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Rilas : 2004 Acura TL Base w/ Navigation

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    #16
    Great news man!! Update us with some pics!

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      #17
      nice ride bro, I have the same car same color, 6 speed

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        #18
        Alright so it's been forever since I've updated this thread. Basically I got the car drivable and haven't really touched it since. I haven't even done the first oil change on it yet as I've only put maybe 2500 miles on it, in 10 months. This is mostly due to the fact that I've had a check engine light on since the time the engine was reassembled. It's been throwing a P2279 code. About a month ago I decided to finally tackle this, so I could get this beast above 13 MPG. It doesn't help that I have a heavy foot too.

        After much thought and debate about what to do to fix this code, I decided that it was definitely a DIY project and not something that I wanted to take it to a shop for. To find my air leak I knew that I needed to smoke test the engine. Only problem is that smoke testers are expensive, and I didn't want to fork over a $100 to shop just to smoke test it once. So after a good bit of reading and some thought I was able to make a engine smoke tester for about $50, that I can reuse as many times as I need. Sadly here is the list of materials I used to accomplish this. (I'll get some pictures up for you guys later today. They are at home and not uploaded.)

        1x Paint Can
        1x Air Hose Connector
        1x Propane Pressure Valve
        1x 10' of 3/8" Nylon Tubing
        1x Epoxy (I used Honda Ultra Flange II as I have a couple tubes of it laying around the garage.)
        3x 3/8" Threaded Barbed Fitting
        1x Styrofoam Block
        1x Pack of Incense (Pick a scent that you like, otherwise your going to have to deal with a shop that smells like something you don't like.)

        To build this you install 2 of the barbed fittings into the paint can lid and seal them up with your epoxy. While those are drying out install the last barbed fitting into the exit side of the propane pressure valve. Install the air hose connector to the inlet side of the propane pressure valve. Take a piece of tape and roll it up on itself and stick the styrofoam block onto the bottom of the paint can in the center. Cut a small piece of the nylon tubing off and install it between the propane pressure valve exit side and a barbed fitting on the paint can. If the tubing won't slide over either of the sides heat it up with a heat gun until it's soft enough to slide over the fittings. Install the rest of the tubing on the other barbed fitting. Congratulations! You now have an engine smoke tester.

        The awesome part about this smoke tester is that it doesn't matter how much PSI that your air compressor puts out the propane pressure valve lowers it to just below 1 PSI of pressure, so none of the evap stuff will get blown out. Begin the setup by inserting about 8-10 of the incense into the styrofoam block on the bottom of the paint can. I had to break them in half to get them short enough to work in the paint can. Once all of the are setup and spread out from each other, go ahead and light them on fire. Once all of them are lit, hook up the air hose to the propane pressure valve and put the lid on the paint can. The light air flow is just enough to keep the incense burning and creating smoke. Now hook up the tubing to a vacuum port on the intake manifold and wait for the magic to happen.

        Take note that I built this to find my air leak. Well it turns out I had a few problems all stacked together, that all contributed to this error code P2279.

        First off when putting my injectors in on 1-2-3 one of the o-rings cut the edge off. This was the largest air leak by far, and caused me not to find the other initially.

        I fixed this the evening that I found it. I had purchased some new injector o-rings from Honda before I smoke tested the engine. I figured I had fixed the air leak and all was well. Big joke on my part for thinking that this was all solved. Did a second smoke test after the CEL came on again. Couldn't find anything. Talked to a buddy who is a mechanic and he suggested that I need to adjust the valves as a set might be too tight on both sides causing the valves not to seat and have an air leak there. Well this past weekend I adjusted the valves. Lets just say whoever did them last, really sucked ass at it. I don't know how or what I did before when I reassembled the engine to have them that far off. Anyway, valves all adjusted, I thought for sure I had this licked. The car runs much better than before, not that it was running bad by any means. But a day after the valve adjustment the damn CEL pops on again. Well last night I had a bit of time on my hands I put Ava in the garage again, and smoke tested the engine again. This time nothing for a few minutes, then eventually a small trail of smoke started to come out of the EGR valve! So when I replace this POS, if it does not fix this CEL I'm going to rip some hair out I swear. I've had this in the garage a few other times working on the air leak, just nothing came of any of it, but these were the major events in the progress to fix the CEL.

        Once this CEL is fixed we will probably start taking Ava on some of our trips instead of Ruby, as Ava should be much nicer on fuel than the '09 Pilot.

        Really though I haven't hardly done anything with this car other than drive it. I haven't even fully scrubbed the interior down from the last girl that owned it. I started doing that 2 weekends ago but only got the passenger area done. This week I'm going to finish scrubbing down the interior and I'll take a few pictures then.

        I'll get some other pictures of this car up as well, since I kinda slacked off on it once, it was running.
        MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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          #19
          Dam! Ya. You had quite the challenge ahead of you. I always liked using this page for codes. Basically your engine has an air leak somewhere, good luck finding it. Jeesh, this could end up being a broken bolt, etc.

