A couple of weeks ago I took my '99 Honda Accord out of the garage, where it had been sitting for five+ months. 1999 Honda LX, 4 cylinder, manual transmission. 165,000 miles.

The problem is that, at times, it will lose power when the accelerator is depressed. The RPMs do not change, it is just as if the gas is choked off. The fix is to let off the gas pedal and hit it again, usually it'll pick right back up. It might stutter for ten or fifteen seconds.

I had it at my mechanic for some brake work and he said it was a clogged fuel injector on my #2 cylinder. But he put some stuff on it, I put a can of Sea Foam in one tank and a bottle of STP fuel injector cleaner in the next tank, doesn't change. I can drive for a 200 miles on the interstate and never loses power, but driving in town at my destination will cause it to start stuttering.

Since taking it out of the garage I have put about 800 miles on it, mostly interstate. The stuttering does seem to lesson over time but it's still there.

Could this be a fuel filter or fuel intake clog? Or does this sound like clogged fuel injector, which is what my mechanic said?

I will pay more attention but I could swear that it does this only under heavier load, meaning going up a hill, which would mean the fuel filter. Would the solution be to swap out the in-tank fuel filter?

 

When it sat for the ~5 months, how often did you crank it up and let it run? I have several cars that see less than 200 miles a year but I make a point to start them for at least 20 minutes every 2~3 weeks.

Fuel filter on these is part of the fuel pump and I really don't think it is the issue.

Anyway, this one is hard to call IMO. I'll assume all of the old gas has been run out of the car by now. I'll also assume there are no pending or set codes in the PCM.,,,,funny how during a brake job they say "injector #2 is clogged"? Yes they could have been reviewing STFT and LTFT.

For giggles, unplug the primary O2 and take the car for a drive.....does or will the car act up with the O2 unplugged?

 

Did you ever solve this issue? I'm having an almost identical issue on my '99 Honda Accord.

 

Looks like intermittent misfiring, look into distributor cap/plug wires/plugs. My 97 Accord with 268k miles had similar issue couple months ago, I changed spark plugs, Distributor cap, cleaned EGR ports, replaced PCV valve. None of the above fixed the problem, finally bought NGK spark plug wires and installed them. That solved intermittent sputtering issue. I also suspected injectors and fuel filter, but they don't seem to be the problem.

 

I already changed my spark plugs a few months ago with ngk ones. The distributor was changed a couple years ago when I was having issues and I just did the plugs in the last week. None of these have fixed the issue.

 

The way I narrow it down is that I pulled the plug wires one at a time while the car is idling and held it close to the plug hole, I noticed spark jumping from the side on couple of wires. I replaced the wires with NGK, problem solved.