Hello all,

Its been a while. I come back with a similar but not identical question about what to do with the 1989 accord LX.

Short history: Got a 1989 LX automatic for Sister. Was the second car I bought and I did not quite check it out enough. Engine was bad with low compression and a lot of blow by. Carb was ok sort of except choke was broken. Ended up instead of abandoning the car to try an engine swap because why not. Junkyard engine came with the whole carb/intake piping works on it. At the time I was under some duress and working with another guy and did not think to swap the whole works off from the old engine to the new. After the swap, the good news was that the junkyard engine worked quite well and had great compression. The bad news was that there were a lot of idle issues and also the engine seems to have been from a manual transmission car so there was no vacuum line for the idle increase from the A/T (also had to manufacture something for the TV cable)

So now with good engine I want to try to make it run better. I would not be surprised if 90% of the little vacuum diaphragms on the carb now are not really working - everything was kind of rusted out. I replaced most of the vacuum lines but that did not help too much. Also the choke heater connection never worked so we ended up drawing 12V from the ignition coil circuit which I know is not really the best idea.

So long winded story there but here are the actual questions:

1) Is there a better place I can draw 12V on with key on than the ignition coil if the original choke heater wiring has failed?
2) Should I try to replace the carb? Should I try with a remanufactured original carb or try to go with one of these Weber carb hacks I have seen around, which looks like it bypasses a lot of the vacuum mess.
3) If the former above, how much does it matter if the other non-carb vacuum diaphragms above the engine are wonky? Should I be trying to get a replacement for all these things or is it not worth bothering?

I have had a lot of fun working on the car and I hope to keep it going for a while more if I can. Thanks for putting up with some of my hit-and-run questions in the past!

Thanks for reading.

 

I have to admit I'm not "around" as much as I once was.....so this might take a while since I don't post as much anymore.....long story.

Can you describe the "issues" a bit more?

Off the deep end, there is a three way thermo valve/ported vac switch (PVS) on the drivers back side of the engine that supplies vac at "set" temps to the carb. If you are having "strange" high idle issues when the car is warm/normal op temp.

BTW - took my little 89 LXi out for a ride this past weekend.......brake sank to the floor. tried bleeding....broke bleeder off the right/pass rear, great . Next weekend or maybe over the next few, new master cyl going on, at least one wheel cyl if I can't get the broken bleeder out. I will soak the left/drivers rear real good and see what happens with it

I'm about 1/4 of the way into a starter replacement on the 07 Accord - have to remove the plenum to get to it

Then I don't even want to get into the carb issues I'm having on the push mower. Put a new diaphragm in it and broke one of the governor springs

My luck just sicks sometimes

 

Wow man, I don't expect you to be the only one who ever replies either! You have helped me out a lot over the years - let me know if you needed me to send you any of those replacement brake parts!

As for the issues, heres whats up. Keep in mind this car is used not by me but rather someone much less mechanically inclined so some things which I could easily overlook I have to think about more i you know what I mean.

-Car will not stay running when cold without pressing gas. This of course takes much less time in the summer than winter.
-Choke only opens with the heater, it seems like the other vacuum devices which are supposed to pull it don't work so it basically sounds like its running really bad while the heater is opening. Makes all sorts of funky noises. Again this does not matter when warmed up.
-Car has stalled a few times while at a stop over the past weeks, which was one of the main reasons for posting this again. Will start right back up but of course its kind of scary.
-Because the carb was from M/T and also the A/C idle raise thing does not work*, the only way to keep it at 900RPM or so while in gear and A/C on is to turn up the idle screw all the way. This of course makes it rev really high in Park and also it really slams on the transmission when put in gear.

Basically it would be nice if it could startup without holding gas down for 2-3 minutes, and drive without stalling out. There is basically no intelligence to the idle at all right now. Out of curiosity. Assuming that the car was in peak new condition, how long are you supposed to wait after starting before putting in gear?

* this was because I had to hack the A/C delay board to get the compressor to turn on at all. It was completely rusted out and parts falling off. In order to fix this I need to rig both the electrical side and also most likely fix the vacuum soleniod on the driver side.

 

I would dig out the service manual and study the vac lines for the choke. I would agree that is "seems" like some of them might be missing vac.....or the diap in some might be bad.