zmwang

Hi, all.

My 2000 TL suffers 'hot soak' issue now and I wanna do some engine tune up by my self. The TL has ard 140k and it is 2nd hand.

Issues and what have been done:
1) as the weather getting warmer and warmer, I encountered misfire at first and got P0301, P0302, P0305, P1399, etc as commonly be found on the Web.
2) the car has 'hot soak' issue, i.e. every time you drive for a ride and stop to get sth, meal. When you come back, it cannot start. You must let it rest for a while, say 30mins before you can get it run again. ( I wasted one AAA service because of this).
3) I decide to change the spark plug at first and 6 new NKG platinum SP have been put into my car.
4) I have detected the ignition coil issue and found none of the coil is not working, neither idle nor up to 2000rpm. So the coil can be ruled out.
5) I've cleaned the cover of intake manifold as well as the gasket.

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I understand that I should clean the IM as well. But first, I don't have a place to work at this. If I drive to auto zone parking lot, the engine will be hot and it is not possible for me to take the IM out in the next few hours. Unless I wanna waste my whole Saturday there. Second, I am not confident to put everything back if I can successfully pull everything out.

So now I am looking for a sub optimal solution, i.e. whether I can clean the IM passage without taking it out? My ERG main port is not really clogged out but I can see lots of carbon residual ard there.

I searched for any threads, tutorials. But none of them talking about how to clean the IM and ERG main port without taking it out, and what cleaner should I choose?

Any suggestion will be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

victus1

I seriously doubt your problem is a "heat soak" one. Heat soak is when the winter fuel additives have separated the gasoline in the gas line located within the engine compartment after the engine is turned off for a while. That "bad gas" will cause your engine to misfire because it won't combust properly. It should not take 30 min to pump that bad gas out of the gas line and consume it before your engine starts right up again. It usually takes about 2 or 3 tries of starting the engine to pump out the bad gas from the line.

An intake manifold clean will do nothing for this problem....if indeed you have this problem.

To do a proper IM clean you must remove the IM and clean it with carb cleaner.....look up the DIY. And you must also remove the the IACV from the throttle body and clean both of these items too.

zmwang

I see. So if my problem is not in "heat soak" category, what will it be?

What should I do next besides the thoroughly cleaning the IM and IACV.

victus1

I have thoroughly cleaned the IM, TB, EGR valve and IACV. This didn't fix the problem I have with this rough idle (heat soak) issue. The dealer fix is the Acura TSB-01-001 which states to change the computer and fuel regulator.....$1400+. No friggin' way I am doing this.

Another person has managed to fix it by installing a fan in the engine bay to cool the fuel line for 15min after engine shut off so the fuel won't separate.

The ultimate solution would be to figure out a way to return the fuel in the line to the gas tank after engine shut off.....problem fixed!

Again, I am not convinced that "heat soak" is your specific problem. Maybe you have an erratic fuel regulator or fuel injector(s). You need to pull out the coil wires one at a time to trouble shoot this problem and isolate it. But if it is actually "heat soak", then any such diagnosis is useless. Installing a temporary timer fan to cool the fuel line is probably the best trouble shooting method to determine whether in fact it actually is a heat soak issue.

zmwang

You are probably correct coz when I start the engine, I don't feel it wants to start as lacking fuel inside.

But I didn't try to start many times to pump out that bad gas coz I am afraid I will burn the starter. I just go sit somewhere and wait for ard 30mins to let it cool by itself.

victus1

If you have a heat soak issue, then your engine should start on the first try.....but it will misfire and run rough for about 30 seconds or so. I shut it down and restart it once or twice and the problem disappears once the separated gas has been consumed.

I think your problem is something else if your engine won't start and run properly for 30 min.

01tl4tl

what plugs exactly did you install, the correct ngk iridium or ngk platinum that cost 8 dollars each? or some 2 buck ngk the parts counter kid said will work~
if so immedialty replace with the correct plugs
then reset ecu for fun, pull clock fuse for a minute to do that

coil codes can be false from wrong plugs,,its misfiring because the plugs melted!
coil testing by power lead removal-rpm ck, or swapping coils around- reset ecu and see if codes follow coil

carb cleaner or seafoam to the throttle body air plate, and run seafoam thru the gas tank twice at 1 16 oz can to just under half tank, will solve many problems,,piston carbon loading, fuel line crudding, valve stem sludge etc

It will NOT clean the egr system,,you must remove the intake manifold
there are pics in the diy,,mark everything on your car as its removed and compare to pics
Look in Regions section for ziners near you who can help you diy
or find a local high school/technical school that will do the work for cheap
At a total noobs casual careful plodding pace, its less than 2 hours start to finish

this job needs to be done every 75kmiles, per our megamod with 400,000+ MILES on his 00 TL,,but its not listed in any service book,,experience figured it out

zmwang

Yes, now I am convinced it is sth else.

