Got my civic running finally after 2 years of sitting in the garage. Put a new fuel filter, spark plugs (oem honda), spark plug wires, cap, rotor, fully tank of fresh gas (91 octane) and cleaned the aem shortram intake filter with the k&n recharger kit.

All that, and it runs like hell. Hella sluggish starting off, no power. I borrowed a timing light from a buddy, set the cylinders to 4 on the timing light, put the clip on the cylinder 1 spark plug wire (facing correctly), started the car, let it run until the engine was at normal operating temperature, checking the timing and it was a 1 degree. I set the light to 14 degrees and staring to rotate the distributor to advance the timing. The highest i could get it is 3 degrees, the distributor will not rotate any further. It ran a bit better, but know this is not correct.

The idle is also low, registering at 600 rpm, i adjusted the idle screw by turning it counter clockwise, and the highest i could get the rpn is 650.

So my question is, what would cause the timing to be retarded so much? Only thing i can think of is the sensors in the distributor are reading incorrectly.

Here is what the car has:

dc 4-1 headers (ex)
aem shortram intake
5zigen catback (ex)
performance cat (you can see right through it)
stock p28 ecu
obd2 - obd1 conversion harness

The only things i have not done, is change injectors, check cylinder compression, checked cam to crank timing marks.

Thanks for any help.

 

If your timing belt is off by one or 2 teeth it could cause this, so check that and that will most likely fix it.

 

Checked this morning. Can't believe i didn't check that -=/. It must have slipped when i first started it up after 2 years. Thanks for your help.

 

No problem glad I could help.