Ok. I bought my 92 VX February this year. I was driving it home when the CEL came on. It didn't come on when I test drove the thing for an hour... ARRGHGH. Ok so I drove it to work and back the next day and on a 200 mile trip before I diagnosed the CEL. It said that the VTEC oil pressure thing was faulty. So I took it in for an oil change and the guy told me that there was like 1.5 qts of oil in there! AAARRGHH! Well the CEL hasn't been on since the oil change.
Next I took it in to get it smogged. I failed cos of high hydrocarbons (550ppm vs. 167ppm standard). So I did a complete tune-up, oil change, installed a CAI, and ran some Techron through and drove around for two weeks and took it in again to fail yet again! AARRGGGH! But at least this time HC was at 350ppm. So I switched out the injectors for a working, used set that I got off eBay for $25. One of the injectors that were in the engine already was missing that little, ultra-fine filter. AAARRGGHHH. I think that messed up the injector and it dripped fuel rather than spraying it.
And then I remembered that I hadn't checked the PCV valve. That was caked so badly with gunk like it was nobody's bitniz. AAARRGHHH. So that was replaced.
But still the exhuast smelled bad and after reading post after post, thread after thread here at AF, I thought my catalytic converter was going bad. Cos the CEL stayed off the whole time. And I was dreading having to spend $270 bucks on a new cat cos it mounts on the exhaust manifold. AARRGHHGHH
Well I took it in again last Saturday after driving for so long and guess what: it passed the high speed test but barely failed the low speed test. The guy at the emissions shop put in a bottle of fuel system cleaner in the gas tank, some other stuff in through a vacuum tube into the intake manifold and a bottle of oil treatment in the crankcase and told me to drive for another week. And come retest.
Well, the guy who sold me the car was a BMW mechanic and one would assume that he would know something about general maintenace. Boy, was I wrong! That punk hadn't changed oil regularly and let the PCV go to $hit. I think that the stuck PCV caused a lot of blow-by get into the combustion chamber and let an ungodly amount of deposits build up. And that dripping injector just added to the woes of me VX. What an incompetent idiot. AARGGRGHH!
Well, let's see if I pass emissions finally, come Saturday. I'll update as things happen.
Thanks for listening and for the therapy.