I'm hoping this is nothing. When I'm driving with the lead foot for awhile I smell something that reminds me of a cap pistol. I had a passanger in the car and they said I hit the smell right on the head with that analogy. Sort of a gun powery burnt sulfer smell exactly like firing one of those caps off. Anyone know what this is. I'm hoping it's the ceramic brakes or maybe even a clutch slip but I've never smelled ceramic breaks and a clutch slip just doesn't smell like that, at least not in my experience. Anyone here think ceramic brakes smell like that? Any ideas? I don't want to take it in to Honda to find out it's the smell of break pads. =)

 

how many miles on your car? if it's still fairly new, i might now what the problem is.

 

15,000 It's an 03 I bought with 13 miles on it in august. Thanks

 

It is probably your catalytic converter. I used to have the same smell when I would go up long hills in a high gear. When I gutted my converter the smell disappeared immediately.

 

Ahhhh, but I don't think I'll be gutting mine out. =) thanks.

 

You should buy a cadillac converter, that way you can convert yer car to a cadillac.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by exceltoexcel
15,000 It's an 03 I bought with 13 miles on it in august.

 

any idea of the smell then?

 

well if it happens when engaging vtec (you said you had a lead foot), it could be the smell of oil being burned off. oil DOES get burned off in vtec, it's normal for DOHC VTEC motors, OR it can be the car running rich in high rpm operation. if someone is behind you and you hit vtec, there will a puff of black smoke emitted from the exhaust. honda tunes dohc vtec motors to run rich since running rich helps the engine run cooler, btw i'd rather run rich anyday of the week than lean(detonation is your biggest enemy).

hopefully it's something simple like that.

 

The catalytic converter does not have to be bad for it to stink! Mine was not bad at all... I am just not as environmentally savvy as I need to be.

<Insert Andrew's wild ass guess> I think when the motor is lugged for a continuous amount of time (going up a long hill repeatedly for example) the honeycomb in the catalytic converter must get coated. Then when you go into "lead foot" mode the temperature heats up the honeycomb and the coating burns off.

Maybe this is time for you to upgrade to a high flow cat?