Randomly cutting out / sputtering on 89 F/I

[Brennan]

Hey guys,

Someone pulled up to me at a stop light and suggested this site, so here I am. :)

I've tried searching but I'm not sure if the wording I'm using is what others would use. I'm having a problem with my car bogging down / sputtering / cutting out and it makes it kind of hard to drive. It doesn't do it except under load, and it does so much worse with the A/C on. The engine never dies fully, just loses power until I shove the clutch in and try to rev it back up and again let the clutch out.

89 Accord LX-i, F/I, 179,000 mi., 5-speed (new-ish transmission and clutch) stock everything except I have replaced wires and fuel pump. Before you laugh, I'm waiting for a paycheck to finish that tune up (cap, rotor, plugs).

Thing is, before I got the car from my brother it didn't do this. Then I'd be noticing it just kind of "puup" a little, cut out slightly for about .5 second, while driving, but nothing major. Then it started to cut out so bad that I've just gotten used to shoving the clutch in, revving it back up and trying to let the clutch out slowly hoping it doesn't do it again.

Only seems to do it between about 1 and 2.5k, and under load (ie: accelerating). It'll also do it if I punch the gas hard while idling. If this helps at all, when I punch it in idle, it immediately cuts out but still climbs in RPM, couching smoothly the entire time.

Anything you guys have seen before? I've been trying to figure out why brother never had any problems and it started doing this when I got it...so frustrating! I did run it really low on gas for a while till I got a job; could that have damaged the fuel pump or something?

Please, please help if you have any ideas at all. It's making the car really hard to drive.

THANKS 3GEEZ!

Ps: would it help if I did a quick video of driving it to show what I mean?

[AccordB20A]

does it give you a check engine light on the dash or not? if not it could be your plugs/leads/rotor, weak spark will not ignite the mixture under load which could be causing this. Other things it could be are the fuel filter

[Brennan]

Thanks for replying! I haven't once gotten a CEL. I have replaced the fuel filter, so that can be ruled out.

I'm pretty sure that it's been forever since the plugs have been replaced, so that might be it. I'm going to fix that on Wednesday.

[Brennan]

Hey guys, great news. I did the tune up, got iridium plugs, generic cap, generic rotor, and some good wires. Problem fixed, car is very happy now. I also took the opportunity to do an oil change and filled it with Mobil 1 synthetic, 5W-30. Expected it to run a little smoother, but heck at least it runs.

Here's a good picture of what I found on the tip of all my plugs:
hxxp://img846.imageshack.us/img846/515/p1020440z.jpg

I'm not super good with cars, just minor stuff and I like to DIY. So, why did these get clogged with grease? What's leaking, where?

Thanks again!

[Oldblueaccord]

Well good you got it fixed. Looks like your plug gap was way to big and I would imagine the inside of the cap was looking bad as well from high resistance arcing.

The grease blob on you plug is mostly from when you take them out it bumped into the junk around the hole in the head. Otherwise I never seen a plug that bad except on like a 2 stroker.

1.Couple other cheap :tongue: things you can do is clean your throttle body plate with some cleaner and a rag and you finger. Get all that soot out of there.

2.Check your air filter make sure its clean or clean it out a little.

3. Check you timing

4. Set you valve lash,if you think you can do it yourself these cars have adjustable valve lash

Your gas mileage will indicate how well you car is running. 25-35 mpg is ball park.

Good luck and welcome to the site.


wp