaphragm in there new plugs cap and rotor and wires…Until then you will have problems… and more problems…
DO THE TUNEUP…before trying to figure anything else out… Did I state this clearly enough young man?
Thanks… Sure, I know I need to do a tune up, BUT… I live 30 miles from where I can get pieces. This makes fixing my car difficult if I don’t have the pieces. The other problem is that I can’t just go and do what I want whenever I want. I’m 16.
Plugs, Wires, Vacuum Diaphragm. Got it.
Thanks.
P.S.
you said not to make you come out here. That would be pretty hard, seeing as you don’t know where i live, and that it’s probably hundreds if not thousands of miles away.
1981, the year the worst cars ever made were made…The carburetors used on Honda’s and most other Japanese cars were virtually beyond repair when they were new…Super complex and impossible to work on, they changed designs every 4 months trying to pass the new emissions regulations…Finding the parts and skills necessary to work on them today will be impossible…Too many different things moving in too many different directions…
Most of the worlds automakers got the message and paid Bosch the licensing fees for their fuel injection designs…Not Honda…They kept screwing around with CVCC technology and ever more complex carburetors and endless emissions problems until they finally, in the early 90’s, paid Bosch and moved on…
It was a joke Bemehiser…get it? Guess not… and if I did come out there…we would have your HOnda running like a top Quick Fast and in a Hurry… I’m not some idiot trying to pick a fight with a 16yr old over the internet… Sorry.
***Also dont forget a Distrib Cap and Rotor in that parts list of yours… Thats important too !!!
Caddyman sure is correct…81’ what an ABYSMAL YEAR…for just about everything really… Cars especially…LOL… I cringe even now thinking about the pre computerization of autos…there was a rather Dark Age when we were in between computer controls/emissions stuff…and the older bare bones engines… I think you guys know what I am talking about. I am also surprised that Honda did NOT use up the entire WORLD SUPPLY of vacume lines in making all of their vehicles for a time there… I mean they must have used a Country Mile of vac line in ONE VEHICLE…LOL
I thought HONDA used their own propriety Fuel Injection system…PGMFI? No? It prob was a throwback to Bosch in some way tho huh?
You know since this discussion began I have had an itch to actually investigate where all of those vacume lines went and what they were for…on those particular years of Hondas… I mean there were SO MANY of them…it was dizzying.
Just checking. You cleaned the distributor, did you lubricate it. You have to lubricate the weights for the mechanical advance and the sliding plates the vacuum advance is attached to. Use a light machine oil, sewing machine or 3 in 1 will do. I have used 10w30 synthetic oil for this as well.
One thing not said here, so I will say it, while the Honda carburetor is one of the most complex ever made and nearly impossible to fix, it was very reliable. I think most of the problems with that carb were self inflected by people who got in over their head with it.
By now it is quite obvious that the 3 bbl carberater was a nightmare, as were most emission carburetors. But I have seen the Weber carburetor and the Holley copy and although it is a good design, will the CVCC combustion chamber operate without feeding the pre-combustion chamber?
I think it will work, but not in the way it was intended to. It may shatter the lands between the compression rings near the piston pin, but that won’t really lead to a problem until you go to rebuild the engine.
I once owned a 1985 Accord SEi.
This was Honda’s first fuel injected car sold in the US.
When my cousin was impressed by it he decided to get a 1986 Accord.
I told him absolutely get the fuel injected model LXi, not the carb model.
“will the CVCC combustion chamber operate without feeding the pre-combustion chamber?”
The pre chamber gets the same mix as the main channel with the Weber.
The vacuum lines…There was about 2 dozen of them…They all found their way into a black plastic “Vacuum Control Unit” mounted on the firewall…What it did, how it worked, how do you know if it’s working? These things have never been answered…You just hooked everything up and hoped for the best…Many cars had oxygen sensors, computers (crude) and “feedback” carburetors that added mixture control solenoids to the already overburdened package of emissions controls…The first check engine lights began to illuminate dashboards and produce emissions test failures all by themselves! OBD code scanners? Sure! Every car maker had their own proprietary scanners available only to the dealers…Or you could screw around with a jumper wire and make the CEL blink out the code …Hours and hours of fun!
Those screws you’re adjusting are idle mixture screws, not float screws. Those screws only affect the fuel/air mix at idle and just slightly off-idle. The minute the throttle plate starts opening to any appreciable degree those screws are irrelevant and do nothing because no fuel or air is moving past them or through the idle circuits.
Lack of power at speed or any bucking and jerking has nothing to do with those screws.
Something for consideration. Maybe the ignition switch is breaking down electrically.
Later model Hondas are under a Recall for switch problems but those switch problems go back a long way into this era of Honda and also into post-Recall Hondas.
Switches can be a hit and miss affair.
By 1985, Toyotas entire line was injected, as were most GM and Ford cars…Honda was forced to cave in, settle the huge lawsuit over infringing on Bosch patents and meet the competition. By '86 or '87 even Chevy P/U’s were injected with TBI which skirted around Bosch patents…
Hey, remember the Ford Autolite Constant Velocity Four Barrel?? Now THERE was a piece of work…
Like Keith and myself have stated…those Honda carb systems …while nightmarishly complex with vacume lines…DID SURE work very well… In fact I have never had to mess with any of the ones I owned and each of them say many many trouble free miles. I think Keith got it right again by stating that any carb or fueling issues were almost always “self inflicted” by their owners.
I sure do remember that Black Box on the firewall…I opened one up a few times and just put the cover back on… TONS of vac lines… What were all of those lines used for …I SWEAR that I have no idea to this day… But I am getting more and more curious…
I should have an older Honda repair manual sitting around somewhere…time to crack a beer and have a look maybe? LOL
Not true. I had a 1990 Toyota Pickup with the Aisin 2-bbl carb. The pick-ups went EFI standard in the 1990-1/2 models. If I only waited 6 months…
But, the only problem I ever had with that carb was the Auxillary Accelerator Pump that went bad and would cause the engine to run rich until it warmed up. That was by-passed with a vacuum cap and treating the truck tenderly until it warmed up.