For background info. My car is a 99 gsr with 30k miles. I went to lunch today at work. On the way back, my car felt like the clutch was slipping. I thought WTF. I blipped the engine at a red light and noticed serious hesitation. I went through the drive through and never turned off the engine. I thought about going to the dealer, but those guys would take hours and it was already 3:30 in the afternoon.

I drove home from work, like 40 miles. Everything is fine, as long as I don't pass half throttle. If I do I get bad hesitation. When I got to the block where I live no one was around. I came around the corner with intention on testing to see if I had vtec. At one point on the freeway when I downshifted, it appeared to be missing. Reved to 6k and nothing. No vtec, and no secondaries.

I did a quick check under the hood. Nothing appears to be loose. I was getting dark by the time I got home, so I could be wrong. I checked with my flashlight in the corners of the engine bay. Distributor has not budged.

I don't know if the following is pertinent or not, but here goes. Only engine mod is AEM CAI. Timing is stock. Spark plugs and wires are about 15k miles old, (6 months). I am at a loss here. Idle is stock. Upon heavy acceleration it bogs for a couple of seconds and then accelerates with some hesitation.

I can take it to the dealer tomorrow, but if it is something stupid, I prefer not to waste half of my day.

 

Tonight CEL came on and idle went to $hit. It is going to the dealer tomorrow.

Well got code 74, misfire on #4. I guess I will check it in the morning. Quickie tuneup.


[Modified by vteg, 12:44 AM 8/16/2001]

 

well you can try this ..i am pretty sure its your spark plugs wires..try using a set from someone else and change out your spark plug with the right gap..your is a gsr so the gap sould be at 1.3..try new wires,and new plugs and give it a run..o yeah before starting it back up reset your ecu..by disconnect neg,and fuse(7.5) and connect and start it up and run it see how it does..if not let me know whats goin on..

 

Thanks. I checked the distributor cap, rotor, and tried an old spark plug. Same thing. I dosconnected the wire and get a spark from it, but maybe not strong enough. Now I am in desperate search of wires. No one seems to have them in stock.

 

I had the same kind of problem at 50K. I put in new plugs and the car was fine.

with 30K, you may need plugs. Maybe new wires too. but my wires are perfectly fine at 52.

- kanobe

 

What about your fuel filter?

How do plugs look?

Do all maintenance stuff if it's due: plugs, wires, dist, rotor, pcv valve, clean air filter, etc.

Do you have enough oil??? VTEC won't work without enough oil pressure...

FB

 

Thanks for all of the suggestions. After checking everything out this morning, and unintentionally electrocuting myself testing spark on #4, I purchased new wires this afternoon. I installed them and everything worked fine. Instant difference. I will do a full tune up this weekend, even though the other ignition components looked fine. Nice tan spark plug electrodes.

Friends don't let friends play with electricity shortly after waking up

 

yup same thing happen to my integra..spark plug wires..

 

That was the first time I have ever had a catastrophic spark plug wire failure. Most of the time the performance deteriorates and that is it. Never anything this drastic.

 

i have 103,000 miles on the stock wires.. i guess they dont make them like they used to! :D