Engine Misfiring??

[allhailmj23]

3geez, I really need some help. I was driving a little hard in the city and as I got on the freeway, but I never really pushed it past 5000 RPM. When I got off and hit a stop sign, I noticed that my car was idling really rough (the whole car was shaking). Keep in mind, my car runs in limp mode and has CEL with code 12 for the EGR valve, so it should have been idling above 1200 RPM. But this time, I was idling at around 500-800 RPM. But the engine never stalled. My friend also noticed a weird burning smell at that time.

Driving it around was really weird. I barely had enough power to come out of a stop. It hesitated and was sluggish below 2500 RPM. But once I got above that, I got a vtec like surge of power, at least compared to what I had in the lower range. Going up hills was next to impossible: I usually take this one hill in 3rd gear at 35-40 MPH and had no problem accelerating. But now I can barely stick above 30. And the engine just sounds entirely different and has a gnarly growl.

I checked the car again today and it started very harshly, kinda like the battery didn't have enough juice. I came around the rear end of the car and it just sputters the exhaust out, like "puff, puff, puff..." To add to that, it smelled like a fair amount of unburned fuel was coming out of the exhaust.

After doing some research, there's only a few things that can be wrong, but I'm not so great with problems like this.
1) Timing skipped a tooth
2) Some thing in the ignition system is messed up. (new plugs, wires, cap and rotor in April)
3) Burnt valve (no compression in one cylinder?)

Some extra info: #1 there was a faint smell of gas when I would start up the car, but it has gone away since this problem started (leaky injectors?). #2 I put in a new fuel filter a month ago. #3 I took off the intake resonator. #4 The car has the A20A3 FI with just under 96,000 miles (a lot of city miles).

Sorry for making such a long story, but I really hope that my car isn't f***ed. I've put so much time and money into her. It was my grandfather's car and a huge part of my childhood. And it is about the best car I have ever driven, better than my friends' Alfa Romeo and E46. The only car that I drove that's better, is the S2000 . I just want to keep this car running. Any help and suggestions are much appreciated!

[Dr_Snooz]

You should always fix what you know to be broken first. Start by troubleshooting that EGR light. It's entirely possible that this is EGR related. We don't have a good manual for the '87's, but helminc.com can sell you the OEM shop manual. It's well worth the money, especially when diagnosing CELs.

[Oldblueaccord]

It starts out sounding like you are down one cylinder but a couple things you can check....

1. Reset the ECU start it and see what code comes up. This will clear the EGR code. You may try looking to see if another code is going off before you clear it.

2. Gas mileage? any ideas if your mileage has gone bad over the last few tanks ?

3. Rotten egg smell? cat. converter may have gotten plugged.

4. Check/ change you plugs. There cheap and its an easy way to see how each cylinder is running.


wp

[allhailmj23]

Well, thanks for your help guys. My uncle came over and went through the diagnostic process. Checked for spark, and I'm getting it. Plugs at #2 and #3 were very carbon fouled. But here's the fun part. We ran the compression test and here's what we found out.

Cylinder #1: 150
Cylinder #2: 60
Cylinder #3: 75
Cylinder #4: 150

Isn't that wonderful... Looks like I'm gonna need a new head gasket...

I never thought that this would happen to me, especially on a motor so cherry. Oh well, I guess anything can happen to anyone in this world