Wtf?!?!

[Grip72]

I just got my 98 lude and all of a sudden its starting to give off black smoke from the exhaust. I'm freakin raging right now ;( :confused: :mad: I talked to a mechanic at work and he suggested that i do an engine rebuild this winter. He will do it for me for $35/hour which isn't a bad deal at all. He has a drag car and he will do this for me. So i figure when i'm doing this, i might as well get a header, port & polish, maybe bore it out and ignition and a bunch of other goodies. But for now i guess i have to cruise around with black smoke ;( Now i have to wait til winter when i park it and fix it..this pisses me off so bad. I DO have a year's warrenty so i am goign to call the place tomorrow and see if i'm covered for this....fuck i hate my life

[VR4_Craver]

calm down its probably just a simple fix. Of course, if it is you should still park and do all those things to it ;) :yes:

[black95gs-t]

Originally posted by VR4_Craver
calm down its probably just a simple fix. Of course, if it is you should still park and do all those things to it ;) :yes:
+1

[IALuder]

black smoke = running rich. too much oil. did you change it? check the dip stick.

[biker's back]

hey man don't get your panties in a knot

[pdiggitydogg]

dude he has a reason to be upset...

Black smoke is running rich or a fuel issue. Have you looked at the spark plugs yet? That would be the final decision...go look when you have a chance.
If theyre coated black Id concider new plugs, new air filter, timing checked, and maybe a new fuel filter.
Whats your primary o2 look like?

You could always just try good old fashioned SeaFoam.
(I love that stuff!)

[VR4_Craver]

yea he does have a reason but its just a simple fix probably I would be pissed too. did you call those guys about the warranty??

[Grip72]

i posted that on friday evening....the warrenty place isn't open til monday morning again so I will call then

[ebpda9]

usually black smoke is associated with running too rich. it can be a faulty fuel pressure regulator or some leaking injectors.

[HndaTch627]

it's normal, get used to it, those cars do that from the factory, whoever your mechanic is knows nothing, black smoke is fuel, they run those cars really rich

[biker's back]

Originally posted by HndaTch627
it's normal, get used to it, those cars do that from the factory, whoever your mechanic is knows nothing, black smoke is fuel, they run those cars really rich

I finally agree wit ya!

[Grip72]

is that true?!!? if so, then screw the rebuild

[biker's back]

man aslong as its not oil its not like you're going to do damage, however I would have it checked out.

[Grip72]

yeah the mechanic i've been talking to hasn't worked with a honda before...but he figures it is dirty injectors or leaky valves or something of the sort

[biker's back]

ok first things first, find yourself a mech that knows honda and in particular preludes. It'll save you alot of time and money.

Rebuilding a motor might be worth if you were going to do something later, but to stop it from running rich would be pointless.

[Grip72]

ok i'll phone honda tomorrow or TRY to go there on lunch. The biggest problem is, i'm from a small town and there are NO preludes in town. Oour Honda dealer doesn't even have any for sale there. SO in other words, i'm the only prelude driver and its one of a kind here haha. There are maybe 6 1995 or older ludes and thats it

[biker's back]

well honda dealers knows hondas

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by HndaTch627
it's normal, get used to it, those cars do that from the factory, whoever your mechanic is knows nothing, black smoke is fuel, they run those cars really rich

wtf!? a car should not be smoking, period. your advice is worthless.

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by Accord17
I just got my 98 lude and all of a sudden its starting to give off black smoke from the exhaust. I'm freakin raging right now ;( :confused: :mad: I talked to a mechanic at work and he suggested that i do an engine rebuild this winter. He will do it for me for $35/hour which isn't a bad deal at all. He has a drag car and he will do this for me. So i figure when i'm doing this, i might as well get a header, port & polish, maybe bore it out and ignition and a bunch of other goodies. But for now i guess i have to cruise around with black smoke ;( Now i have to wait til winter when i park it and fix it..this pisses me off so bad. I DO have a year's warrenty so i am goign to call the place tomorrow and see if i'm covered for this....fuck i hate my life

is it black or blue? take a closer look, if your not sure get a compression check done(a leak down test would be good too) that should tell you if you need a tear down.

[ChrisCantSkate]

Originally posted by biker's back
well honda dealers knows hondas

yes, and they know that the customer bringing their car in dosnt. i got screwed by a honda dealer once... never going back.

[biker's back]

Originally posted by ChrisCantSkate
yes, and they know that the customer bringing their car in dosnt. i got screwed by a honda dealer once... never going back.

Might be a US thing, really. I don't know anyone up here that has had a probelm with a canadian honda dealer.

