Hello people...

So I'm a newbie here and like most newbies I'm clueless about what it wrong with my car. lol.

So here's the deal. I drive a 1999 Honda Civic LX and its a SOHC NON-VTEC. It's a nifty, gas saving little vehicle. I love it!!! I love even more that it's standard which makes it fun to drive around. It's got 141,000 miles on the engine and never had any problems. I've always changed the oil regularly and pretty much kept on top of maintenance as far as I know. I don't know about the previous owner. But today the problems started.

The car worked fine in the morning but when I got off work I had problems. My check engine light came on and i noticed a sputter and lag in the acceleration. Strange. I replaced the spark plugs with OEM ones and gapped them according to Honda specs. There's a little better power but it still sputters and lags. I have trouble accelerating...especially up hills. Now for my big question: What could it be?? I know absolutely NOTHING about car mechanics...I've always had motorcycles and this is my FIRST car. (I have NEVER had trouble with my Honda 954RR lol). My buddy suggested I might wanna change my distributor cap and rotor and possibly the spark plug wires. I also thought it could be the coil but He told me since my car wasn't VTEC, I didn't have a coil on my car.

Can anyone give me some insight?? I'd REALLY appreciate it...Thanks in advance guys

 

anyone?? help????

 

First thing is first, don't start just throwing parts at your car. That gets expensive, and quick!
Since you have thrown a code, go see what the code is. You can go to Autozone and they will plug up to your system and tell you for free.

 

I got only 1 code surprisingly.

I got the following when they checked it: MISFIRE IN CYLINDER 1. But that was it. The guy simply told me to swap out my spark plugs and that should take care of it. But it didn't lol.

I'm really trying to get down to what it REALLY is. I just moved and money is kinda tight. I CAN afford to buy the dist cap and rotor tomorrow and MAYBE the spark plug wires if I really don't wanna eat lunch for a few days. I'm just worried that this won't solve the problem...

 

Wait for later tomorrow for some of our better users to get on. They will give you better answers.

And I hope thats not you being a squid on that bike of yours sir. Rash sucks.

 

That was in my squid-ier days. I use full gear now lol :P

 

Good to hear. I went down being a squid. Had my lid on, but no real gear. Road rash down arms, back, side, legs. It was a bad deal.

 

Have your plug wires been changed lately? Worn out wires don't work very well.

You might want to check your distributor too. That guy who said you don't have a coil because you don't have vtec is a moron.

Here's what you want to do. Check for spark. We know you have spark because the car runs. But what we don't know is what color the sparks are. If they're weak orange, you have issues. If they're blue, there's something else going on. Here's how:
https://www.hondacivicforum.com/foru...ad.php?t=74362

 

Did you use basic NGK plugs? If not, do so.

Also replace the plug wires, cap, and rotor.

 

Remove the cap on the distributor. Check the contacts in there. Are they pretty beaten up and heavily worn?

Look for black carbon lines that look like "lightning bolts" inside the cap. If those are there, replace the cap and rotor. This is usually a little over 20 bucks at AutoZone.