I have a 98 Accord v6 with 260k miles, I've gone through a ton of threads and tried to gather all the info I could but haven't seen many with the same problem and code together. My car will randomly die while driving, whether its going 70 down the highway or 25 on a side street, after about 5-10 minutes itll start right back up and be absolutely fine the rest of the trip, occassionally it takes longer but not often. It's been doing this for a few months and recently the distributor went out(no spark) so i fixed that and it was fine for a day or two and the problem started again so and I got the p0420 code(cat efficiency below threshold) there is a slight smell of gas, but everything else seems fine, runs smooth, no rough idle, good accelleration, no shaking.

My question is what can cause the cat to go out? I dont wanna shell out the money and then have the same thing mess the new one up, could it have been the distributor? And if so why would it have died all the time before I needed the new one?

Also I read a few places that you can take the cat off n leave it in a bucket of laundry soap for a day n that'll fix it, is this true? Doesnt really seem safe?

Sorry for the lengthy post didn't want to be vague, and thanks for any help and input.

 

Also forgot to mention when I say dies only the engine shuts off. Radio, headlights, ac/heat stay on and headlights dont dim or anything. Sometimes dash lights go off for a few seconds but usually come right back

 

See Honda TSB 03-088





The cat code is likely separate....