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Hello all,
I can smell gasoline when I turn on my civic in the mornings. There is no leaks of gas i have checked.What could be the issue? Could my valves not be adjusted right. I do have a Crower stage 1 can but I thought that would actually lean out the mixture, not make it richer.

 
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If you smell raw gasoline, then you probably do have a fuel leak somewhere. You just haven't found the source yet. A single drip can make a whole lot of smell.



If you don't smell raw gasoline, then it's something else. Exhaust leakage maybe?

 
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Injector o-rings healthy?

Do you top off your fuel aggressively? Could be an evap issue...

 
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The injector o-rings are good. And I don't top off aggressively, once the pump stops to signify the tank is full I stop. I get most of the smell out the tailpipe. As if the car is running rich. If I have my windows down when I start the car in the mornings I can smell it. The rest of the day I can't really smell it, like when I leave work.

 
Rep Power: 518

Out the tailpipe? That shouldn't be raw gasoline smell once it's running, unless it's got a dead cylinder or something.

Sounds like maybe you just have raw exhaust smell, which may be normal until the cat gets hot and starts cleaning the exhaust.

 
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Ahh, true... raw uncatalyzed exhaust will smell more like fumes than catalyzed exhaust. However I don't think liquid gasoline and exhaust fumes smell anything alike...? Hopefully the OP knows the diff as well.

A dead cyl will *definitely* be noticeable as more than an increase in odor, that's for sure... even a missing cylinder.

I wonder if the OP has changed his plugs lately. Valve clearance will only have a bearing on fuel in the exhaust, if the valves are *seriously* tight, or out of time. The valves were adjusted after the cam install, I would assume, since more lift + stock cam VC = tight valves.

 
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It's definitely not raw gasoline smell, I think it is more like raw exhaust fumes as you've both said. I did have a head gasket job done as well right after the cam install. Everything works great but I can just notice a little more of the gas fumes from the exhaust. The plugs were changed as part of the job, and they are the NGK copper plugs. I did tell them to do the valve adjustment based off the Crower cam specs but I'm not sure if they did. I might have another adjustment done to make sure they are right.

 
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Don't bother with another VC adjustment... if you had valves tight enough to cause enough increase in raw fuel in the exhaust to smell it... it would run like crap until warm (esp at idle) in addition to ezone's comment about the cat not being up to temp yet. The plugs are what I suspected...

I'm going to assume that you drive a 7th-gen (2001-2005), since this is the fix-it forum for them. If so, got some bad news as these Civic's coil-on-plug ignitions don't seem to run very well w/o the OEM-spec plat plugs -- even poorly with the NGK OEM-spec plats (PZFR6F11, I've experienced this). The Denso OEM-spec plats (PKJ20CR-M11) seem to perform best... but they're super-pricey, and only easily available at the dealer. However they cured my worn plug drivability and idling issues completely, and last 100K.

Not sure about iridiums. I don't see any reason they should outperform the stock plats, but you can ask around. If they're cheaper than the OEM Denso plats (hard not to be) and perform just as well with equal spec, without any downsides (iridium electrodes are much harder than platinum and should theoretically last longer), then it's a deal. But ask around; I don't know off the top of my head of any off-shelf iridiums that work better than the stock Denso plats, drivability-wise.

 
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I do have a 2003 civic and always thought NGK plugs would work great on this car . I was actually thinking of getting some iridium plugs and I was going to go with NGK as they are easier to find but now I think I will go with Denso Iridium's. I wonder why the NGK plugs don't work so well. Is it only on this gen civic?

 
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Short answer is yes. But more and more things like high-voltage ignition, direct injection, infinitely-variable valve timing, higher and higher demands for fuel efficiency and emissions performance, all weigh heavily on what plugs you can put into your engine. I wouldn't be surprised that other modern engines are similarly picky about them (hopefully not in the car I want to replace the Civic with!). :P

That said... the D17s are kinda lame that way. They aren't that much of a leap over the D16Y5/7/8s they replaced, esp considering their appetite for head gaskets. :/

 
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If at a raw smell bad EVAP system can cause fuel smell.

Bad gas cap seal.

 
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If it's got a race cam, does it also have a race cat? (none) And a P0420 code?

 
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Good point. More lift and duration won't like a nearly-plugged cat, and this gen seems to like to plug its cat all the way to 420 even with a stock cam. Er, P0420.

No cat would make your exhaust smell a helluva lot more fruity than catalyzed exhaust (16-yr motorcycle tech, so that was the standard for me and my tumors).

 
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No it doesn't have a race cat, it still has the stock one and stock piping with a free flow muffler. And I also haven't gotten the P0420 code either. I'm hoping the plugs are the issue. And maybe the plugs will help give the car a little more pep. I noticed it doesn't accelerate as good as it used to and I know vacuum and compression on the car is good.