Well here it goes; I own a 1990 Honda CRX with what I believe is a 1.5 and 5 spd. Vehicle runs and runs great until the auto choke turns off then it starts spitting and sputtering down the road. Feather gas and sometimes ease up a little and your right back into running fine. It seems right off the bat until about 2500 rpms is rough then it seems higher rpms it straightens up until you shift, then your back to missing until you get it about that odd rpm range. Multiple parts and hours of time trying to get the car running right so I can enjoy the car the way it was meant to be drove. Any help would be appreciated
Check your fuel injectors. If you have the 1.5 with DPFI*, it’s got a stupid little “fuel injection” system that’s really a glorified carburetor. If one injector fails, it screws up the whole works, because there are only two, and the inject into the throat of the throttle body rather than the individual cylinders - all this means that a failed injector effects more than 1 cylinder and you get significant driveability problems.
Also check the vacuum lines. I had a similar problem on one of my CRX’s. Pulled my hair out looking for it and finally found that the guy who owned the car before me had forgotten to hook one up when he converted it from the above-mentioned fuel injection system to the MPFI system of the Si.
Also check for stored ECU codes. The way to do this is to wait until it sputters again, then pull over in a safe spot, leave the car running, and peel the carpet back from the passenger side footwell. You’ll see a rectangular brass plate with a little clear round window in it. Watch the window for flashes. Count the number of flashes in a row. Count them a few times, because multiple codes will flash sequentially. If it gives you any codes, post them here.
Check back in. I might be able to get you in touch with someone who can help you locally if we can’t figure it out.
- (here’s an easy way to check which engine you have, assuming no one’s done an engine swap: If it has a sunroof, you have the 1.6. If it has no sunroof and a 3-spoke steering wheel, you have the 1.5 with DPFI. If it has no sunroof and a 2-spoke steering wheel, you have the 1.5 with MPFI)
Sounds like bad wires to me…the faster you go the less likely it is to miss…or for you to feel the miss that is still there… One of your cylinders isnt firing… Cap rotor…wire plug check in order.
The faster you go the more load is on the engine and the more likely it is to miss.
Shadowfax made me laugh with his description of the throttle body injection.
I agree that th einjectors should be checked out as well as his comments about the vacuum lines, but in truth there’re a whole lot of possibilities. Yours is a distributor based ignition system, and at that age I wouldn’t be surprised if the ignition was erratic at idle. Put a timing light on it and see if the timing is fluttering around. If it is, check the distributor for lateral and axial play along the rotor shaft. High idle could be masking a flakey ignition. The vacuum can best be checked with a vacuum gage. The nice thing about using a vacuum gage is that if you have any sticky valves they’ll show up also.
I ran into the worn distributor shaft problem once.