Questions and Answers

Honda CRX Runs Well Cold, Dies Warm Q. Here's what I have: 1988 Honda CRX 1.5 liter D15B6 engine 200,000 miles PGM- FI 5 speed manual transmission

Here is what's wrong, at higher rpms, i. e. before it warms up it runs good, no problems at all with the exception that the idle might be just a little bit rough. However, after warm-up any time I try to give it gas from an idle, unless I am very light on the accelerator, it will sputter and sometimes to stall. Couple this with putting any kind of load on the engine and it will stall every time.

A precursor to this problem was that after warm-up the rpms were surging, between about 300 and 900 rpms, when it was at an idle. I was able to adjust the idle up to about 850 rpms to stop this in the hopes that as the problem progressed a clear solution would present itself. If it has I don't know what it is.

Here's what I've done so far, I've replaced the O2 sensor. Due to financial constraints I used a Bosch universal O2 sensor after reading, somewhere on this site I think, that Bosch spark plugs don't work in a Honda that well. While I'm on that subject, I wouldn't ignore any advise on what kind of plugs and wires I should be using. It seemed to fix the problem perfectly, that lasted about three days, now its right back to the same thing.

I've also tried to adjust the fuel pressure regulator to no avail, probably just complicated things, sorry. Now before I spend more money I don't have, I wanted to try and get a more experienced opinion. Any advise I can get would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Southpaw

A. I would check the Coolant Temperature Sensor (CTS). It is easily done with an ohmmeter. These are the readings you should get.

Engine	Year	Sensor	Resistance Ohms @ degree F/C
All EFI	1985 to 1990	Coolant, Intake Air	15,000 to 20,000 @ -4/-20
			5,000 to 7,000 @32/0
			2,000 to 4,000 @68/20
			900 to 1,200 @ 104/40
			300 to 400 @176/80
			100 to 300 @ 248/117

If you have a scan tool that can read the temperature the CTS is reading, that would be much more accurate. With a cold engine the CTS should be within three or four degrees of ambient air temperature.