Low idle 2000 civic

[Jessica Haines]

Hello,

I’m trying to resolve a low idle problem on my 2000 civic…..Before I start throwing tune up parts at it and hunting vacuum leaks, I wanted to run a few peculiarities by the experts….

1) I replaced hg 2 months ago. For 1 week, idle was great, where it needed to be and steady. Then, I was concerned about my hg install (a long and embaraasing story) and I know some people recomend retorqueing headbolts after ~1k, so I did that, and low idle problem came back. Coincidence?

2) I’m concerned could be something funky with ecu….let me explain….car has throwntorque clutch concertor circuit CEL since I bought it. Ive done everything recomended to resolve short of replacing tranny, no luck. Sincw the car drives and shifts fine, was just going to live with till tranny was more insistent for help.

But, now the peculiarities, at some point in last 2 months, the CEL started resetting itself whenever car is off more than 5 minutes, then comes back on when triggered by tcc, and repeat. Does this sound like bad elctrical connection to ecu?

If so, I’m wondering if this could be impacting my idle issue, not the tcc code, but some general ecu issue.

One last factor, I’m concerned about my ignition timing. A poster on different honda forum said that after setting timing to red mark 12 btc with jumper clip in service connector, that after you remove paperclip, timing should change significantly. Is that true? I’ve rechecked timing after removing jumper, and didnt see any change…..again, wondering if that could point to ecu issue

Thanks in advance, hopefully not too much info, just wondering if they could all be related clues to a single problem

Topic

[mckrishes]

I would check your battery and charging system first. I say this because you CEL light is resetting when you turn the car off. The check engine light won’t reset by itself, at least not after 5 minutes. You should check the TCC solenoid to see if it is within spec. If it is, then you most likely have an impending torque converter failure. You can hear some whining just before it fails completely.

The ignition timing is controlled by the computer. When you take the computer out of the loop, you can set the timing properly. Then afterwards when you remove the paper clip, the computer should take over control of the ignition timing. You may not see it change with idle, but you will with varying engine speed.

In my civic, my TCC set the check engine light in my civic. I would reset it and it would come back on again at 55 mph and above, but never at lower speeds. Soon after I heard a whining noise from the transmission and then shortly after that my transmission failed completely. I could start it up and it would work for like 30 seconds and then it would stop shifting. I changed the transmission out myself. It wasn’t as bad as I expected.

[Jessica Haines]

Thanks. Good info, especially re: whining noise from transmission. Thats good to know! Thanks….

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