[ChrisCantSkate]

Originally posted by biker's back
Might be a US thing, really. I don't know anyone up here that has had a probelm with a canadian honda dealer.

well, its not that the blatently ripped me off, its just the fixed my car as a worst case senerio thing when in reality much less work needed to be done to do the same job. i dont see how this is a us/canada thing though, (i know you like compairing everything like that, but theres a night and day difference between central and south florida people and how things are done for example so to lump canada and america on business ethics is kinda generalizing.. just givin ya shit :cool:) its still a business in which the people who are hired are paid per hour, and if they know you dont know what is wrong with your car, you have already given them the oppuortunity to take advantage of you.

[biker's back]

Originally posted by ChrisCantSkate
well, its not that the blatently ripped me off, its just the fixed my car as a worst case senerio thing when in reality much less work needed to be done to do the same job. i dont see how this is a us/canada thing though, its still a business in which the people who are hired are paid per hour, and if they know you dont know what is wrong with your car, you have already given them the oppuortunity to take advantage of you.

I think its the cultural differences between the two countries that make the difference.

[KwikR6]

I don't think it matters.
I would be more concerned if your car was burning blue smoke, then black smoke.
I don't think I would be as mad as you are just yet.
So what's the word. Did you call the warrenty place?

[Grip72]

i called the warrenty place..they said its not covered
i called honda, and they said its quite common and with my amount of kms they said it's nothign to worry about. He suggested buying some fuel injector cleaner if im' that worried about it

[AzCivic]

you have a freakin 98 that shit should not be smoking. how the hell does the warranty place now if its covered, they dont even know whats the problem. do you have a copy of this "warranty".

[ebpda9]

i have seen quite a few of ludes smoking, but i don't think it's normal to smoke.

[ebpda9]

Originally posted by AzCivic
you have a freakin 98 that shit should not be smoking. how the hell does the warranty place now if its covered, they dont even know whats the problem. do you have a copy of this "warranty".

maybe they consider it regluar maintenance, and most warranty companies won't cover that, or they know the car is modified from stock and they won't cover that either. you really gotta read the fine print with them fuckers.

[Grip72]

taken from absoluteprelude.com

"yup i have a service news paper that honda gave me because i was giving them crap because my car was brand new and i had smoke at WOT, it reads... "On 97-01 preludes, at wide-open throttle, you may see what looks like black smoke coming from the exhaust pipe. That smoke is just soot in the exhaust system. Its normal characteristic and not a reason for concern. This soot also collects on the rear bumper because of the aerodynamic turbulence behind the vehicle."

[Grip72]

they said because its normal wear and tear and that they only cover mechanical breakdown

[ChrisCantSkate]

i get smoke at WOT in the high rmps... im pretty sure its just a thing with h22's

[AzCivic]

getting a little smoke at wot in the upper rpms is one thing, but "cruising" around w/ it coming out all the time is another. so which is it?

[Grip72]

smoke at WOT....and sometimes start up

it's REALLy hard to tell with tinted windows..i'll have to get a friend to drive behind me for a bit and tell me

[HndaTch627]

Originally posted by AzCivic
wtf!? a car should not be smoking, period. your advice is worthless. i would believe that if i didn't get that complaint at leat 2-3 times a month and that i haven't been working for honda for the past 4 years let alone been trained in their facilities....the preludes run rich, the black smoke is actually SOOT from the exhaust being knocked loose by the exhaust pulses.

thank you come again


next time know what youa re talking about before being such a blatent dick

[HndaTch627]

Originally posted by Accord17
smoke at WOT....and sometimes start up

it's REALLy hard to tell with tinted windows..i'll have to get a friend to drive behind me for a bit and tell me if it's WOT i am almost 100% positive it's just soot from the exhaust there's nothing to worry about, if you have a car that bogging/dieing and pumping black smoke all the time then you have a bad fuel pressure regulator or blocked fuel return line.

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by HndaTch627
i would believe that if i didn't get that complaint at leat 2-3 times a month and that i haven't been working for honda for the past 4 years let alone been trained in their facilities....the preludes run rich, the black smoke is actually SOOT from the exhaust being knocked loose by the exhaust pulses.

thank you come again


next time know what youa re talking about before being such a blatent dick

ok you dont have a clue as to what his car is doing all you knew was that his car is blowing smoke, not how much, how often or under what conditions. yet your gonna sit there and tell him not to worry about it. good job quoting his previous post about soot. typical tech guy, just dismiss crap as no real problem. then screw something else up if you try to fix it.

