CAUTION: LONG POST!

Ok, so the 95 LX that we have started idling really low a couple weeks ago. If left at idle it would search up and down and gradually decrease. Eventually as the car warmed up it would drop so low that it would stall out.

At first, the car started back up just fine, but then it started to have some issues and would not start right back up. At first, it would just crank for a while before turning over. Then when that got a bit worse, we'd just have to push the gas a lil' bit and it'd start up. But this weekend it finally cut out, stalled, wouldn't start no matter what...ended up having to tow it home.

Now here's the kicker, when the car is running, it runs beautifully. Perfectly fine, no weird noises, no issues...but as soon as ya stop moving, everything goes to hell.

So far we have:

- Cleaned throttle body/iacv
- Ran fuel system cleaner
- Changed PCV
- Changed O2 sensor
- Changed air filter/fuel filter
- Changed brakes/rotors (not really related, but it did help the car from stalling for a little bit)

- checked plugs, they seemed fine, got new ones anyway but haven't put them in yet.


So yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. This is getting really frustrating and confusing. No idea where to go next, probably going to pick up new cap/rotor and see if that helps any. ><

 

I'd check for vacuum leaks first since that is cheap. Then I would look at the throttle position sensor (TPS).

Cleaning the IACV is good, but it does not always solve the problem. IACV's can go bad and a cleaning will not fix it if it is dead.



michael

 

Well it's not even starting now, so kinda hard to check for a vacuum leak. Checked it over this morning, it gets spark, but won't start. Sprayed ether into the intake, still wouldn't start. So now I'm at a loss here...going to check the dizzy and I dunno maybe the timing belt later.

 

Not to overhead mmhoward1 but with a vac leak the idle would have increased drasticly and not necessarily drop erracticly, and LTFT would have taken effect. It could possibly be that the EGR being stuck open. When the car was running did ur check engine light come on and off? Did you do any type of emissions test? Also check your MAP sensor, sometimes that goes bad as well, but I think most likely the EGR. You may have to do component testing since the engine is not starting. Grab yourself a Do-It Yourself book for specs and a DMM meter!

 

Its OBD I though right? No engine swap or turbo? Also make sure if you changed the engine that the ECU is the same for the engine year and model... just came to mind.

 

if you can find an EGR valve on a 1995 Civic LX you are the worlds most amazing person. Let's know what the motor even has on it before we start playing technician shall we?

First things first, are you getting spark/fuel/compression. Throwing parts at it and cleaning others isn't going to help you pin point the problem.

 

If you can get it to start up again, first thing I'd do (either w/ the car idling by itself or someone giving it moderate throttle to hold it close to where it would normally idle) is disconnect the EACV, just pull the plug - the idle should drop when you do this, but not quite low enough to stall. If it does stall when you do this, it could be that the mechanical idle setting somehow changed. I forget the exact setting, but it's supposed to be ~450rpm I believe with the EACV disconnected. It varies a little depending on MT or AT, but not much. The "actual" idle varies more depending on trans., w/ the EACV working it's 650 MT, 750 AT.