After a year of letting my son use my 98 Civic Ex he brings it back needing a clutch. I let it sit for about 3 weeks til I had time, and when I went to start it, It was hard to start w/ a lot of hard stops while cranking,once it started gave it a little throttle and she bogs or shuts down all together. Got her out on the road and under load she sputter. Idles fine no issue. Replaced a broken Ground started easier right away but eventually back to the hard start, sputtering , and an occasional back fire.
Did I lose a plug or wire, Did a lose a fuel injector ? Just looking for some directioning for my next move here
TIA

 

Since it doesn't sound like it is overheating just power problems, I would check mechanical timing, ignition timing, quality of spark on all four plugs, compression and do the fuel pressure test found in the factory service manual. I'd also check the distributor cap and rotor when doing the quality of spark investigation. Most likely I'd end up doing the basic tune up of new rotor, new cap, new wires and new spark plugs.

 

Have you checked for CEL codes by jumping the service connector?

 

No codes