Rep Power: 0

Just bought a 93 civic dx (15b7) not too long ago. Has a short ram intake, and what looks to be some cheap exhaust tip. Other than that bone stock. I am an extreme novice as soon as I open the hood. I attempted to do a tune up today. It failed smog, was a little high in the NOx column. I changed the fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, oil filter and oil. Everything went ok and I was attempting to make sure my ignition timing was ok. The car warmed up and all was fine. I noticed I had the wire from ch3 and ch4 crossed, so i turned off the car and switched them. As soon as I did this the car now idles up and down extremely bad. The timing mark also jumps all over the place. I tried putting the old cap, rotor, wires and plugs. That changed nothing. What did I do? Also, I cleaned the idle air control valve. The seal is not in great shape, not absolutely trashed, but could use replacing. No one around me has just the gasket.

 
Rep Power: 0

Maybe I'll have a big "DUH" moment once I find out, but could you please tell me what ch stands for so I can figure out what wires you're talking about?

Order it online - there's a ton of honda parts websites:
www.hondapartsnow.com
www.hondapartscheap.com
www.hondapartsdirect.com
...and probably about a gazillion others.

 
Rep Power: 313

So.. The car ran fine, then you switched the wires? Switch them back. Ch wires are obviously ignition wires. I think.

 
Rep Power: 235

Where are you looking when you say timing marks, distributor or timing belt? Sometimes you can't just replace the cap and rotor, sometimes you need the whole dist. Just for sh*ts and giggles try to see if it has any codes: http://check-engine-light-codes.blog...retrieval.html

 
Rep Power: 0

By just switching those two wires you could have messed up your firing order. You need to do one plug at a time in order when replacing plugs or the wires. Try removing and replacing each plug one at a time, as in, take out the first one, replace it, and secure that one. Then move onto the second.. etc.