OK, I really need some help here, I have no idea what's going on.
This morning I fill up the antifreeze and brake fluid and then move on to changing the spark plugs. I go for the #4 cylinder (I believe - right side of the engine facing the front of the car, next to the timing belt/farthest away from the distributor)) first since it's easiest to get at. I do as the manual says and pull up on the boot base... and the wire just decides to break in half.
At this point I had the rubber boot and about 2 inches of insulated wire in my hand and the big long plastic plug, the rest of the wire and the metal contact tube stuck inside of the head. Obviously I needed to get new spark wires at this point.
I hiked back to my place where my girlfriend's car was, drove to Advance and bought a full set of wires (I figured if one did that, they all might, and if not they still looked like shitty wires) and went on back to my girlfriend's house (I use her garage rather than my place's parking lot, where I'm unsure if I'm allowed to do that kind of car work or not).
I was able to pry out the plastic sleeve, metal contact tube, and the rubber bootie thing from the head, but only after liberally spraying down there with WD-40. Rather than go through that 20-some minute ordeal on each cylinder, I just replaced the #4 wire that had broken on me and left the plug in there. I wanted to make sure that at least doing that much let the car run.
Here's where the fun began - it started missing like hell. Idle was the worst, but it continued on up through the normal driving rev range. Oh crap, right? I drove for about a mile in a loop, getting on the gas once or twice, keeping it in 2nd, seeing if I could clear up whatever was going on. Didn't happen. I figured leaving that little bit of WD-40 down there had fouled the plug.
First I used some pliers to stick around 15 Q-Tips down there to soak up all of the WD-40, and hey, my ratchet set can't reach down there.
Blah blah blah, I pay freaking $6.92 for a socket extension at Home Depot so I can get the plug out, and incredibly it comes out very easily (considering how low the brake and coolant fluids were I worried that the plugs had been in there for all 166,000 miles). And it looked fine.
Still, I had bought a new set of NGK plugs the day before, and the threads of the old plug and a bit of the ground were wet with WD, so I figured why not screw it in there. Yes I used a bit of anti-seize on the threads, yes I torqued it but not too much, no the contact in the book was not fouled up. Slid the boot down there and it held on just fine. I started the car and still it missed. It's worse down around warm idle RPM (it misses hard sometimes and feels like it'll die every now and then) but still misses during acceleration.
I tried prying open the little contacts on the distributor end a little better and crimping down the plug end a little, but it didn't make any difference. On my way here I locked it in 2nd and it ran smooth between 3000-4000 rpm, but I've somehow completely ruined the car's normal drivability. What could be going on? Is it just a bad wire? I plan on running back over to Advance and seeing if I can get them to look at it, but if it's something I can fix that'd be preferable.
I bought Autolite (Honeywell) wires, all I touched was the #4/driver's side cylinder, replaced that plug and wire. The problem was THE SAME with the old spark plug and the new one.
The plug is not being fouled, which leaves only the wire, but these are freaking brand new, so I'm stumped as to what went wrong. The car was missing very lightly when I cracked the throttle while coasting to keep the engine from braking, but it accelerated and idled just fine, save for hesitant acceleration off the line (fine in the normal RPM range once it gets rolling)

 

i think your wires are all messed up. I believe what you think is the 4th cylinder is actually the first. the wires have a certain way to go on as im sure you know because then the cap will be telling the wrong cylinders to fire.

 

and i was just thinking, if you pull the boots off one at a time, see if theres any that make the car run the same.

 

OK, so I called the cylinder the wrong number, but I only pulled off one wire and one wire only. I never removed any other of the spark plug wires. Keep in mind that while the missing is frequent, it isn't constant or regular.

 

dude did the missing start after you started fudging with it or was it always like that but you thought you could fix it by giving the car a tune-up???

 

one question-did u pop the plug off wen the motor was cold...if not...
wuchu shood have done was start it until the motor is warm then shut it off...
so the wires are now warm and are easier to come off...
good thing is u go ttha **** out of the head...
wuchu shood try to do is spray the inside of the cylinder that the plug fits into w/ some carb cleaner after the motor is warm...then blow it out w/ an air compressor...so its completely dried...
another question-how long has the car been doin it from the time this happened?
u shood change the rest of yah plugs and wires...

 

The car didn't start missing until I put in the new spark wire. I'm thinking it's just shitty wire; it ran a little better in the cold than it did later in the morning (better conductivity at lower temps). I'm going to try getting a Honda-issue wire from a dealer and return this crap if that works. I'll have a tech change out everything else later.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sony224422 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i think your wires are all messed up. I believe what you think is the 4th cylinder is actually the first. the wires have a certain way to go on as im sure you know because then the cap will be telling the wrong cylinders to fire.</TD></TR></TABLE>
this makes the most sense, the problem sounds like some sort of jacked up timing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wingback44 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
this makes the most sense, the problem sounds like some sort of jacked up timing. </TD></TR></TABLE>


He said he only changed one wire though. So yeah im thinking it might be a bad wire. But did you try disconnecting it and see if it idles even worst then it does when it misses. If it runs the same, you know its just that plug. Keep in mind its gunna run crappy cus only 3 cylinder are going to be firing, but if it dies or is worst than it is when it fires then you have another problem.

Just wondering, have you checked the other cylinders and wires to make sure they all are ok?