Ok well I am new here. I have a gas guzzling blazer and everyone told me to get a Honda. I said Na I will stick with my blazer. 6 months go by and I live about 121 miles away from work now. (one way) And now the blazer is hurting me. So I decided to look for a honda. I picked up a 93 Honda Civic with 101,000 miles for 600.00. I know it needed work but hopefully somebody could help me out. Car was idling REALLY ROUGH like at the point I thought it was going to die when I was stopped at a red light. The whole car is shaking. First I thought maybe it needs a tuneup. I did the following:
Plugs
Wires
Cap
Rotor
Fuel Filter
PCV valve
Air Filter
Maybe a little change. The car when takes off hesitates and then will go a little but it seems like it is under load all the time. I checked out the previous owner reciepts. Timing belt done last year, Fuel pump in March. So what could it be. I am stumped. I want to find out the great honda gas mileage.
Thanks alot
Brian

 

See if you can localize it to one cylinder. Do this by disconnecting one spark wire at a time while it is idling. When you disconnect a wire and it still runs the same, that cylinder is dead. Could be the fuel injector for that one if it has multiport injection (four injectors, one for each cylinder). Take the injectors off and clean them directly with spray carb cleaner. If you think it is an injector, you can also switch them around and see if the problem follows the suspect injector to the previously good cylinder.

Also double-check the firing order. It's 1-3-4-2 going clockwise looking at the distributor. The #1 wire should be at 10 o'clock. And put a timing light on it. There is one mark at TDC and a set of 3 at 10 degrees before. This group should line up with the ponter on the timing cover.. You have to jump the two wire diagnostic connector at the ECU to put it in timing check mode.

I'd do a compression test before spending much more time or money on it. You may have a bad valve or other internal engine problem..

 

ok I did what you told me to do as far as the pulling the wires. I switched around the injectors. I pulled the plugs when it was running and the only one that didn't seem to change was number 3. So where do I go from here? I got the car for cheap. Do you still suggest a cylinder compression test or is it just a dead cylinder? If there is any chance it isn't just a dead cylinder. So what else could it be. Or am I just doomed.
Thanks for all your help.
Brian

 

Yes if you switched the injectors and #3 remains dead, you should do a compression or leakdown test next.

There's the outside chance your new #3 plug or wire is bad, but that's unlikely considering it ran the same before you replaced it. It's also possible the ECU or wiring is bad so there's no drive to the #3 injector, again possible but a long shot.

 

Thanks for everyone's help. Turns out the guy who sold it to me knew it had a dead cylinder. Oh well selling it as is now. Doesn't really help me.
Thanks again.
Brian

 

Did you confirm no compression on #3? You could probably fix it with a rebuilt head or maybe just switch out a valve yourself. I would buy it off of you since I have a crashed '95 with a good engine, but I think we're too far away.

 

I live in Central IL now. Around Peoria in a small town called Henry. The car runs ok on the highway.
Maybe we can meet up.
Brian