Besides the fuel regulator or injector, what else can it be?

Someone saying it might be crank position sensor or ERG valve problem.

Maybe next time I should try to disconnect the ERG valve first and try to start. If I can start, I probably need a new ERG valve.

victus1

Personally, I would remove the intake and throttle body and IACV and EGR valve and clean them with carb cleaner until there is no spec of crud left. Also run 2 bottles of seafoam in a full tank of gas.
Also make sure you have the correct spark plugs and they are in good working order, as 01tl said.

I have done all this stuff on my car. Only then can you rule out that this is not causing your problem, as I did.

After that, you can begin to look at diagnosing parts and replacing them.

smartypants

The EGR system is completely separate from from the engine. It simply puts a specific amount of exhaust gases into the IM, reducing the amount of NOX produced. If you were to remove the valve and put a cover plate over the valve mount hole, the engine performance would be completely unaffected.

Those who claim that there engines run better or worse due to the EGR valve don't understand how it works or are..well...misguided.

Your starting problems might have something to do with vapor lock.

smarty.

zmwang

will try to disconnect the ERG valve and run for a few days to see whether it is ERG.

fsttyms1

Just take the intake manifold off and clean it. You can do it at home. Just buy the cleaning stuff first.

fsttyms1

There IS a fuel return line. Fuel injected cars have them.

Also one of the reasons for the ECU replacement is there is a baro sensor in the ECU that if it goes bad can cause this. Any one having issues like this should look into a new FPR first.

01tl4tl

buy a torque wrench accurate at 12 and 15 foot pounds
see harbor freight tools or sears
a small set of metric wrenches, some screwdrivers and socket set will complete your TL repair kit $50 for all

Do the egr system cleaning, the manifold blockage will shock you!
While the throttle body is sitting there on the bench, flip it over to clean IACV,
and clean the movable air plate inside TB throat (that big disc blocking access of air to engine)

quit screwing around and follow the advice of people who went thru your problem and solved it thru basic maitenance

victus1

Maybe it is a bad barometric sensor in the ECU which contributes to this heat soak problem. But I don't wanna spend $1000 for an ECU to find out if it is or not.
As for the Fuel Pressure Regulator, the dealer only sells them with a new ECU for the 2000 TL's (I'm not sure about other years).

Here is what another forum member (Casey) said on this heat soak issue:

"The problem exists with the 2000 models in areas of the country that sell "winter fuel" in the winter months. After you drive the car and stop, the problem winter fuel in the lines will boil and separate. When you restart the car, the separated fuel will go through the engine and cause the rough idle. Only 2000 model years are affected because in that year, the US gov't told automakers that any fuel left in the lines can't be returned back to the tank for emissions reasons. I didn't ask why later models don't have the same problem..Acura must have found a workaround. Anyways, the way they fix the problem is that they replace the fuel pressure regulator "which increases the fuel pressure to reduce the potential of fuel separation". Not sure how, but this is what he told me. Because they replace the fuel pressure regulator, they have to change the ECU because the ECU is hard-coded with the old fuel pressure regulator's settings."


So it seems the the fuel does not get returned back into the tank for emission reasons.
And yet, even other year models are exhibiting this same heat soak problem.


fsttyms1,

Do you know of any way which I can FORCE the fuel in the line to return back into the tank after the car is shut off? Maybe putting a small pump inline to turn on for 5 secs after ignition is shut off?

zmwang

Thanks. I will try to do the IM cleaning if I have the resources.

The problem for me, I rent apt, and no place to do such DIY work. The only place I can do simple work is autozone's parking lot. Everytime if I drive to autozone, the engine is very hot. it is hard for me to take it out due to the temperature, unless I let it rest there for hours before taking it out.

So, to my understanding, I summarize like this:
1) My problem is not 'hot soak' as you can start up the hot-soak engine by few more tries. Mine won't start even you try few more time. Must let it cool down a bit before you can start it.
2) I live in PA and they do sell 'winter fuel'. And during winter, I don't encounter such problem. It must to do with either the 'winter fuel' or the warm weather, directly or indirectly.
3) Besides cleaning the IM, IACV, I may have to look for fuel pressure regulator (ECU) as well.

