Today I was driving home from work, a nine mile commute, about 1/2 a mile from my house my 1990 Civic STD started shaking while I was in third gear. I put it into neutral and coasted awhile. At a stop I put it back into first and noticed a big loss of power through first, second, and third. Plus I started to smell something burning, along with a slight smell of coolant. I put it into neutral again and coasted home. When I got home the burning smell was coming from my exhaust, not the engine. There was no smoke, just the smell, which was strong enough to smell in the front of my garage. The engine looked fine and there was no smoke. While driving I looked at my temperature gauge and it was normal and none of the engine lights came on. I checked the spark plug wires and they were fine. I haven't pulled the spark plugs out yet since the car is still hot. The only thing that I have done to the car was put 1 oz of Seafoam in my vacuum line connected to the Brake Booster last weekend, but have been driving the car fine all week. Plus, I have Seafoamed the car in the past with no problems. Also, oil and coolant levels are normal. Anyone have any ideas what it is?

 

maybe the catalytic converter failed on you. a bad cat will make you lose power

 

Could be. One way to tell would be to see if the cat is glowing red hot. Not sure if that is an actual test procedure but I know that people have told me to do that.

Or if your ambitious you can take the o2 sensor out and drive with it out and see if your power comes back. That's also another way.

 

Took the car to a muffler shop and found out I was running on 2 cylinders. Replaced the spark plug wires and the car has never run better!

Thanks for all your advice.