We just bought a 96 Civic CX for cheep as hell. Its got only a few things wrong/need to be done that we know of.

1st: The idle is very strange. Its normal when its cold but once it warms up it boggs pretty heavily almost like you shut it off but then started it up halfway through. Once its warmed it does this probley every second or so. Before we go replacing random ---- I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas. Also we got this from a good freind of ours who bought it about 8 months ago. When he bought it, it didn't have this problem so it happened just from sitting there.

2nd: It comes with a brand new timing belt/water pump, and my father said he would pay for the CV my civic needs if I put them in for them. Are the timing marks the same as they are on my CRX (91 si) or if they are different does someone have a diagram of what they should be cause I seem to be a master of knocking at least one thing out of wack everytime i change a timing belt.

 

regarding the rough idling...definately sounds like a vacuum problem of some sort. My DX does the same thing...idles fine when it's cold and once I've been driving it a while it idles low..around 200 rpms. Mine doesn't "bounce" like yours does though. If I turn on the heater (no AC here) on high the idle will speed up to around 500.

------- thing has me puzzled.

 

if the idle problem if from sitting for 8 months. is the car running on 8 month old gasoline? check all the vacuume hoses and the pcv valve.

 

Yeah, if it's just been "sitting" like you say for 8 months, then you might want to put some new fuel in there... I don't think it'd be a vaccum line, if it's just been sitting. Before replacing everything, i'd put some "Marvels Mystery Oil" (which is like $4) in there and see how that does with the idle. That stuff is magic, works great.

 

how much you pay for urs i paid $2100 for my 96 cx in lime green

 

Another possible cause is the fast idle valve. It is part of the throttle body, on the bottom of it, and has coolant lines running through it on most engines. Play around with it, take it off, plug the hole in the throttle body before the butterfly, etc to see if this is the possible cause.

Or like others said, check all the vaccum lines and make sure all the sensors are plugged in.

After that, start testing / test replacing sensors to find a possible cause maybe.

Still no luck, check back. Good luck.