SNsLude

I've just come accross some major problems today. My tachometer has been acting up lately for about the past week or two. The needle sparatically jumps and sputters on its own (keep in mind this is all it's been doing the past week or two... just spiratic jumping of the tach, until today...). After I filled her up (today), my car REALLY feels like it's struggling to get out of 1st and 2nd gear. Everytime I accelerate in these gears, even sometimes in 3rd, it would sputter or feel like it wants to die like it's a fuel problem. One time it even just stalled out on me right when I tried accelerating when the light turned green.

I changed my ICM a few months ago when my tacho was also doing this... it seemed to have solved the problem until now. I read from multiple searches that changing the entire dizzy, alternator, or ignitor solved this problem for them. I don't want to blindly throw parts at it though since it's quite expensive. Anyway to test any of these? Seems like it just got worse and worse from when my tach started acting up... at first it would just jump around sometimes, then more often, then really often + my sputter problem...

Thanks guys

IHateJDM

that's how my motor was acting right before my dizzy died. At first it was a very occasional hesistation, then it got more and more frequent, then I was stranded in a parking lot. After I was towed home I cracked open the dizzy and bearings were everywhere, and my rotor was torn up from contact with the cap (probably caused by the bearing failure). I hope your problem is not as serious, but if its the same, distributorking.com has good prices.

SNsLude

Thanks a lot, appreciate it man... I guess I'll pop open my dizzy housing in a short while. More comments welcome in the mean time TIA all!

IHateJDM

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SNsLude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks a lot... I guess I'll pop open my dizzy housing in a short while. Appreciate it man. More comments welcome in the mean time </TD></TR></TABLE>

if you see a bunch of brown dust in the cap, your bearings are shot.

SNsLude

Will keep that in mind ^... in some ways I hope that is my problem. Easy to replace the housing and I don't need to worry about finding out what the darn problem is anymore... at least for that matter. thanks again, will run out to my car in a few mins and get back to you guys.

JDMF22B

what do u mean sputters? Does it not accelerate? Or does the tach just jump?? If the dizzy is still in good condition do a compression/leakdown test. My car did that when my jackass mechanic who did my swap didnt torque down the sparks all the way, and compression was leaking. The threads in the head got shredded a bit (but they were able to be fixed without helicoil or anything). Anyway, just make sure ur not leaking compression, and ur not knocking.

SNsLude

I already know my compression is terrible. But I don't think that can effect the electrical problem that my tach is experiencing. Anywho, I took my cap off, everything "looks" okay right? rotor seems to look okay.

JDMF22B

Well if ur compression is terrible, who said it actually is an electrical problem?? Your tach might be dead on accurate... and its clearly showing the surging from the occassional drop in revs. Id have that check out stat before ur head goes

SNsLude

Hmmm. I just don't see how my compression can effect the spiratic jumping of my tach. Sometimes even during drives on the freeway, I'm cruising fine at 70-80mph, everything feels to be running good... the needle will just flutter on its own with no regard to how fast I'm going.

Also, this problem I have only occurs in early acceleration in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gear... when im in 5th, I don't really notice it.

IHateJDM

from what i can see the dizzy looks fine.

how is your fuel pressure? if its too low it can cause sputtering like that.

SNsLude

Hmmm this plays along with my tachometer going crazy I believe... I read from ppl with similar experiences that it was their Ignitor... I just changed it not too long ago though... bleh.. How do I test it for the voltage and all that to see if it's still good or not?

redjindo

I just fixed mine....its because of the ignitor inside the distributor. Easy fix....just take each of the connectors and crimp them just a little bit to connect to the ignitor tightly. The reason it does that is because there isn't a good contact. The ignitor also reads the rpm. My engine used to just shut down if I hit the gas to hard and it would sputter just like yours. But now....she's working beautifully......

SNsLude

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by redjindo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just fixed mine....its because of the ignitor inside the distributor. Easy fix....just take each of the connectors and crimp them just a little bit to connect to the ignitor tightly. The reason it does that is because there isn't a good contact. The ignitor also reads the rpm. My engine used to just shut down if I hit the gas to hard and it would sputter just like yours. But now....she's working beautifully......</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hmmm, that's a good point. I replaced mine not too long ago, but I just stuck the connections right back on there... didn't really crimp them or anything.. Let me go ahead and do that, long shot though. Thanks for the heads up

redjindo

Let me know how it goes. My buddy had the same problem before and he's the one that told me about it.....

SNsLude

Hey thanks guys for all the comments and suggestions guys. Got the problem taken care of. It turns out the connections on my ICM were poor. I guess from the last time I replaced my icm and put the connections back on, it wore down the contact the connections had on it. I crimped it down and all is well now I tend to overlook things so simple such as this hehe. I read on another thread that that was someone elses problem and I figured, with my luck, this wouldn't have been the case. Sure enough though, it was

Thanks again guys!

redjindo

glad it worked out for you