Any simply way to narrow down this problem to FPR? If it is due to that, I don't wanna spend that $$$$ money to solve it, I will just live with it.

zmwang

Today I go wash my car. The trip takes about 30mins high way drive.

After came back from the wash, I shut it off and restart it after 1min, it can start as normal.

Does it mean that if I let it sit for 10mins about, the fuel is vaporized?

If it is really related to the temp/bad reading, once I shut it off, it won't be able to start right, coz the engine is very hot at that time.

typeR

my car threw those codes becuase a bad CAT

fsttyms1

just looked it up online and its available to purchase without the ECU

http://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org/...catdisplay.jsp

zmwang

But it needs proper ECU settings to control the new FPR, right?

01tl4tl

call one or two of our sponsoring dealers- they are happy to look things up,
ck with a tech, or whatever is needed to get you the correct parts

TLer trash

I think you're barking up the wrong tree with regards to trying to empty the return line. The problem is lack of fuel [caused by it boiling off], in the supply line. Furthermore, it takes a fair amount of time for the fuel to boil, so 5 seconds after shut down won't help. If you could circulate fuel from the pump, through the fuel rail, back to the tank every few minutes for 10 to 30 minutes, I think you'd solve the problem. Sounds like a lot of time and money to me. Alternately, if you could rause the fuel pressure in the supply line, you'd rause the boiling point of the fuel. My guess is that is honda's solution to the problem; installing a fuel pressure regulator that gets the pressure high enough to avoid boiling. The problem with that is that the pcm is designed to keep fuel trims close to zero with the original pump. Upping the pressure is going to force the pcm to subtract fuel almost constantly. I'd be willing to bet that raising the fuel pressure high enough to stop the boiling will exceed the pcm's ability to subtract fuel. Or at least not well enough to pass emission standards. I really think if there was a cheap fix, honda would have found it.
The last variable is the fuel, which I thought might be changed by now. I asked the owner of a local station last week, and he told me they don't have to change until june! [ in michigan, at least ]

TLer trash

You're heat related, but not "heat soak" problem sounds like a main/efi relay to me. Someone recently posted how to repair/resolder them here. Typically they fail more often on first start of the day, but they definitely fail more often in hot weather.
Cam and/or crank sensors can fail when hot, as can any electronic device, but they aren't real common honda failures.
It would help if you could narrow it down a little: do you have spark? fuel delivery? injector pulse?

victus1

Yes, this is what they call "heat soak" in the TSB which requires to change out the fuel pressure regulator + a new ECU, costing around $1500.

A cheap fix would be to empty out this supply line whenever the ignition is turned off. Maybe this can be accomplished with some type of small pump....I have no experience with automotive plumbing.
Another member here has managed to fix this problem by installing a timed fan in the engine bay to cool the supply line for 15 min after the ignition is turned off. This remedied his problem.

In any case, dealing with the gas in the supply line....either cooling it or getting rid of it will fix the problem without spending $1600.

There is no winter gas in my area now, so I am not having this problem currently.

01tl4tl

it takes about 2 months for the nations gas supply to get changed back to summer blend

01tl4tl

try insulating the fuel lines with a special heat wrap tape
we use that on airplanes to keep fuel from boiling when parked

or an intake manifold thermo spacer from p2r or outlawengineering.com
that will prevent as much `rising engine heat` as possible- from saturating the intake manifold, which in turn heats the fuel rails

TLer trash

I'm still not following your logic in emptying the supply line. Let's say that the boiled [separated] fuel is a 50% mixture of air and fuel in the supply line. If you empty the supply line you're starting with 0% fuel which would require even more cranking and stalling as you get to the 50% level.

TLer trash

Good ideas, as well as cracking the hood open, and removing engine covers. My daughters car is doing this, but it's infrequent and only takes 30 seconds to pass so I'm ignoring it for now. Some people are ok with the problem once they know what it is.

fsttyms1

No, its simply a mechanical device to control the fuel pressure. No ecu control over it what so ever.

zmwang

spark yes, and I changed all of them.
fuel pump working, relay working, I can hear the sound.
Injector pulse, not sure.

