Wonko

Folks:

Got some weirdness here. I just picked up a 97 VTEC Del Sol with 80 000 miles on it. On the highway I ran with a fast crowd and hit around 100mph and it felt like there was plenty of room for more. I then did some hard acceleration and the CEL came on. After that I could only reach 90mph.

I followed the CEL thread and came up with a 73 (random misfire cylinder 3). Thing is, the car runs smooth as butter. No backfiring, no rough idle, no stalling, no apparent loss of power. The engine was smooth both before and after the CEL came on. I also didn't feel anything when the CEL came on after I accelerated and was cruising at 65mph (no loss of power, no jerkiness, no change in engine noise).

The plugs definitely needed to be swapped so I did that but there doesn't seem to be any difference in how the car runs and the CEL is still on. Mind you, I've never owned a VTEC or anything like this car (base model Civics, Fits, Corollas, Sentras are what I've had in the past) so I've no idea if I'm missing something.

So what to do? Reset the CEL and see what happens? Is it something else? Code says 73, though.

Any help would be great.

NACvicSi

Check your distributor rotor and cap and possibly replace your plug wires. I had a plug wire go bad that became prevalent at a higher rpm. Try resetting your ECU also.

Wonko

Thanks NACvicSi. I drove the car around a bit and the CEL went off on its own. So I guess it was the plugs after all.

Hopefully I can get her past 100 again. We'll see.