89' accord idle problem

[razr_88]

I have an 89' accord LX with the carberated motor. When starting up the engine the idle becomes uncontrollable as it will idle in excess of 2500rpms and occassionally all the way up to 4000rpm. Once the motor warms up however it calms down and idles normally(or normally for my car since it has worn rings).

i have a feeling it has something to do with an autochoke mechanism, but not too sure. any ideas before i start throwing parts at it?

[razr_88]

any ideas at ALL? taking suggestions lol...

[Ralph123]

After your car warms up a little, just punch the gas pedal. that should turn off your auto choke.

[somick]

Have you tried carburettor spray?

Sam

[razr_88]

Originally Posted by Ralph123

After your car warms up a little, just punch the gas pedal. that should turn off your auto choke.

yes, it doesn't help, in fact sometimes this makes it worse.
ill try the carerator spray and get back to you.

thank you for your advice!

[Dr Laser]

There is a warm up mechanism. When engine starts carb butterfly is closed to get rich mixture. And there is a warm up spiral (stone age tech) that keeps RPM high. From 2 to 3k. When car is little bit warm you need to press a gas rapidly to make butterfly open and spiral to stop working. I spent good amount of time fixing this spiral. Because if it's pushing too much then you will always have high RPM on idle is too weak engine will stall on warm up. Open up your Carb housing and watch whats happening there.

[Adasm]

My wife's car does the EXACT same thing!!! We've never been able to pinpoint why it does this and I posed this question awhile back. She has just learned to live with it and just wait until it warms up every time. We've noticed that as soon as it warms up to the 2500rpm mark, it's safe to kick it down. If you do it before then, you'll get the 3-4 minutes of 4000rpm. So, until you get a solution, just have patience. My only suggestion, which we haven't gotten around to yet, is to find a garage who has excellent experience with carburetors (even a performance shop might do) and have them rebuild the carb or give it a once over.

[Dr Laser]

Originally Posted by Adasm

My wife's car does the EXACT same thing!!! We've never been able to pinpoint why it does this and I posed this question awhile back. She has just learned to live with it and just wait until it warms up every time. We've noticed that as soon as it warms up to the 2500rpm mark, it's safe to kick it down. If you do it before then, you'll get the 3-4 minutes of 4000rpm. So, until you get a solution, just have patience. My only suggestion, which we haven't gotten around to yet, is to find a garage who has excellent experience with carburetors (even a performance shop might do) and have them rebuild the carb or give it a once over.

It is that spiral I was talking about. I controls RPM when you start engine cold and carb butterfly closed. It has to be replaced or adjusted so engine doesn't go higher the 2K.Normally it has to be below 2K. Ideally 1.5k.

[Adasm]

So, when the car is initially started in cold weather (winter), what rpm should it normally be kicked down at? Or what temperature? And what is normal idle rpm?
Also, how do I adjust or replace this spiral? What is it's proper name?

[Dr Laser]

Ok I just fixed mine. The main thing is called fast idle adjusment screw. It's located under a idle screw. Very very hard to reach or even see. You need to take off your air filter assemply. Now mine is cold idling around 1500-1800rpm and I can see it's slowly dropping more it gets hotter. If I need to drop it right away I simply rev the engine and it jumps to 900rpm or 750rpm in gear. Also you may need to adjust choke spiral. It's controlling mixture while engine is cold. If engine starts to choke you need to adjust it.