Hi n00b here and it's my boy's car with the issue. It's a 95 Civic EX Vtech. Let me try and fill in some of the history... Bought the car several months ago.. Engine was smoking bad.. he took it to a "friend" and they installed another low mile vtech engine in the car. Now the check engine light has been on steady since the newer engine install. I just printed out the instructions on how to get the codes out so I'll play with that tomorrow.

When they installed the engine they must have whacked the top of the radiator. The top of it had a crack and was pissing antifreeze from it. The car started running really rough.. like sputtering when you take off and just running rough. I figured the crack in the rad. was letting air in and the engine had some air bubbles in it. Due to the lack of funds he did some jb weld on the rad to hold him over a week. It worked but was still leaking slightly and still sputtering.

Today I installed a new rad for him. Did the procedure for getting the air bubbles out and buttoned it up. So at idle it's pretty smooth. When you put a load on the engine it spudders like a bad miss or something then when you take off from a stop. It will smooth out but still has some sputter feel to it. Sitting at a light in drive it still sputters. You can hear it coming out of the muffler. A bad miss is the best I can describe it. I just figured it was air bubbles but I guess it must be something else. Any idea what to trouble shoot next other then the check engine codes? Just looking for some tips and ideas of what to do next. Thanks!

 

Thanks for all the tips guys! Bled the ***** out of the radiator and put new plugs and wires on the car and now it's fine. Looks like I might have had a bad wire in there on top of the air bubbles. All is well in Civic world now he wants to sell it!