92 Civic VX

[atempasta]

Howdy Everyone,

First day on this site and it's looking like I might be able to find some answers I hope!

Okay, a couple months ago I became the proud owner of a 92 Civic Vx, it has about 160,000 Miles on it. The only catch is the acceleration problem the car has. The man I bought it from replaced the MAP sensor, Coil, TPS, 02 Sensor (not L1H1 however) it's obviously not an NTK brand, Plugs and Wires,
Distributor cap, and Rotor....now here's the problem.

If the car is not warmed up at all, it will run fine..but after about 20 minutes of running my car is having troubles hesitating and feeling bogged down. If I lightly press the gas pedal or feather it I can usually get the car to run pretty smooth, but the problem isn't getting better by any means. In first gear the car pulls back and hops and skips until I reach around 1900 RPMs and then will go smoothly, now 2nd gear and I have the same situation just a different gear. 3rd will give me a little hesitation but if I'm easy on the gas it just accelerates a little slowly. 4th gear seems to be most versatile and sound, giving me not too many problems. 5th gear is one of the worst until I reach 65 MPH and an RPM of 2,200 and even then the car is still feeling a little jumpy. It almost feels as if the car is starved for fuel..but I'm not that seasoned of a mechanic to know.

The other "quirk" of this car is it loves to idle very funky-like. Whenever I'm stopped or even driving slowly down the road in 1st gear, the car will go back an forth from 1000 to 1500 RPM's rather quickly...I'm not sure if this is related to the first problem.

I've cleaned the throttle body and other than adding a few miles to the gallon has done nothing else. I suspect the 02 sensor really needs to me the correct NTK part/model for this specific car. Generally I have to drive at a higher RPM, typically 2200-2500 for the car to run well. On the uphills..nightmare..on the downhills, not so much.

I've used Seafoam to clean all that nasty carbon from my engine and fuel lines. Unplugged the 02 to see what would happen, slight changes but still same problems. I really really love this car and have such a desire to fix er' up. Anyone with ANY suggestions would be so helpful.

Cheers, Ash

[GasSavers_TomO]

Welcome to the board, Ash!
Read here if you haven't already: VX Info

You might want to try a proper EGR Cleaning: HERE

Also you can take off and clean the IACV (Intake Air control Valve): HERE at 23.7.1 in the second post.

Make sure there are the proper plugs in the car NGK Vpower ZFR4F-11 (not the ZFR5F-11 that all the autoparts stores will try to sell you for it).

That should get you well under way to making your VX run right.

How many wires are on the O2 sensor that is installed in the car now? 5 on the Sensor side and 7 on the car harness side?

[jmf]

Sounds like O2 sensor to me. I think the O2 sensor is not used until the engine is warm.
Good luck

[GasSavers_BEEF]

I know there is a place where you can get an 02 sensor for $99 which is really cheap for the 5 wire deals.

there is a link in theholycow's signature (a user here)

[theholycow]

I think the company that was selling them ran out. I know someone failed to buy one from them recently. It's still worth a try, though, I guess.

Edit: Looks like they've got them again.

[jmf]

Thats the place I got mine and it works great. If you get a VX you should just put a new O2 sensor as part of the tune-up. The VX needs the sensor to work perfectly.

[atempasta]

Wow! Thanks for such quick responses everyone! You all have such good suggestions/solutions. I will get the proper O2 sensor, I've known that I really need to have a proper one, as the Vtec is pretty picky. The plugs are next and it seems like following TomO's post advice will really help me out. If any other suggestions let me know...hopefully I'll be posting a hooray message this time next week!

[Fuel Miser]

Hmm... no "hooray" post, how'd things work out?