1987 Civic Won't Idle?

[GasSavers_Erik]

When I bought my car, it also had the engine fan wired to stay on all of the time. Someone had just connected the two wires that went to the temperature sensor that screwed into the radiator beside the lower hose. I removed that added jumper wire and then discovered that the temp sensor was bad (my fan never came on when it got hot). I was able to buy a new temp sensor at a pull a part and then the fan worked like it should work. But, I decided that the fan was coming on too much with my grill block, so I added a dashboard switch to control it. The only time I need to turn it on is around town, it does fine on the interstate even in 90+ degree weather. The 195 thermostat alone won't cause your fan to run more than a 180 degree tstat because the Honda engineers were smart enough to put the rad fan temp sensor at the bottom of teh rad- where the cooler coolant should be. It doesn't matter if 195 degree or 170 degree coolant comes into the top of the rad- as long as its below the temp sensor's threshold (I don't know what this temp is) the fan will not come on.

I haven't been too worried about blowing the head gasket again. My old head gasket gave me plenty of warning before it went. The engine was running about 3/4 of the way up temp gauge and wasn't sucking coolant from the overflow bottle back into the rad when I left it overnight. I just don't ever let it get over 55% up the gauge. I put another "195" degree tstat in a few months ago, but now my gauge is only showing reading about 1/3 of the way up so I wonder if its really a 180 degree tstat that was mislabeled as 195. I am OK with it running a little cooler because I am purposely trying to lean it out and I want to avoid burning the valves. I think the reinforced felpro gasket will do the most to prevent it from blowing again.

You are right on my cruise control- it is a CCS100. The Autozone.com website used to sell them for about $90. The cruise control description says that it can't be used on Honda's, but you just need to add extra slack to the pulling cable because Honda's have less travel than most on their throttle cable.

Glad to hear that you got your idle down to a reasonable level. I don't believe that having no muffler is affecting the idle very much. A muffler might help your low end torque. You might just stick some steel wool in the exhaust pipe to simulate a muffler and drive it around the block to see if it helps any.