Lower fuel trim with weak power and slowed speeds?

Tiny
XJSHEN
  • MEMBER
  • 2009 HONDA ACCORD
  • 2.4L
  • 4 CYL
  • 2WD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 161,298 MILES
I replaced spark plugs, coil packs, and fuel injectors, detected voltages, voltage down, resistance, checked fuses, and all plug wires. Now no code, and with drive cycle relearning activated five inactivated functions on OBD-II auto scanner. And got through inspection and renewed registration.
The new problem now is that fuel trims lean, ST FTRM1 (%) was -0.85(%), and LT FTRM1 (%) WAS -14.0(%), and after cleared codes, there was no freeze frame stored, no freeze frame events detected.
With lean fuel trim data, car was powerless than before, and hard to increase speed from start to 40 MPH, after then, it was no problem increase from 40 mph to 70 mph on the highway.

How to fix the problems practically by myself?
Thursday, August 21st, 2025 AT 9:57 AM

7 Replies

Tiny
AL514
  • MECHANIC
  • 5,517 POSTS
Hello, you're thinking about the fuel trims backwards, with a long term at -14%, the ECM is taking fuel away from the mixture due to what it is determining to be a Rich mixture not lean. Where did you buy the fuel injectors? This is becoming a more common occurrence with people buying cheap fuel injectors that are not the OEM injectors, it sounds like the injectors you may have purchased are flowing too much fuel, and the ECM is taking fuel away to compensate for this issue. When you look at fuel trim numbers, that is the action the ECM is taking to deal with a fault, not the cause. So if it was +14% for example, it would be adding fuel to deal with a lean mixture and get the air/fuel ratio back to 14.7:1.
Without doing a fuel injector balance test, you wont know if there were injectors flowing more or less than the others.
What was the original issue that made you replace the injectors?
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Thursday, August 21st, 2025 AT 3:05 PM
Tiny
XJSHEN
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I purchased OEM Honda accord parts at Honda dealer. Replaced problematic two old injectors. And I detected resistances on all four injectors that possessed exactly same value. After error codes p0302 and p0303 appeared, then, I check injectors wire and looked at bases of each injectors I found #2 and #3 injector bases were not tightly inserted to the base, and the bottom of injectors was very dirty covered with dirty debris and oils fixed around of injector bottom as images attached. Sb had touched the injectors. The injector leak and contamination as well as congested injectors may be the error sources.
I will check again for the injectors if after inspection the injectors were changed value, and if the original OEM injectors on the sites. What should I do now to increase the fuel trim value? Before inspection the both value of ST and LT were zero.
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Thursday, August 21st, 2025 AT 5:38 PM
Tiny
AL514
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The fuel trim value will come back down towards zero again when the issue that is causing the rich condition is taken care of. Think the of fuel trims as the ECM telling you what it is doing right now. So it is telling you that it sees a rich mixture (too much fuel) and it is taking fuel away to deal with that problem. I do see all the dirt around the bottom of the injector seals, I would clean all that as well as the holes where the injectors sit, use a vacuum at first if possible so you don't get anything failing into the intake manifold, and make sure those seals are cleaned as well.
Why did you replace two injectors to begin with if the fuel trims were close to zero? At this point since cylinders 2 and 3 are setting misfire codes, I would replace the seals, clean it all up and see if the fuel trims come back towards zero. You have to make sure all the injectors and the fuel rail are seated correctly, be sure they are all down. It can be difficult with dry injector seals, some manufacturers will tell you to use a very small amount of mineral oil on the seals to help them seat down fully.,
here are some guides to help with testing and replacing them if necessary, but I think this is more of a self inflicted type of scenario where the codes are setting because they weren't seated down correctly. It sounds like the middle of the fuel rail was not down all the way when cylinder 1 and 4 were fully seated.
But if the codes come back after getting them seated correctly, I would follow the testing guide below first, you need to be sure this isn't also possibly an issue with loose pins in the injector harness connectors or damaged wiring.
And an injector balance test is where you would have a fuel pressure gauge on the fuel rail to monitor fuel pressure, and each injector is pulsed for a specific amount of time and the pressure drop of each one is measured and compared to the others. The pressure should drop almost exactly the same for each injector. The test can be explained more if needed, but clean everything up and see if the codes come back.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-a-fuel-injector

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-replace-a-fuel-injector

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Friday, August 22nd, 2025 AT 10:16 AM
Tiny
XJSHEN
  • MEMBER
  • 246 POSTS
Injector and wire related several tests and install were done without problems. When I drove to dealler the fuel trim, ST and LT were all zero. Befor drove out from dealler I detected total values with code reader and found the values were both down to nagative value they said it would down to normal after drive several days.
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Saturday, August 23rd, 2025 AT 7:42 AM
Tiny
AL514
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The Long Term is more of a learned value that will keep adjusting according to the Short Term. So their comment about it adjusting down is not incorrect, how long it takes depends on how the ECM is programmed to do so. Some manufacturers will be different than others, if its back below 5% either +/- then youre good.
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Sunday, August 24th, 2025 AT 6:54 AM
Tiny
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Right now the values of Short Term and Long Term were +/- 2.3% on idle driving, and 0% when unded driving conditions, and driving conditions were normal. But problem was found, when parking to the ascending location foward, the start up engine was normal, but parking to the descending location, the start up engine was failed. After foot accell several times to increase fuel meter to highest level before start engine, then could be able start engine. What was the mechanism of this phenomenon? The fuel pressure was low? There was no leak.
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Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 AT 8:08 AM
Tiny
AL514
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Those fuel trims are just about perfect. You will have to check fuel pressure and see what it is when first starting. Its possible the fuel pump is weak, and has a leak of fuel volume, but can be semi ok once started. I would see what the fuel pressure is during cranking.
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Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 AT 11:02 AM

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