I just recently purchased my son a 1990 CRX base model for his first car. We are hoping for it to be great little project for us, as well as giving him something a little different from everyone elses Cavaliers, Neons, and Grand Am's.

The car is a completely unmolested base model with the 1.5L PGMFI engine, and auto trans. I has just over 166k miles on it, and from what I can tell, looks to have been well maintained.

The car has an issue with the trans that was there when we purchased it. It shakes, pretty badly, when shifting from 1st to 2nd under even light acceleration. It also shakes, although only slightly, when shifting from 2nd to 3rd. 3rd to 4th are smooth as can be. The previous owner indicated that this has been happening for several years now, and had not gotten any worse during that time.

Research that I have done so far has indicated that the trans mounts could be bad, or that the trans could be bad itself. I did check for engine movement shifting into and out of gear, and there is some. I would not describe it as excessive, but you can see the engine "drop" when it goes into gear. Is some movement expected, or should it remain solid doing this test?

My second problem, is that the car has started to have a very bad "miss" when stopped, while in gear. The miss is extremely noticeable. The car doesn't appear to want to die, but it seems to be struggling to stay running. If you shift into park, the miss is still there, although it is not nearly as bad.

I pulled the plug wires one at a time, and on 3 of the 4, there was a very noticable change in the car when they were pulled. One plug however (3rd plug, left to right while looking at the engine), seemed to have no effect when I pulled the wire.

I replaced the plugs, with little or no change in symptoms. The plug wire appears to be getting spark at the cap. If I pull it at the cap, the spark will jump a gap of about 1/2" from the cap to the wire.

So my question here is, should I continue with replacing ignition componets, or could there be another cause for this symptom?

 

Sounds like you picked up a crap car... What you describe from the transmission could be mounts but is most likely the transmission is in need of repair. You should never test for spark how you did in EFI vehicles. Always ground it out with a spark plug or something of that sort and not let it arc across. That's a good way to burn things up... Very high possibility you have a dead cylinder. Do a leak-down test or at the very least a compression test to see where you are at.