Ron454321

Today was the 4th time I've driven my civic in a few months and twice it has now happened. The car starts up right away and drove for about 5-10 minutes without an issue. While merging onto the highway the car started to hesitate on acceleration until I was either at full throttle or past a higher RPM. I don't have exact numbers for the range in which it was doing this because I pulled off shortly after. After popping the hood, I saw a small bit of smoke from behind the intake manifold but it quickly went away. After checking the plug wires I decided to see how it would act and got back on the highway. I drove for another 15 miles with no issues.

Now like I said, this happened once before about a month or two ago with pretty much the same issue except I was only driving a few miles away and I had to limp it home, although there was more smoke.

There are no fluids leaking and my oil is good. The car is also eating fuel much more than normal. I'm guessing it is going to be fuel related, maybe the filter, but honestly I don't have the money to keep replacing things without a more educated guess.

As for the car, it is a 92 CX with a single cam ZC vtec motor. The car has ran well for quite a few years and this is a completely new issue for me.

djblingbling1

Well, im kind of stating the obvious, but try a good fuel injector cleaner. I would replace the fuel filter anyway if it hasnt been done in a long time, but injector cleaner is cheap, so you could try it first.

Former User

Start with a basic tune up -- plugs, wires, cap, and rotor -- and check the ignition timing.

Any CEL codes?

Ron454321

The CEL didn't light up but I would like to check the car after work for that. I'll check the timing tonight also but I hope it makes the drive back home haha. Can't afford the tune up until next week, guess that comes with being out of work for 6 months. But anyway, I also have a bottle of seafoam, think I should run it through? Bought it a few years back before I swapped motors and never used it.

Ron454321

Ok well I did a bunch of work on the car yesterday. Swapped out the old transmission that wouldn't stay in 2nd and had a bad ISB. Changed the oil, fuel filter, adjusted timing and put in new spark plugs. Now I am having the same issue of hesitation but much more often. The transmission is great, although I seem to be getting a strange noise when passing around 3200 rpm. It comes and goes very quickly and does not seem to be afftecing the performance of the tranmission. I am going to run the seafoam today, injector cleaner and probbaly get new plug wires as I think they are worn (got shocked yesterday by them).

I'm still up for other suggestions, still no CEL though.

dizzyroc88

check cap and rotor? had a similar problem and the screw holding the rotor on had backed out and was stuck on the coil

Ron454321

Gotcha, that was going to be another thing I check on today.

Hoping to figure it out today, don't like driving my Mustang to work, horrible gas milage.

Ron454321

Did the seafoam, and checked the distributor, no issue with that. The problem is still there and is present at idle also. Seems like the car may be running lean but like I said only under certain conditions. If you do a hard accel from a low rpm it seems to break free around 3400 rpm and no hesitation afterwards. Anyone think it could a vacuum issue too? I would change out my ECU but I don't have a donor to check it with, only my old CX unit. I've seen tons of threads with this problem that never have a conclusion to them. Lets try to fix this. I'm taking suggesions while working on the car so anything reasonable is welcome.

Ron454321

I replaced the ignition coil to no avail, returning the new one tomorrow. I did however finally get a CEL that coincides with the misfire/subaru sound of the engine. It is #9 cylinder sensor. I did a little digging and found that it could be the wiring to the sensor however I am not 100% sure that this sensor is causing my issue. I may end up buying a distributor and seeing if that fixes the issue. To add to my thoughts on it being an issue withini the distributor, the tachometer was reading very crazy and jumping around while under accelleration. I'd rather not put out the money for a new dizzy but looks like its coming down to it as almot all of my other options have been exhausted. Oh and I re ran my grounds today with new wire and terminals, but however nice it looks certainly didn't affect the issue.

sicknfreshdrip

fuel filter
replaced mine and it stopped

Ron454321

Ron454321

Bump, can't work on the car tonight but getting as much info as I can before I get to wrenching again tomorrow.

Starting to place my bet on the plug wires. Only things I haven't replaced were the wires, dizzy and injectors.

Ron454321

It was plug wires. But I still have CEL 9, gonna check the wires to the sensor tonight. If the sensor is bad I'm just going to pull a yard dizzy apart and pull the sesnor.

BigMike0147

Well I don't mean to bump an old thread, but I'm going through the same problems as this guy. I've changed the cap and rotor, but I guess I need to do the wires. Hopefully that fixes the problem. If anyone else has had this issue, please chime in with thoughts. Thanks for any help!

Background: Plugs are fairly new, new dizzy cap and rotor, tested coil and it seemed to be within spec