B18A Sounds like WRX. Rough Idle. Power loss. Sputtering. *FIXED*
 

I'm making this post for people to search in the event they have the same or similar issue.

My car ran extremely well up until today sometime. I was cruising and then all of sudden I noticed it took a little more gas to get the car moving and noticed a strange smell, the sound of a sputtering exhaust pipe, and loss of power.

I got home and checked for

1. Spark from all wires - passed
2. Spark plugs looked dry, a little white
3. Antifreeze is good, no overheating
4. Checked for spark arching on the spark wires (exposed parts when installed) - pass
5. Found ARCHING on 3rd spark plug tube when pulling the wire while engine was running.

So the culprit was spark plug wire #3. They were Bosch branded and looked to be somewhat new. I bought the car used. I replaced with NGK and now all is good!

Re: B18A Sounds like WRX. Rough Idle. Power loss. Sputtering. *FIXED*
 

So it arched form the wire down to the plug, thought that's how it was supposed to be tho ? can someone confirm ?. All of my wires do this and my car can't stay running.... wires are unknown age OEM Honda.

glad you fixed it btw pulling the wire while the car is running puts a lot of stress on the coil and can wear it out FAST.

Re: B18A Sounds like WRX. Rough Idle. Power loss. Sputtering. *FIXED*
 

The arch occurred at from the spark plug boot, plug end. Normal operation is no arching what-so-ever until the electrical current gets to the spark plug itself. None of the other spark wires and their boots did this in any of the other 3 cylinders. You should change out your spark plug wires and so a general tune up if your car can't stay running. I'd imagine at the current moment your car drives and sounds horrible.

I pulled the plug wires one at a time for about a second each. Probably 1 of the very few times it will ever get that kind of work done, I don't think I caused any damage to the coil but thanks for the info!