Smoking hot exhaust

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88dxhbdaily

New Member
Ok this has got me puzzled and worried. My 88 dx hatch was running rough today and when I popped the hood to see what was going on I noticed that there was smoke coming from the exhaust pipes. Took a look under the car and it seemed that all the piping was smoking and you could litteraly see the heat radiating off all the pipes. Also it has a new valve cover gasket and there doesn't seem to be any new leaks. Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks in advance.
 
It still runs... a little rough and after a cool down... the problem(running rough) seems to come and go. This is the first time it has smoked like this... Got this car as some what of a project it was missing the air cleaner box and hose(box that attaches to the throttle body) no work done to it yet but was planning on doing a mpfi swap
 
so there is no air filter?
thats not good..
and i meant the last time it ran before you noticed it smoking..
were you having any trouble starting it when you started it the time you had this problem?
 
no most of the time it will start right up if not the first try then always the second and one of the reasons for the mpfi swap is that it has been pretty hard to find the stock hoses and box for the air filter... I figured good enough reason for the mpfi swap...
 
so theres no air filter?
lol

i think your injectors may be putting too much gas into the combustion chamber.
the same thing happened to me, smoke and heat around the exhaust.
the reason i think it happened to me is because i forgot to plug the coil wire back in when i was replacing the transmission and i tried cranking the engine hella times and i think it put hella gas in the combustion chamber then pushed some out into the exhaust where it got hot and burned.
lol thats just my theory.
 
do you know of any way i could test/fix this problem for the time being? At least until i can get a swap of some sort in. by the way thanks for the help
 
Running rough on a daily basis, smoking enough for me to look under the hood while it smokes just today and once before when i noticed a valve cover gasket leak(new gasket no visible leak)
 
coolant and oil level is constant and oil is not "creamy" I've been checking it on a daily basis 'cause of the problem.
 
gas cools down exhaust temps. rich mixtures burn a lot cooler than lean ones, so it's not that. if the car ran normally then all of a sudden rough with the heat problems, i'd be real worried that your timing belt jumped a tooth, which would retard timing and up the exhaust temp quite a bit and make the car run rough. get a timing light and check the ignition timing first. hondas can be picky about setting correct timing belt tension, if it was improperly set it can easily jump teeth.
 
gas cools down exhaust temps. rich mixtures burn a lot cooler than lean ones, so it's not that. if the car ran normally then all of a sudden rough with the heat problems, i'd be real worried that your timing belt jumped a tooth, which would retard timing and up the exhaust temp quite a bit and make the car run rough. get a timing light and check the ignition timing first. hondas can be picky about setting correct timing belt tension, if it was improperly set it can easily jump teeth.

would this be likely with it coming and going like it does?
 
so it drives normally sometimes? and other times it drives like you noted? if that's the case, it could still be a mechanical problem like a jumped tooth or blown head gasket (there are more symptoms than just water in your oil, especially if it broke between the pressurized oil passage and a water passage, or between water passage and combustion chamber.) but are you certain the "hot" exhaust only happens when it runs rough? see if you can locate a known good distributor you can try out. honda distributors are a long time enemy of mine, and the cause of many rusty hondas parked at our parents houses.
 
ill have to see what i can do... at least part of the distributor was replaced the second day i had the car before i brought it home(2 hour drive that i dont trust it on now) or else i would take it back to the mechanic that did that.
 
I say dizzy too. My friends DX ran like crap sometimes, then all the time then not at all. New Dizzy could fix the problem. If your dizzy ends up being bad fix it, don't buy a new one from any parts store cause they are crap. You can also replace parts in a dizzy cheaper than buying a new one.
 
Could you point me to a thread or how-to to nail down if its the dizzy? Thanks again for the help
 
well checked the dizzy and rotor was a little loose so i tightened it and guess what... still idles rough it will hold rpms for a couple of seconds and then drop down repeatedly. on acceleration itll bump and pop...new ideas? Oh and i got the timing light and all but cant seem to get to the spot to see the marks. molded plastic barely hanging on in the way
 
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just because the rotor was loose and you tightened it doesn't mean the distributor is good... distributors going bad cause all sorts of problems intermittently, such as but not limited to :
tachs suddenly not working, then working again, then jumping all over the place even at idle,
"dead-spots" in your powerband that seem to only move around when someone is trying to diagnose your problem,
misfires,
backfires,
stalling and sometimes not starting back up - other times starting and running fine,
hard starts - where you can crank for 10 seconds sometimes before the thing fires up,
and more.... sadly honda distributors of the obd0 variety are the weak link of our "legendary reliability" built motors. and as far as i know, only the igniter, coil, rotor and cap are replaceable in your distributor, so rebuilding does not fix these problems. theres a lot more going on in there, buy a lifetime guarantee one from your local parts store for around $150, you'll thank me later.
 
I fixed a DX dizzy once. I had to replace a small control board. It was $60.

Another time I fixed my 0BD1 Z6 dizzy by replacing the coil.
 
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