Hello,

Recently, while I was driving, the check engine light started flashing, I felt some shaking in the dash, and the engine performance was terrible. Once I got home, I turned off the car, opened the hood, and started it back up. First, I checked for sparks. I pulled out the spark plug wires for the first cylinder, there were sparks, and the engine sounded weaker. Cylinders 2-3 also seemed to be working fine.

However, when I got to 4, I got normal sparks, but the engine didn't sound any different.

I checked the distributor cap, and it was totally clean. I cleaned up the contacts, but it didn't make a difference. I then switched the 3rd and 4th spark plugs, and tried pulling the wires out again. Same problem as before - I was getting sparks on 4, but no fire. Afterwards, I got codes P0301, P0303, P0304, P0300, and P1399 on the OBDII, but this is probably because I pulled the wires. I drove it for a minute, and the check engine light started flashing again.

A few days before this happened, I got codes P0304 and P1399. The car is a 2002 Accord EX, 4-cylinder sedan.

Has anyone run into this problem? I think it's the fuel injector.

Thanks in advance.

 

That is a misfire in cylinder #4

If you got good spark at cylinder 4 there wouldn't be an issue with the distributor. So in saying that, you state that you got normal sparks. What method did you use to verify spark to cylinder #4, other than puling the plug wire?

Could be the spark plug wire, spark plug, fuel injector, valve adjustment, cylinder compression or ECU. There is a trouble shooting procedure for P0304 available. Much easier to follow that then it is to wait for someone to guess what might be causing your misfire.

 

Thanks for the response. I used a spark plug tester. I actually fixed it about a week ago, forgot to update the thread.
When I hooked up the tester, the engine started running fine. Then, I switched wires 3 and 4, and cylinder 3 stopped firing. Bought new spark plug wires and it runs well now.