Ola fellow Honda heads,

my B18A1 ED has me a little confused... again.

I was on the road today when my check engine light came on and the car seemed to loose most of it's power. The engine sounded like it was short a cylinder. I was close to my friend's house so I drove it the rest of the way there (not with the regular zest an LS ED can deliver) and popped the hood.

I start poking around at all the plug wires at the distributor end and notice one of them is out a little bit, so I push it back in. I start the car and sure enough, back to normal.

We resume running our errands only to have the problem persist a short while later. At this point I'm baffled. I was pretty sure my plug wires were shot so I went ahead and got new ones. They look pretty, but they didn't do anything. Here's the fun bit.

Before I actually changed the plugs I noticed that #1 had a lot of oil in it. I cleaned it all out (couldn't really tell if the plug was coated due to it's trip up through the rest of the oil or not) and reinstalled everything.

Either way, my check engine light is still on all the time. I've got no real idea what the problem is.

Any help would be welcome guys.

ps: I'd post up the code the ecu is throwing, except that mine doesn't have an LED on it.

double ps: As for the title: The engine won't rev past 3500.

 

I'd suggest checking your timing. When my timing was off I couldn't rev past about 3k, so it could be the same for you. Also, the oil in #1 (check the rest as well) could be from a leaky head gasket which can get on your spark plugs and cause misfiring/loss of power etc. Check that out and pick up a new valve cover gasket set if it looks like it needs to be replaced (they're relatively cheap). I'd also check all your spark plugs as well, black tips are usually caused by oil deposit from leaky head gaskets, so that's something to look for. If that's the case then you should probably pick up some new splugs while you're at it.

 

My plugs are actually fairly new. As for the valve cover gasket, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and replace that.

About my timing, it hasn't changed a bit since it was set, though I'll try retarding it a bit and see what happens.

 

Definitely.
Post back your findings

 

do a compression test. it will tell you if you have bad rings(because of the oil in the cylinders)

 

had the same issue solved it with new valve cover gasket kit. after that no more oil in the spark plugs and the wires stopped poping out.

 

So, #2 isn't firing. I went ahead and started poking around today, thinking it might be the distributor cap. I was wrong. The distributor cap isn't new, but it's still better than any of the ones I've seen previously on used cars I buy.

Since it isn't the distributor (as far as I can tell) I went ahead and started checking my plugs. #2 had fuel on it, sounds like someone isn't firing. I went ahead and cleaned it off, but still nothing. I checked the plug wire and it's connected properly (they're brand new wires, bought them last night).

I'm a little stumped. The only thing that I can think of at the moment is that maybe the old wire on #2 took a crap and left the plug to soak in fuel? Will that kill a plug perhaps?

I think I'm going to go buy some new plugs now - perhaps throwing money at it will fix things

 

You could probably swap the plugs around and see if another cylinder stops firing. That will diagnose if its the plug or not.

 

Done and done. Swapped between one and two, no change. #2 still won't go.

I'm getting spark right up to the end of the wire... It's just the plug.

Anyway, I'm off to throw some new plugs in, I'll check back after.

 

Here we go then: The injector on #2 is dead.

ttfn fellas
Jeff

 

when u do your valve cover replace your tube seals, thats what keeps oil out of your plug chamber. but oil in the chamber will cause it to misfire. so its an easy fix get it done and let us know whats up