00ejhatch

I have a 2000 EJ hatch. around 145k miles. automatic. d16y7. pretty stock.
It has been sputter the past couple of weeks very randomly. Im car savvy however im wanting 2nd opinions from ppl that may have had the same issues. It sputters while daily driving at random. Not necessarily at specific time. It jerks and act like its not getting gas. It has only done this a couple of times from a dead stop. Ive had the car about a year. Distributor cap, rotor button, plugs, and wires were changed less than 10k miles ago. Last week I changed the fuel filter for the 2nd time(since ab 10k miles ago) bc i thought the fuel filter was causing the issue. Ive also cleaned the injectors and run some sea foam in with a tank of gas. I only run 93 octane in my car and have filled up a couple of times from different gas stations. So ive rulled out bad gas. Yet, after doing all of the cheap maintenance stuff, the car still sputters on me. Ive done some research on this and have read that some people have main relay issues. I live in South Carolina and it is the summer but its not only doing it when the car is hot or when its hot outside. its done it late at night when its been a nice cool 70 degress. So im starting to think that its not bad solder in the relay. So im starting to think the fuel pump itself is going out or the distributor itself. However, i think the dizzy is probably less likely in this case. Anyone else had this problem? Im trying to get better ideas before i go and dump $130 for a new fuel pump to find out that it may not fix the problem. Any help or comments would be much appreciated.

ElectronBlue00

Any Check engline lights? Does the CEL work?

By the way, you need to put the correct gas in the car. 87 Octane is what is best for that motor.

sleepyaccord96

heres the #1 suggestion

I think your catalytic converter is broken up inside and is blocking your exhaust. We just had a guy describe the exact same thing you are and he sent me a video of him driving.

I suggested he remove the catalytic converter and inspect it, sure enough it was all busted up and was randomly blocking the exhaust flow.

Give it a try, its worth knowing whether or not it is your problem so in that case you can rule out it being a exhuast flow problem.

keep in mind a bad distributor can cause sputtering and "breaking up" while accelerating.

00ejhatch

No check engine codes. And yes the light works. That's another reason I rulled out dizzy. No misfire codes. There is no cat. Cut it off when I bought the car. It was stopped up then. And I know these y7s are crappy. But is 87 really what recommended for them? Ethanol is in all our gas here

ElectronBlue00

Ethanol is in pretty much most gas now. Running 93 octane in a car that doesn't take it may not harm it initially, it's just your ECU will try to electronically adjust the ignition timing as 93 is created to be less volital. Which can actually reduce your horse power and MAY cause sputtering, especialy since the car isn't intended to use higher octane.

00ejhatch

Thanks for the info. I actually didnt know that those old ecu were advanced enough to recognize the octane of the fuel and try to change the timing based on that. Im frustrated with it. Im in the process of getting everything to do a head sway and a 5 speed conversion. Right when i almost have everything to do it. My car start acting up. its just annoying.

00ejhatch

I went back and checked my dizzy cap. Had some corrosion on the points. The rotor looks pretty warn and the spring coming from the coil had corrosion as well. Is this a common thing on civics? I replaced the cap and rotor about 9k miles ago, along with new wires and plugs. Is this a sign that the coil is going bad or something? It just seems weird. I feel dumb for not checking it out sooner, however, that was the last thing that i would think would be causing any sort of problem because of the fairly recent replacement of ignition parts.