I have an 88 Civic DX that's been giving me fits. Basically I'll be driving down the road and the car will sort of stumble for a second. It feels like the car just lost spark or gas for maybe a second or two. Then it continues down the road without any problem. In search of this problem and a cure for my horrible cold idle I have replaced the following components: fuel pump, fuel filter, fuel pressure regulator, eacv, cap, rotor, plugs, wires, computer, o2 sensor, ignitor and coil. I'm reallyr unnign out of parts to replace. I'm not sure att his point if I have a bad replacement part, or if I am missing something. Any ideas?

- Daniel

 

Well this may seem strange but is your cooling system bled properly? If there is air in it that will cause a bad idle not sure if it would affect it while your driving though but I would assume it would? I mean you replaced the ignitor and coil which would have been another guess of mine so I really dont have too many ideas for you??

 

I remember bleeding it after hearing that could affect the idle. I will checdk it again. I wouldn;t imagine that causing the stumble. I neglected to mention I'm usuallydoing about 50-70mph when it stumbles. No tach in my car.

 

May car did that and it was because the alternator was going out, and not supplying enough juice to hit the coil and make a strong spark.

Can also be ground wire related under the hood or on the distributor, though.

Check those possibilities out.

 

You bring up a very intresting thought. when driving at night I've noticed my lights dim at idle. The brighten up just above idle. I dd have my alternate checked at they said it was good. But then I know those testers can sometimes be wrong.

 

One more thing i remembered. I had a battery go out on me. After the battery was replaced I wondered about my alternator. I used an old trick from working my old domestics of pulling the pattery wire off with the engine running. usuallyt he car will stay running if the alternator is good (or not totally bad). On my civic the car immediately died when I pulled the battery cable. I assumed this meant the alternator was bad, that's when I had it tested. I was told that some cars requitred the battery to be connected.. which seemed odd. But I went on witht he theory that the tester said ti was good. So I wonder if I was right initially? Should my Honda ocntinue to run without the battery hooked up if my alternator is good?

 

I don't think so, but don't quote me. I don't think the wiring for a Honda allows it to run without the battery hooked up.

 

No its not going to run without the battery hooked up. If you look you will see 2 cables coming off of the positive battery terminal one goes into the fuse box the other to the starter you disconnect the battery and the fuse box isnt going to be getting any power. So when it died its because you were taking power away from everything I.E. the ECU which would cause it to die.

*EDIT* I would definately take the alternator to someone else to have it checked out.

 

I went ahead and replaced the alternator since the lights were dim and eveything anyhow. No change in issue. I went ahead and pulled the distributor cap to check nothing was lose and I think I found bad news. The cap was full dust, the rotor and the contacts on the cap were in really bad shape. From what I've read this is an indication of bearing failure on the distributor. I think that would fit with my symptoms.