I have a 96 Civic EX w/ 134,000 miles. A few months ago it started misfiring during light acceleration. It feels like the car is going to stall, but it doesn't. Its too cold here for me to really check out...and I don't like working on cars in the winter. So, I just put up with it. Today, it was really bad. I checked for error codes, but there are none. The check engine light has never come on. Does anyone have a clue where I should start? The cap, rotor, plugs and wires are about 2-3 years old. Changed the fuel filter about 4 years ago. The car starts and idles fine. When it starts misfiring, i floor the gas pedal and it goes away. I'm gonna check the plugs and under the distributor cap when I get a chance. I'm really surprised that this misfiring hasn't been detected and any codes set. What do you guys think? Could it be the coil or ICM?

 

My 99 Civic EX did the same thing a 3 weeks ago where it would begin to hesitate and then on full throttle it would go away. I replaced my spark plugs because I had installed E3 Spark plugs 2,000 miles ago and they already burnt up. I also removed the distributor cap and cleaned the contacts on the cap and rotor. My entire ignition system has been replaced with an after market from the spark plug wires to the cap to the coil. I ended up replacing the fuel filter since I feared I had gotten some bad gas and potentially clogged it or the fuel injectors. I replaced the E3 spark plugs with Bosch 2 points. This seems to have cured the problem. I would make sure you check the resistance of the factory coil and inspect the spark plugs and cap and rotor to see what the condition is. Do not just replace from plugs to cap on a whim.

 

Thanks for the reply. This weekend, I'm gonna check everything out. Any chance my timing could be off? I'm gonna check that too.