Right now I haven't had this issue for almost 2 weeks. Will keep monitoring. If this can last for 1-2months, then my problem is kinda relating to the fuel. But the real fix, still unclear to me.

zmwang

really?

how about this quote?

"The problem exists with the 2000 models in areas of the country that sell "winter fuel" in the winter months. After you drive the car and stop, the problem winter fuel in the lines will boil and separate. When you restart the car, the separated fuel will go through the engine and cause the rough idle. Only 2000 model years are affected because in that year, the US gov't told automakers that any fuel left in the lines can't be returned back to the tank for emissions reasons. I didn't ask why later models don't have the same problem..Acura must have found a workaround. Anyways, the way they fix the problem is that they replace the fuel pressure regulator "which increases the fuel pressure to reduce the potential of fuel separation". Not sure how, but this is what he told me. Because they replace the fuel pressure regulator, they have to change the ECU because the ECU is hard-coded with the old fuel pressure regulator's settings."

victus1

But where did the air come from if there was originally fuel in the supply line? How does the boiled/separated fuel get converted into air? I am not sure, but it seems that this "blended" winter gas is chemically separated by the heat exposure ....i.e. the winter additives are molecularly torn out of the fuel. Hence, this new soup mixture of fuel + other chemicals cannot be burned efficiently by the engine, causing it to misfire until this mess is all consumed and out the tailpipe (about 30 secs).


In the old cars where the fuel pump is run by a cranking engine, you would need to crank it to pressurize the fuel line. Our electric fuel pumps self-prime and pressurize the gas line when the key is in the ON II position, before you crank it. This is part of the normal start-up procedure. This is what the PGM-F1 relay does.

TLer trash

The air in the supply line is from the fuel boiling in it and displacing fuel past the regulator. I have always understood separation in this case to refer to air separated from fuel, not additives separating from fuel which I've never heard of.
Our cars fuel pump prime lasts about 2 seconds. If the car doesn't start in that time, the pump will continue to run as you crank it. When you replace a fuel line or filter or even clean/purge a fuel line, it usually takes a lot of cranking to get the air out of the line. Then the engine usually stalls or runs rough for a few seconds. This is why I think emptying the supply line will exacerbate the problem.

victus1

I'm not sure I follow. Gasoline has a varied boiling point with temperature. I would expect this to be a problem with almost every car in the middle of summer (with no winter gas). Especially in the 100+ degree heat of the Arizona desert. But it isn't. The fuel is also boiling in the summer, but it is not displacing past the regulator. There is something about the winter additives, which when heated past a certain temp (like when a hot engine sits), prevents them from being combusted fully by the engine; thus causing misfire.

Could it be the additives which are vaporizing into "air"....who knows... But I don't see how boiling fuel can get past the regulator and past the injectors during the winter months, and not during the summer months. I don't understand how anything can get past the fuel regulator and injectors if their passages are not open when the engine sits.

TLer trash

As the fuel boils, pressure in the fuel rail climbs. Once the pressure is above the regulator's set point, it pushes on past into the return line. The regulator is just a spring loaded diaphragm; it doesn't matter if the engine is running other than the fact that engine vacuum varies the bypass point.
Fuel doesn't go through the injectors unless they're opened electrically. If fuel gets through them with the car off, they are defective.

zmwang

let's assume the above are all right.

It can be solved after few start tries, right?

But I tried 3-4 times, the engine still quite rough. What's the explanation for my case? I know mine is not "hot soak" problem. Must be some components are affected by the heat. After they are cooled down, no problem anymore.

Anyway, till now, I've not been encountered this problem, almost 1 month time. Seems that the summer fuel solves the problem.

victus1

If the summer fuel solved your problem, then it most certainly is a heat soak TSB 01-001 issue. Unfortunately, nobody knows the "precise" solution to this problem, other than dropping $1600 for an ecu and regulator. If you search the internet, you will find people posting that some Acura dealers have installed a timer to run the radiator fan for 15 min after shutoff and this has solved the issue. When I have time I will try this out in the fall.

If your problem continues in the summer, then I would look at the crank position sensor and the TDC sensor. When they near the end of their life they are affected by heat. They are cheap to replace with the oem Denso parts from rockauto.com. I will be replacing mine in a few weeks when I do my timing belt (not to solve any specific problem, but to prevent issues with them in the future).
Other things that can cause this problem are erratic coilpacks, fuel injectors or fuel regulator. If it doesn't happen to you all summer but returns in the fall, then for sure you have an issue with winter fuel.