IT happened again last night, 70-75 degrees out side, I pulled the car out of the garage, Drive about 1 mile and then the car sounds like its running on 3 cyls, It sound like I have a set of cams, Smells real rich. If I let my foot of the gas the car will stall. However if I very slowly bring the RPMS down I can get the car to idle very rough. While its running I pull each plug wire off to try and pin-point the "dead/fowled plug" no luck there. Each plug wire removed resulted in the motor running even worse= it was not directly related to one plug? It also did not trigger the check engine light. I drive the car about 2 more miles at its FINE, WTF? The car was then drivien about 20 more miles with no problems, this happened exactly one week ago also same problem na then cleared up????Any ideas?

Mattj


[Modified by Dropspeed, 7:13 AM 7/12/2001]

 

I dont know but sounds like there is some restriction

Any mods?

 

Yes, the mods are listed if you click on my screenname and scroll down to bio

Mattj

 

this sounds like an ignition problem for sure. get new plugs and wires and see whats up.

 

may be an ecu problem. see if it happens again. if it only happens every now and then it sounds like you have a loose wire connection somewhere.

 

Maybe the fields controller is coming loose?
Check that.
EVIL

 

my guess is bad gas..as in some water

 

Lip- that sounds right. Last year my MB 300E had to go in the shop b/c there was bad fuel in it (f*@#kn gas station). I had spent almost $1k to fix it. The injectors went bad

 

It's the vtec controller. I had the same exact problem. It was an on and off problem for about 2 months before i finally figured it out. I disconnected the SFC wires and the problem stopped.

 

The gas is a fresh tank from a different station than the last time it happened, I have the jumper harness for the vtec controller so no splicing going on there and I double checked all of the connections, the car only has about 8700 (hard) miles on it so I can't believe it would be the wires, but anything is possible. One of the Techs that I worked with thought it might be a o2 sensor or temp sensor going bad, but still being within it perameters so its not setting a code, however its causing a lean condition?
both times it has happened just after start-up so the car has been cold

thanks for the info, any other thoughts
Mattj

 

yeah...bad gas. lol

remember....just because you go to a different gas station doesn't mean you still don't have water in the tank. gas and water don't mix...water will stay at the bottom of your tank. This is the reason they sell dry gas to absorb and burn off the water.

 

no it has nothing to do with the wires. It's an internal problem with the vtec controller.

 

I did turn the Field off the first time the problem was happening but it didn't make a differance, does the field have to be totally disconnected to test it or is turning it off good enough?

I'm also going to dump some gas-dry into the car

Willis can you give me more info as to what was happening, how you discovered it..... so on

Thanks again guys
Mattj

 

Disconnect it all together. Take it out of the equation. Right now you need to isolate the problem.

 

so theres nothing wrong with your engine in terms of combusting? or "firing"?

 

Same thing happened to me last month, dealer said it was bad gas, bad fuel pump, o2 sensor, or bad cat. I don't think the really had a clue. No cods either. Took out the FIELDS sfc VTEC controller, and guess what. No more problem, went away for good as soon as i took it out. Get rid of that thing.

 

Does not seem to be.

I'm going to wait until it happens again and the unplug the Field Jumper harness while its occuring (with the vehicle off)

This leads me to another question then, If the Field goes should I replace it with the APex-i VAFC? Has anyone had problems with that. I was able to tune/gain some horspower on the dyno with the Field and I don't want to loose any of my little ponies

Thanks
Mattj


[Modified by Dropspeed, 12:00 PM 7/12/2001]

 

Take out the Fields controller and the jumper harness completely.

Reset your ECU and restart.