a month ago my girlfriends El bogged a bit and made the engine light come on. We took it in and it was diagnosed with a misfire. Honda sugested a tune up with plugs, wires, cap, air filter. also a fuel filter. They wanted cloase to $400 for everything. I got them to reset the comp, and I did the work myself, except the plugs and air, as I did them in the fall. Plugs are NGK plat's.

I was sure it would be the fuel filter, but no it is still doing it. It hesitates large in the mornings mostly. where you can floor it and nothing, rpm's don't move, after a few seconds she catchs and goes. It also idles rough sometimes when warm.

After sifting through a bunch of posts here. I think it may be the platinum's but maybe the O2 sensor.

Any advice? I don't want to take it back to Honda for another $50 diagnosis.

Thanks

 

Pull the plugs and tell us what they look like.

 

Plugs looked pretty worn. Strange for platinum plugs, I thought they lasted a year? Anyway They looked pretty standard, no black, oil or anything. just toasty brown. Only one plug had uneven wear, kindof a seringe type of angled poit. I put in some new NGK v's - OE.

The power feels better, but it has still hesitated once in a while. maybe every other morning

Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

Yeah, rounded electrode = throw it away.



Hmm... and you replaced all that good stuff, including wires? Take a moment to poke around your engine bay and make sure all your ground straps are secure and all that jazz.

 

Plat. are not for that car. stick with the ngk oem's.
i would change the wires.

 

See first post, I changed everything.

Now i looked visually, for any potential bad ground. All looks normal. But there's lots of grounds in there. Is there any one that has been known to be problematic? so I can verify alls good.

Again this hesitation is on a cold engine mostly (in mornings). What things could be sticky when cold like Throttle Pos Sens. I don't have much experience with newer cars with all these sensors. I hear from honda that if the O2 sens is bad it will cause a fault and click on the engine light. Which we dhave had the light on twice now and it has gone off after a week both times. Can you guys make anything of this?

Thanks for any advice,

 

Ive had experiences with 02 sensors gone bad without a check engine light. Refer to a user's manual for how to test 02 sensors, its checking for changing voltage across certain wires.

You may want to also check for a clogged catalytic converter, or clogged or leaking exhaust system.

You may also want to use a product like seafoam, to clean out big carbon deposits from your your intake/combustion system.

ALso, have you replaced your PCV valve? This seems to be a common solution for some weird problems.

Have you had your valve lash adjusted lately?

Thats all I can think of right now, hopefully it'll give you a few more ideas on things to check.

 

If your valves are too tight( lack of adjustment) It will give systoms you're describing. Also if your MIL light has come on then gone off a few times you need to find out why. It should still be a stored DTC if the light has gone off. Why don't you jump the SCS connector with a paper clip and count the flashes, then post what you got on here?

 

Can you describe this code retrigval process more. I'd like to try it!
I will do the pvs valve as this problem still persists. We also just went through another engine light on then days later off.

So this procedure should realy help. Hope they're not all misfires. That doesn't help us much.

Thanks again all,
James

 

Ok, go under the pass. floorboard and look up under the glove box kinda in the corner (right side). What you are looking for is a green or blue rubber boot inside the boot will be one or two connectors that do not plug in anywhere. the two pin(has two holes) is the one to jump with a paper clip. jump it with a paper clip then turn on the ign. switch to the II position and count how many times the check engine light flashes, one long flash=10, short flash =1