hello honda-tech, please help me out here!

So there I am, driving past the University in downtown seattle. As I 'm going up a wet hillside, my drive wheel rolls over a metal sewar cover. The wheels spins for a second and when I regain traction I am misfiring like a mother ****er. I was right by a jiffy lube so I quickly turned in and asked to use the obd-II scanner and it listed off every misfiring code along with a few fuel system errors. it sounds like an old subaru wagon with no exhaust on it. you can hear the "da da da da" as it revs instead of a solid "waaaaaaa" tone. (ya my car noises are lame) this happed once a couple months ago, not NEARLY as severe but it started misfiring randomly. then stopped the next day.

I suspect the timing belt, it hasn't been changed under my ownership and I'm unsure when the previous owner had it done if they did at all. I'm at 175000miles. here are the specs of the car.

1998 civic ex coupe
stock d16y8, never been cracked open to my knowledge. no knocks, leaks, smoke or anything.
it does have aftermarket exhaust that has an exhaust leak between the header and the cat. just changed the oil and its full, all the fluids and everything are good, cap, rotor, plugs and plug wires have less than 5,000 miles and are in good condition.

What do you think it is? I'm stranded until I can get this fixed!

 

timing belts are fun to change, of course they wrap the belt around the driver side motor mount..

 

if the belt is fine just re adjust the tensioner and set the timing back. if its shredding or u wanna replace it for peace of mind ur gonna have to take things apart.

 

ya.... good times.

 

The timing belt definitely must be replaced ASAP, but I don't think this caused the misfiring. I would start by replacing the spark plugs, wires, cap, and rotor and then go from there.

 

Your advise contradicts your signature. lol.

OP: Was it raining? do you have your undercarrage cover installed still?

Sounds like your dizzy got wet... timing belt wont' cause mis-firing as mentioned above...

You might have just rattled something loose when the wheels spun if the roads were dry...

Could be a loose ground or a loose ignition wire.

Good Luck.

 

Eh not so much. 175k miles and the OP is unsure if the belt was ever replaced... I'm siding on RonJ with this one, I'd replace it soon if ya can.

 

he said change it asap not due to his problem. he said change it ASAP because he doesnt know how long its been there and the car is high mileage and if he doesnt change it and it does GO then hes talking a new motor or hundreds and hundred of dollars in fixes.

truust me or not but ron does know what he speaks about wether you understand it or not

 

1. I was JFWY
2. It does. take of the upper cover and inpsect the timing belt... if it's worn or old... then replace it.

 

With those kind of miles I would changet timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and oil pump.

 

update:

new dizzy (cap and rotor)
plugs
wires are fine
checked the firing order and all connections a dozen times

new timing belt
water pump
tensioner

but I'm having trouble getting the timing right. I'm not sure if it is.
I've got the mark and the arrow lined up on the oil pump+crank, the cam gear's arrow is pointing straight up and the rotor is on piston one. but it is still sputtering and sounds like its running on two cylinders.....

what am I doing wrong?!?!

 

I am SURE that the timing is correct. all the marks on the crank, cam and dizzy match up perfectly. when I took it apart the first time the cam was turned counter clockwise a tooth or two which goes along with my theory that the tensioner was bad, allowing the belt to slip but not break. is it possible that I bent a valve but it is still running?? I will do a comp test to see what that looks like. it was 195 across all four a few months ago. what ellse could be going so wrong? please help! I'm at a loss

 

Does your mechanical timing at TDC1 look like this:

 

yes, checked it ten times. I don't have the crank pulley on because its retarted to torque it down 130 foot/lbs everytime. and the lower timing cover is off so I can access the belt. but the marking on the oil pump and the cog BEHIND the pulley match up to do the same job.

I even tried altering the the cam one tooth forward from where I thought it should be and one tooth back to see it it was just off by one tooth. nothing works.

I'll go do a comp test right now.