# When was the last time you heard a car backfire?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-heard-a-car-backfire/550761>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 19, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-heard-a-car-backfire/550761 "2010-08-19T18:04:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-heard-a-car-backfire/550761/21 "2010-08-20T15:35:34Z")

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> [@yabob](#):
>
> > [@LouisB](#):
> >
> > About 1979-1980; I had a 1978 Honda Accord. That model Honda has made dozens of Worst Cars Ever Made lists; it had a new fangled combustion chamber design couple with an exhaust system that scavenged very inefficiently. The combustion chamber and the exhaust valves became clogged with carbon very early on. Excess back pressure due to the rotten exhaust system caused the piston rings to collapse and the damned thing just went downhill from there on. I preferred a Renault Dauphin I once owned to that Honda.
> 
> CVCC? I had one of those in a 1980 Accord. I don’t remember it as rotten - I kept it for seven years, and the guy I sold the thing to ran it at least into the 1990s when I last saw him. The only thing related to what you said that I remember was a very precise cold weather starting procedure, due to that engine design. If you didn’t follow it, the plugs got fouled, as I found out the first winter I had it in Denver. The Honda dealer was handing out sheets with the starting procedure for everybody that was doing it wrong, and also telling you to take the plugs out, bake them at low heat in the oven for an hour or so, put them back in, and THEN start the car the right way in cold weather. Follow the directions to the letter, and it didn’t happen.
> 
> When I was a kid, I remember being able to make cars backfire by turning off the ignition for a few seconds with the car in gear, then turning it back on to get a loud shotgun blast out the exhaust. Worked best if you were going downhill, so as to suck lots of unburned fuel into the exhaust pipe before turning it back on. And if your father didn’t catch you doing it to to the family car. Probably not the greatest thing in the world for the exhaust system. Many years later, I remember trying it with a more modern car, telling myself I was an idiot, and I was going to wind up springing for a new catalytic converter. Nothing happened, except maybe a tiny little “poot”. Ah, fuel injection … it’s off, no gas gets injected.

There was a recall on the 1978 model; Honda overhauled a lot of these CVCC engines. By the end of the 1978 model run, the cylinder head and exhaust system had been completely redesigned and the problem was solved. The 1978 model also had a notorious habit of trapping ice/salt sludge in the front? fender wells, causing very rapid rusting; Honda replaced a bunch of fenders on that model. I was so fed up with that car that I traded it before the recall notice came out. The 1978 Honda Accord was a major POS. CVCC = controlled vortex combustion chamber. As I said, by 1979 the problem had been solved. The 1978 model has often been listed as one of worst cars ever built.

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