Blackfly Down - FIXED - thanks.
 

Sorry, couldn't resist the thread title.

Apparently I've been boasting too much lately how trouble-free my Fireflies have been, and the universe took note. The Blackfly took ill suddenly today, and I'm out of ideas on what could be wrong.

Here's what happened: was out getting supplies for the tranny swap. On the way home, after bump-starting the car at one point, it started as usual, but running really roughly. So I quit codfishing and just pointed for home. Mileage on the SG plummeted to 25 by the time I got in the driveway.

Black sooty smoke is coming from the tailpipe, even at idle, and it smells to me like it's rich (duh).

The CEL is not on.

There was one code stored in the computer, which may or may not be related to the problem, but I'll say it anyway: it's for the camshaft position sensor, AKA the distributor pickup coil. My kill-switch is wired in this circuit, and I have mistakenly generated this code before by trying to start the car with the switch in the wrong (off) position. I did make this mistake on my previous drive, so that's probably where the code came from.

I removed my switch from the circuit and also swapped a known-to-be-working sensor over from the ForkenSwift. No go. The car runs the same.

I reset the error code and it hasn't come back. No other codes are coming up, and the CEL is off, which is really surprising considering how crappy the car is running.

Spark plugs are black as night, covered with soot.

Battery voltage is fine (I re-connected the alternator).

Any suggestions where I should look next?

The first thing that comes to mind is that you might have a bad flux capacitor.:)

Sorry Darin. I can't help but I wish you good luck. It least the flea still runs. Maybe low fuel pressure?

Check your timing?

Fixed! The flux capacitor was a little loose.

(If only it were that easy...)

I don't think fuel pressure is low, since it seems to be getting far too much of the stuff.

Timing hasn't changed. Distributor is lined up exactly where I left it.

I wonder if it's coincidental that it happened after bump starting.

Is it rly fixed? I thought it might have jumped a few teeth or some ****. I don't see what bump starting would have to do with it, larry was just cruising when his car went kablam.

no, not really fixed.

Do you know if jumped teeth would cause these symptoms?

I'm not rly sure about jumped teeth, but it's often said it will prevent a honda from starting if it's bad enough and if your timing is way off it's quite concievable you'd be ejecting unburnt gasoline. And jumped timing is just something that happens randomly, which is why I thought of it.

Plus, I'm not sure why it would have jumped. At least, I don't think I can point the finger at clutch-starting... I should probably check it though.

I think I'm going to go drive it around a little and see if I can get the CEL to come on. That would be helpful.

EDIT: if the timing were way off, wouldn't it be hard to start too? It starts up OK. It just runs like crap and is spewing black out the back.

The dizzy could've crapped, that'd be easy, just check the timing marks (you have them, right?)

Don't know if this will help but saw the post and googled the black smoke from tail pipe and found this: It's for an Explorer but might be worth looking at.

Most likely you've got a blown fuel pressure regulator, which is pushing
fuel directly into the intake via the vacuum hoses that connect on the
drivers side toward the rear of the motor on the side of the upper intake
manifold. To test this, on a COLD ENGINE remove the two 'hard' plastic
lines from the vacuum tree (they'll have rubberized right-angle nubs) and
get someone to flip the car off to on for about 3 seconds, you should hear
the fuel pump run. If gas comes out of either of the hoses, you need a fuel
pressure regulator (only one of those hoses is the fuel pressure regulator,
its just too bothersome to trace the lines, just yank em both)

Also found where the said could be a clogged injector?
Just trying to help but I'll leave to you guy that know alot more than I ever will. Good Luck.