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by HndaTch627
if it's WOT i am almost 100% positive it's just soot from the exhaust there's nothing to worry about, if you have a car that bogging/dieing and pumping black smoke all the time then you have a bad fuel pressure regulator or blocked fuel return line.

oh so now all of a sudden it COULD be something out of the ordinary.
oh i guess a faulty fuel injector couldnt be the problem?

did you graduate from the midas -how to turn a wrench- class?

[GT40FIED]

Actually, I'm gonna have to chime in and agree with Az. Under no circumstances should your car be running that rich. And if Honda tells you it's normal then fuck them. I run a fairly rich 12:1 A/F ratio and never get any smoke out of my engine (no cats, just straight pipe). That was with a turbo at 12-18lbs of boost depending on the tune. For a mostly stock engine to be turning out smoke under WOT, it's just absurd. It could be injectors, regulator, O2 sensors, or some other Honda problem I'm not aware of, but don't let anyone tell you it's normal.

[ChrisCantSkate]

well... ive been around the prelude boards for amlost 4 years now, and i think almost every single person who owns a h22 has this "problem". one of my friends rebuilt his entire motor trying to fix this and nothing stoped it. i would get it checked out since it could be worse than we think, however h22s do run very rich from the factory, and this is a very very common thing for prelude owners to see. it makes no sence why every prelude does it, however once you realize that its a very common thing that really dosnt mean much of anything, you learn to live with it. i say take it in, and if nothings wrong, nothings wrong. if there is, then you caught it before it got worse.

[Racing Rice]

AzCivic, please what your language.

As for cars smoking. My civic blows black smoke at WOT also, and has since I got it (had 20K miles).The soot thing makes sense.

[biker's back]

I think its funny that its the non-lude owners jumping all over the honda tech. Guys honestly, common.

Hell when I really got on it in the RL the smoke was dark, guess what, thats because its pumping as much fuel as possible into the motor and it probably doesn't burn as nicely as under lesser loads.

Have it checked out and then realize this happens.

Can we all say it together? "ehhh it's a honda!"

[Grip72]

i think what i'm going to do is wait until winter here (my insurance expires in october anyways) and i'll park the car and me and my mechanic friend from work will take the engine apart. I want to get the head port & polished anyways and do some other work. Right now i'm REALLY contemplating turbo:yes:

[biker's back]

just remember high compression motors dont like turbo's so much.

[GT40FIED]

Maybe you could reflash the computer to lean out the fuel curve at WOT. If you're running rich enough to be smoking out the exhaust then you're running rich enough to hurt performance.

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by GT40FIED
Maybe you could reflash the computer to lean out the fuel curve at WOT. If you're running rich enough to be smoking out the exhaust then you're running rich enough to hurt performance.

:thumbsup:

exactly, he could get a vafc and get on a dyno w/ a wideband.

[AzCivic]

Originally posted by biker's back
I think its funny that its the non-lude owners jumping all over the honda tech. Guys honestly, common.

Hell when I really got on it in the RL the smoke was dark, guess what, thats because its pumping as much fuel as possible into the motor and it probably doesn't burn as nicely as under lesser loads.

Have it checked out and then realize this happens.

Can we all say it together? "ehhh it's a honda!"

you didnt have a clue what his car was doing, yet you tell him that its ok.
:rolleyes:

[ChrisCantSkate]

Originally posted by AzCivic
:thumbsup:

exactly, he could get a vafc and get on a dyno w/ a wideband.

vafc didnt fix mine.

[AzCivic]

so you're saying a vafc isnt capable of taking out fuel?

[ChrisCantSkate]

no, im saying it didnt fix my smoke at WOT "problem"

[AzCivic]

then i guess that smoke is not from being too rich then, if you leaned out the mix and are still getting smoke.

arent H22's known for having piston rings go bad?

[nonovurbizniz]

If the black smoke looks powdery... then it's fuel... if it's bluish and looks like "smoke" then it's oil burning...

DO NOT have a american car mechanic do a rebuild on a honda engine... no matter how good of a mechanic he is he's NOT the guy you want working on your honda engine.. it's an ENTIRELY different world..

Also if the guy is telling you to "rebuild" your engine because there MAY be a fuel injector issue then he's retarded... dirty fuel injectors can be replaced or cleaned... that's certainly not rebuilding your engine...

I've only really seen automatic honda's blow black powdery smoke... the manuals usually only blow smoke when it either has no cat or is on it's way out (rings or valve seals generally).

But I'm a civic guy... so I'm not too versed...

If it's powdery I wouldn't worry period... running rich isn't that bad unless it's CRONIC.

Sometimes car companies do it for WOT just to keep the temperatures down and ensure there's no detonation.