Give me some ideas on what to check

I started my crx for the first time last thursday, a couple little bus, but nothing major. Fiddled around and had it almost all done except 2 codes, 14 - IACV and 20- Electric load detector.

Well, the car is at my shop and I've been pulling it in abd out of the shop daily to make some room, it always fires right up no problems. This has been for about a week.

Last night I went to start it, and it almost fired up, but didn't. Subsequently, every time I tried to start it after that, it would just crank over. We can smell fuel in the exhaust (it's open manifold at the moment) and there is spark at the spark plugs.

Where should I look?

Have you tried cleaning out your IACV? Code 20 is difficult to diagnose, I say start by checking all your grounds: tranny, thermo housing (probably rusted, get it cleaned), and valve cover.

Code 20 is electrical load, alot of times cars will have old stereo equiptment installed and removed, or installed incorrectly which will create a short or load and throw that coad, but Id try the tips mentioned above first. The IACV, if it isnt bad, can be cleaned and it usually helps. If you do a quick search youll find plenty of ways to do it.

I started my crx for the first time last thursday, a couple little bus, but nothing major. Fiddled around and had it almost all done except 2 codes, 14 - IACV and 20- Electric load detector.

Well, the car is at my shop and I've been pulling it in abd out of the shop daily to make some room, it always fires right up no problems. This has been for about a week.

Last night I went to start it, and it almost fired up, but didn't. Subsequently, every time I tried to start it after that, it would just crank over. We can smell fuel in the exhaust (it's open manifold at the moment) and there is spark at the spark plugs.

Where should I look?

did you do a swap or something? Is your car an '88?

Actually, I'm gonna go by the shop and make sure it's not out of gas, I tried to start it yesterday after it sat a while and it almost started and then wouldn't.

did you do a swap or something? Is your car an '88?

?????

Yeah, d15b vtec on an '89, running a p28 and obd1 conversion. I'm going to make sure I have all thr grounds in place, After I put some gas in it.

Yeah, d15b vtec on an '89, running a p28 and obd1 conversion. I'm going to make sure I have all thr grounds in place, After I put some gas in it.

believe it or not, i've seen a miswired EACV/IACV prevent a car from starting for some odd reason. I should know being a wiring guru and whatnot, but I don't. Do me a favor and trace the eacv wire (blue/blk) to where it goes to the ecu for obd1. If that's in the right place, then do me one more favor and unplug the other wire from the eacv (black i believe). See if that makes the code go away and helps the car to start. It's worth a shot as I've seen it before. I know it sounds crazy, but there are about 1% of EF's that had some wiring differences with some sensors. I know the 88's had different wiring for the eacv, but some other years had it too. Trust me on this one. I've done mpfi swaps on over 50 cars and on most of the 88's, i get an eacv code at first until i unpin the negative wire. I've seen this on maybe one or two 89's too. It might have something to do on where they were made (japan, usa, canada...not sure).
Hope this helps.

cool, I'm going to work on it today, we'll see what happens, thanks for the tips.

not to be a thread jacker, but my car does kinda the same thing. i just fiddle with the gas pedal a lil and she fires right up. but i got a 90 si with a b16 obd-1 p28.

mine smells like gas a lil too, but the motor still needs a breakin.

Finally got a chance to work on her this morning. I started thinking about the symptoms and how abrupt is stopped running, pulled the line off the FPR and no gas, hahaha. I had removed these tacky APC indiglos off the car and it appears I put the needle about 1/8 of a tank off and I just didn't snap that it was that low in the first place.
Now about that IACV, is that the one behind the intake manifold with the coolant lines running underneath it? I took that off and cleaned it out. Or is that the one under the throttlebody? Either way I still have code 14. I will look into it later as I have to work now.

No, you cleaned out the right thing. The thing underneath the throttle body is the FITV, it gives your car a mini vacuum leak when cold, so its can idle a little high. Since your code 14 didnt go away when you cleaned out your IACV, you might have the miswired it like bambam said.