2001 Accord - 2.3L. 6 weeks ago I put in new spark plugs, distributor cap, coil and rotor. Recently the car started to sputter/misfire while under load like going up a hill, not bad at first but got worse as time went on. Well during a climb up a hill and some real rough sputtering it eventually died and wouldn't start. During inspection found no spark with good fuel delivery and cap/rotor/plugs good. So I replaced the coil and now the car starts and runs but has a random misfire/rough idle when in drive. There is a clicking sound by the distributor when the misfire happens. Is this the signs of a bad ignition control module? Something killed the other new coil and I really don't want to just throw parts at it.
Thank you in advance for any advice.

UPDATE: Misfire turned out to bad (new) spark plug on #4 cylinder! It runs fine now

 

Well, it's not the ignition control module. I put a new one in and it does the same thing. Spark plug wires look to be okay. It's a random misfire that sometimes gets erratic and sounds like all 4 cylinders are misfiring. I'm thinking bad gas. Lots of water vap0r coming out of exhaust. No overheating so far so hopefully its not a head gasket. Might be time for some Seafoam in the gas.......

 

do you see any red dust in the distributor ? could be a failing distributor bearing going bad and causing the sensors contact surfaces to be clouded

did you gap the plugs correctly ? could be related to something you installed

 

Distributor cap was clean. I even swapped cap/rotor to some old ones I had laying around. It still has the misfire. It's only at idle or low rpm, slight hesitation when taking off from a stop due to misfire. I checked plugs again to be good. It has to be bad gas. I wanted to syphon the fuel but there's a screen in the neck. I guess it's down to a fuel additive and drive it for a while......

 

Change your plug wires. Run the car in the dark. The click you are hearing is probably spark jumping off a bad plug/coil wire. In the dark you will see the spark maybe. If the spark is jumping near a boot, check carefully to insure there is no carbon tracking on the cap, coil, etc. good luck!

 

Thanks JollyHonda. I did run it in the dark and saw no sparks. I did replace the wires with new ones and it didn't help. I ran the tank empty with the seafoam and put in new gas but it still had the misfire but did show a little bit more power.

I was thinking it might be a bad injector even though they were clicking away or possibly the vtech solenoid/control module. So before I dug into those ideas I pulled the new spark plugs out again one by one and replaced with other ones just to see if they could be the issue. The car started to run smooth after I pulled out cylinder #4 spark plug and replaced it. I can't believe that, a new spark plug already bad after 6 weeks.

Well I'm happy it is running smooth again with good power and no misfire.....turned out to be a $4 part and a lot of scratching the head.