SubliminalMsger

Hey guys... first of all I have a base 2000 honda prelude (manual transmission). So far I've added a tanabe ultra medallion cat back exhaust and tein type-flex suspension.

As of about a month or so ago, my cars been acting a little weird. I'll be driving and for a split second it'll feel like I took my foot off the gas and then back on. I can't really explain it any better than that. I guess you could say it will "lag" for a second. It would do this about 3 times a week at random times (not racing or anything). After a few weeks, it did it and kicked on the CEL. So I took it into the honda dealership to have it checked out, and according to the guy there it was a loose shift solenoid connection or something like that. What's weird is that he didn't even charge me for it, so I started to think that maybe he just reset the CEL and blew some smoke up my *** as an explanation (wouldn't be the first time). Later that day, I was driving home and I felt my car "lag" again so the problem obviously wasn't what the honda dealership claimed.

I asked a friend of mine about this and according to him I did get a big, fat smoke stack up my ***. He thought that manual transmissions don't have shift solenoids.

Aaaaalso, my car will randomly make this sound which I can only discribe as a rough gurgle coming from the engine bay. It does this quite frequently and there doesn't seem to be any correlation between that and my other problem as far as I can tell. I don't notice any performance differnce when it does this, but it doesn't sound very good.

BTW, I'm at about 52,000 miles.

So, what the heck's a shift solenoid? Does my car have one? Would that be the reason for the CEL and/or the gurgle sound i'm getting? What should I do?

Any help is GREATLY appreciated! Thanks, and sorry for the long post!

SubliminalMsger

bump

SubliminalMsger

anybody?

John.

No such thing as a shift solenoid on a Manual Trans. Those are only found on Auto Trans. They enable shifting from one gear to another. Definitely(sp) blowing smoke up your ***, as for the gurgling sound, i have no idea. Good luck

SubliminalMsger

i see, thanks d4rkn1t3.

How gay is that? I wouldn't expect to be told crap like that from a honda dealership..

So anyone have any ideas what the real problem is?

SubliminalMsger

final bump

91preyludesi

wait for the CEL to come back on and then pull the code.

britishlude

I agree with d4krn1t3 the only transmission to use the shift solenoid is the auto and I think they have three shift solenoids, they receive electrical impulse from the ECU which tells the auto when and what gear to change into, depending on a few factors such as speed RPM and load.

SubliminalMsger

Thanks for the feedback guys. Well it sounds like everyone that I talk to agrees that there is no shift solenoid. Now I just gotta explain this to the dealership

I experienced that jerking problem again this time kicking my CEL back on.

Anyone have a clue on what the real problem is? Otherwise it looks like its back to dealership for me... although this time I have somethin to throw in their face. I also got a recommendation from a friend to request a specific mechanic there... so who knows maybe they'll actually fix it this time.

onefastrx7turbo

URGENT...you said a gurgling sound.....does this occur at low rpm? like, 2500 and lower? does it apparantly change with engine speed? if you answered yes to these, it could be your timing belt! when my auto tensioner went bad, the belt gets slack, which then rubs against the cover (gurgling sound) and could also move enough to change timing (lag)

SubliminalMsger

Yea, it does occur at low rpms... but not always and sometimes also at high rpms. But again, it doesn't always do this. It's really kind of hard for me to describe... does this sound like it could be the timing belt?

onefastrx7turbo

yes

SubliminalMsger

if it was the timing belt, wouldn't it make the sound all the time?

SubliminalMsger

UPDATE!

Well to make a long story short, my car was fixed... finally!

I took it into the dealership and I don't what was different this time... but they actually found and fixed the problems! It turns out that the jerking i was getting was a result of something wrong with my throttle body. As for the gurgle like sound, it turns out onefastrx7turbo was right.. it was my timing belt tensioner! So they replaced my throttle body and tensioner and even changed my timing belt for free. Looks like that little bit of faith I had in the place payed off.

It would've cost about 1,200 to fix had I not had an extended warranty.

It's a little late, but thanks to everyone who helped out (onefastrx7turbo ).

Hope this info will be able to help someone else