Honda Accord 1993 2.2L F22 Engine Tinkering

[Damien Hill]

Hi Guys,
My car (1993 Honda Accord Wagon) has developed a noise which only happens occasionally and when the car is warmed up. I recently installed a new distributor due to the old one dying, and now since then its been making a lite pinking noise when your going up a hill or when the engine is under a slight pressure. I checked all the timing and re-adjusted it so the pointer was pointing at the red mark on the flywheel. And now it still seems to be doing this. Any ideas on what else it could be?

Cheers

Topic

[Charles]

Your ignition timing is still wrong. Eric has some videos on the site addressing this. You should also be seeing a loss of power. If you timing is too advanced (firing too soon) the engine will not ping but will be hard to start. If it is too retarted (firing too late) it will start fine but have lower power and ping.

[Damien Hill]

Thanks for the reply, I don’t have any issues with power as the car drives the way it did when I brought it. And since then I have done the Timing belt twice. I have the distributor set so its on the red mark on the fly wheel with the timing light.

[EricTheCarGuy]

It sounds like you have the timing correct. I’m not a fan of aftermarket distributors however. I’ve seen nothing but problems with them. You might consider a valve adjustment if nothing else to check to see if the valves are loose. It could also be an EGR issue if it’s under load. That year didn’t have EGR monitoring and the passages in the intake tend to clog up and cause an engine miss under load. Lastly, make sure you’re using the correct oil. It should be 5w30 if memory serves. Here are some videos that might help. You will have to perform a different procedure for cleaning the ports however they are in the same location as the engine in the video.

[Damien Hill]

Thank you for your reply Eric! – I have been running the car on 15w-40 since the last oil change. Wouldn’t 5w-30 be too thin for a engine of this age? The way I understood it as an engine wears a thicker oil is better?? The car has 260,200km on it. But if your positive that 5w-30 is suppose to be in there I will change it out. I’ll also do a valve adjustment soon too. Appreciate your reply.

[EricTheCarGuy]

ALWAYS USE THE OIL THE VEHICLE CALLS FOR and in your case it’s 5W30. NEVER use an oil viscosity other than what is called for by the manufacturer. Running the thick oil that you’ve been running may have caused engine damage, particularly to the valve train as it’s probably been starved for oil for some time. The thicker oil takes a LOT longer to reach the top end of the engine and as a result it’s like running the engine without any oil at all. Running thicker oil in an older engine is complete crap. If your engine is worn running thicker oil will make things worse, not better. It may be too late, you may have damaged the internals of the engine and that is causing the noise. That said, see if you can track down the source of the noise. A loose timing belt can also cause top end noise. A loose timing belt will also effect ignition timing. Lastly, you can’t just put a timing light on to check ignition timing. You need to follow the procedure to properly set ignition timing when setting the timing on that engine. That information should be found on the underhood sticker.

[Damien Hill]

Hi Eric, Thank you for your input here. I went to the Honda Service Garage here in New Zealand and brought some Genuine Honda Oil. I told them the situation and in my case what you have said above ^^ is 100% correct. Honda said they only put 10w 30 in all their cars. But they said all their engines should be running 5w 30 / 10w 30. Over here the only oil that Honda recommends to run is 10w 30 so I brought a bottle of that from them. Appreciate your help on this Eric, its always great to learn something new.

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