Hello all, great forum. Have a question:

So I have a problem with accelerating in my 98 Civic EX. Awhile ago, the "check emission" light came on and since, I've had problems accelerating. While attempting to accelerate in 1st gear, the car's just slow to gain power and feels sluggish. When I advance through 4th gear, the acceleration seems sluggish and lazy. When I get to 5th gear, I have a hard time accelerating until I downshift to 3rd or 4th to get the RPMs up. And sometimes even if I get the RPMs up and upshift to 5th gear, the speed will either stay neutral or decrease. Also at times, I get random "vroom" where the RPM may increase 1K then return to normal. Any ideas what it might be?

 

Idle Air Control Valve?
also what condition is your ignition system in?

 

It's not a "check emissions" light, it's a "check engine light" (aka CEL).

Bring your car to a parts store and ask if they'll do a free scan on your car. OBDII cars (1996 and up vehicles) can get scanned for free by lots of parts stores such as Autozone and Advance Auto Parts.

When they scan the car it will come back with a number starting probably with "P0". Autozone at least can also give youa print out that says what the problem is and what conditions usually cause that problem to happen.

This will greatly narrow down what the problem is.