Don Drift

Hello fellow Honda drivers!

I'm having an issue with my 97' Accord.

It just recently had it's timing belt changed, new spark plugs, fuel filter, air filter and valve adjustment.

Although thinking this would fix the problem, it still persists.

It happens mostly when I'm driving below 100 km/h ~ 60 mph, the car is kind of hesitating, jerking along the road in small increments.

I'm lost as to what is causing the problem, any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Cleaned out the 4 EGR ports, didn't fix the issue.

poorman212

IS this only once the car is at normal op temp and at a cruise speed - just hold the gas steady.

Where I'm going, is this could be a clogged egr port issue. The 5th gen's have a nice little plate on the intake manifold where you can clean them out.

Could be a number of other things - this was just my first thought based upon the info you've given

Don Drift

Thank you for a quick reply, and YES, these are exactly the symptoms I was trying to describe.

Immediately after writing this post, I read about cleaning the EGR. I cleaned the 4 ports an hour ago, which was actually easier than I thought (all 4 of them was clogged up good), and went for a drive afterwards.

If anything the symptoms have maybe decreased a bit, hard to say really. It still feels like the car is holding back at a constant crusing speed.

Any other suggestions?

poorman212

Did you also check/replace the dist cap and rotor? I'd want to rule those out.

Do you have a code reader to be sure there are not any stored codes in the ECU?

You spoke of "km/h" so I'm guessing you are not in the US - many parts stores in the US will check for codes for free....outside of the country of California.

Don Drift

I'm residing in Denmark, so parts from the US would be expensive due to import costs I'm sure Honda Denmark somewhere could do a code readout, I don't have one myself.

I don't know why but when cleaning the EGR ports, I completely forgot about the EGR valve. I took the valve off last night, and gave it a good clean, there was a lot of gunk there also.

Afterwards I went for a 20-30 min drive at low speed, to see if the problem had dissapeared, and it definitely feelt like there was an improvement. It's an old car, I know that, and maybe I'm just being over sensitive

Might consider getting a distributor and rotor kit with leads in the near future, luckily the NGK ones aren't that expensive if I order from Germany or somewhere.

I'll update this post if the problem persists, so please keep your subscription if you would be so kind Grats!

poorman212

You can pull the dist cap and inspect the terminals on the cap and the edge of the rotor.

Is the check engine light on when driving? When you first turn the key to "on"/POS II the light should come on for 2~3 seconds and then go off, this is a "bulb check".

If the bulb is ok - does come on for a few seconds, then goes off - and it is not coming on when driving, more than likely there are no codes so I would stress too much on getting is scanned, unless it is FREE of charge.

Good luck.

Don Drift

There is no CIL when driving, and the light does as you describe when turning the key, so no worries there.

Went for a longer drive today, ~1 hour, and the car was driving very smooth compared to before. Didn't really notice any "hesitation".

I guess it just had to "swallow" the few pieces of gunk that I might have pushed down into the EGR ports, I did use a vacuum cleaner, but it's hard not to drop a little down there.

So far so good, car is driving perfect. I'll update this if anything else happens related to the hesitation issues.

Thank you for the guidance :D