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            #20
            Yea Raf I'm not even sure how to reply. I've torn the top end of the engine apart about 5 times now. Hell I've gotten down to just the heads on the block without even the lower runners bolted onto them. It's just dumb how much I've worked on this engine to try and solve the air leak, and basically most of it has been for nothing. Although I'm starting to make some real progress. I'm seriously hoping that a new EGR valve, will finally fix the CEL for good.
            MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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              #21
              just lately I've started to realize the areas an engine can lose air. it was more than i though. Long ago I had a leak around the nipple on the TB once. Took YEARS to find it! Was standing in the mechanics bay one day, me him and his partner. Partner hears it, walks over, finds it, sticks his thumb over it and idle smooths out, etc. Me and other buddy both tilted our heads like dogs do... like "how the fack did you hear that!?1"

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                #22
                Originally posted by Raf99 View Post
                just lately I've started to realize the areas an engine can lose air. it was more than i though. Long ago I had a leak around the nipple on the TB once. Took YEARS to find it! Was standing in the mechanics bay one day, me him and his partner. Partner hears it, walks over, finds it, sticks his thumb over it and idle smooths out, etc. Me and other buddy both tilted our heads like dogs do... like "how the fack did you hear that!?1"
                It is stupid in how many places the engine can leak air. Even more so on these V6's as you have a second head with adds even more places. Some of us can just hear those certain sounds that the rest of us don't.
                MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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                  #23
                  Here are some of the pictures I told you guys I would upload. I don't really have many of the car overall. I need to fix that, maybe I'll wash her this weekend and go driving a bit to find a nice spot.

                  J32A3 Torn Down (Attempting to fix engine leak again.... This was a couple weeks ago.)


                  2004 Acura TL Engine Bay


                  EGR Leaking Smoke (I don't think it's really visible but I was trying to capture it leaking smoke.)


                  Smoke Tester 1


                  Smoke Tester 2


                  Smoke Tester 3


                  Next Friday I'm going to order a new EGR valve. But I might wait until the following week. As we are headed to Spokane on Friday as well. So I might just see if one off of the 02-03 TL/CL is the same, and if so just try my luck with a junkyard EGR valve.
                  MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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                    #24
                    Alright so update time. I've replaced the EGR valve with one from the junkyard. I have 2 others I picked up as well. All of them came from 2000-2003 Acura TL's. So after replacing the EGR valve and gasket the CEL came on again. Same thing P2279. Tonight I'm going to smoke test it again, and see if we find yet another leak, or if this valve is bad as well.
                    MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Originally posted by Rilas View Post
                      Alright so update time. I've replaced the EGR valve with one from the junkyard. I have 2 others I picked up as well. All of them came from 2000-2003 Acura TL's. So after replacing the EGR valve and gasket the CEL came on again. Same thing P2279. Tonight I'm going to smoke test it again, and see if we find yet another leak, or if this valve is bad as well.
                      I think you need to up the smoke too. The leak should be noticeable with a large amount of smoke....

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                        #26
                        Originally posted by Raf99 View Post
                        I think you need to up the smoke too. The leak should be noticeable with a large amount of smoke....
                        Depends on how large the leak is. A pinhole will only leak so much smoke, no matter how much is behind it.
                        MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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                          #27
                          Smoke tested the engine again. No leaks this time around. The intake side of the engine pressurized nicely and didn't leak smoke. Talked to my mechanic buddy again. Options are looking like some valves are still possibly too tight, or that a sensor is starting to get lazy (O2 sensor telling the engine it's too lean when it's not) that is tricking the ecu into thinking it has an air leak. If the second is actually the case, he says my option is to hook it to a diagnostic computer and watch the actual sensors and such. I'm seriously hoping that I can track this down mechanically rather than in sensors.
                          MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

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                            #28
                            Ya, even my quick search seeing the same thing.
                            "Basically comes down to checking vacuum leaks at the: PCV valve/hose, PCS line, throttle body, intake manifold and brake booster hose. If all of the components are not leaking, then a cam timing check is the only other test."

                            Ummm and the piece of machinery to show you the graphs you need to see costs a truck load of $$$. Love watching South Main Auto YTube chan, he recently did this vid on an accord V6 with a slight miss at idle.

                            But at the same time you'd see smoke if the timing was off a hair and air is leaking by. Or is the air leaking by only under compression/load?

                            Doubt the O2, do you really have to do an idle relearn procedure?
                            https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-p...-p2279-886563/

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                              #29
                              Yeah the relearn procedure sucks. I think I might have found my issue! I believe it's either my PVC valve or the o-rings on it. It's something I never took off the valve cover. Honestly I didn't even realize I missed it. Well I took it out tonight and holy shit was it totally covered in old crusty oil. Well after cleaning it all up, it certainly sounds like the spring in the check valve is shot. I ordered a new one on Monday from Honda. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and put it in there. Hopefully this will finally solve this damn CEL P2279! I'll update again with the results.

                              I think this might be literally the only thing I did not replace that is internal to the engine. I certainly would have replaced it when I rebuilt the engine if I had known it was there.
                              MRT: 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe (Lola)

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Originally posted by Rilas View Post
                                Yeah the relearn procedure sucks. I think I might have found my issue! I believe it's either my PVC valve or the o-rings on it. It's something I never took off the valve cover. Honestly I didn't even realize I missed it. Well I took it out tonight and holy shit was it totally covered in old crusty oil. Well after cleaning it all up, it certainly sounds like the spring in the check valve is shot. I ordered a new one on Monday from Honda. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and put it in there. Hopefully this will finally solve this damn CEL P2279! I'll update again with the results.

                                I think this might be literally the only thing I did not replace that is internal to the engine. I certainly would have replaced it when I rebuilt the engine if I had known it was there.
                                How ironic, i read that on a forum but didn't think to mention it. It was a guy who had a crack in the PVC but on the inside of the rubber? Something like this. Was impossible really find that via troubleshooting or reading graphs.

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