So today I bought a 1995 civic LX 4 door sedan with the manual tranny with about 250k on it. I got it for 500 bucks with a blown head gasket, I drove it home and put a new one on and did an oil change and drained the coolant and put new coolant in. It is running rough still and I just wanted some input on what to do
here is what is happening
-When I start the car it idles and about 1400
-It sounds like there is a slight random miss, i here a little blip in the exhaust
-On the first drive at around 5k it hesitated a lot and didn't want to keep revving but then later after driving longer it would rev more
-The idle would then drop down to about 500 and then hunt from 500-1000 ish and pulse

Next I plan to do is get some new spark plugs and through them in because I am sure they are nasty from the blown HG

Any ideas are welcome!
And thanks in advance!

-Christo

 

I'd definitely get the plugs and/or wires replaced. The plugs at minimum will need cleaning from the blown head gasket (they're probably coated in gunk).

I'd also check your IACV, there's a tutorial floating around on cleaning it, they can and do cause hunting at idle when dirty/sticking.

 

Alright I'll get plugs on today for sure then, alright I'll search for that. Thanks!

 

new plugs in, added coolant, cleaned IACV, took off distributor cap and cleaned contacts on it.

results- Car drives a lot better, it will rev to 6300-6400 before cutting out and over all is pretty smooth. Its so loud with the open manifold right now haha. I still have a bad idle it will hunt from 500-800 and sometimes drop down to "0" and it almost dies

 

could no exhaust affect the idle?

 

when i crank my fan up to full blast the idle goes up??