My baby is sick :(

[syco3d]

Ok, so I'm driving to go see my ex who lives around 100mi away...(long story don't ask) And about an hour into the trip my car starts stuttering ( KA-S13 btw) it just stutters twice in succesion and keeps plugin along just fine. At this point I'm really late so I'm driving around 90mph+. I go to pass a truck- punch it up to 95 and it stutters twice again. ARG!!!!!. Ok so it keeps doing this, but not regularly, just whever it feels like it I guess. My first thought is that i'm just running outa gas, because my gauge had stayed on 1/4 for like 40mi.

So as soon as I hit town I pull into a reputable station and put in $5 dolla worth (reputable-but a rip-off :/ ) Continue driving through town to go pick up my ex, and my car starts stuttering now when I pull off of a light. This time it stutters - well - alot more then twice. So I pick her up, and go fill the rest of my tank and put a bottle of HEAT in w/it thinking it *might* just be water in the tank. Now keep in mind that when it's not stutturing my car runs fine, no loss of power, not smoking, nothing.

Ok so after I drop the heat in everything is running fine. I drive around for about 70+ mi in and around town (she lives 30mi outside of the city limits) and everything is great. So I go to take her home- and as soon as I hit the gravel road- it stutters BAD. But it semi regains power and we keep going. Now I turn around to leave and I can barely make it outa her lane, my rev meter is bouncing like a pair of nasty ****. It's about 2am so I decide to just stay the night.

I have to get up at 6:30 to leave town so I could get to work by 9 (where I am now) I leave her house- everything is great, till about and 30-45mins of driving, and it occasionally starts stutturing again, only when it does I see that rev meter is bouncing again- going all the way to ZERO and back up. Luckily it's not very often so I keep driving home at about 70-80mph. As soon as I get off the highway about 1mi from my house, I turn the corner and BAM it's falters really bad I see the revs drop to zero...but the car is still running??? Then is bounces back up and i'm off. It does this the rest of the way home, I get ticked off and grab my parents camry and take off for work.

From searching other threads these are things I'm thinking off...

- injectors. Maybe one is shorting? I checked all the harnesses to the injectors b4 I left, but not with a volt meter...yet

- fuel pump. But I thought when fuel pumps went out that would just GO OUT. And also if a fuel pump is only working intermitantly I would think that I would just be running lean, and not losing gas altogethor. But who knows...

- a sensor short?? Ie. maf. Maybe needs cleaning/replaced?

- plug wires. I have a very small amounts of oil leaking in my valve cover...the plug wire for my 3rd cylinder as abit of oil on it. -maybe it's not firing that cylinder because of this? But I would think that would again be a constant problem and not occasional.

Anyone w/ideas is more then welcome to share them. Sorry for making this a book, but I wanted to make sure I stated all conditions. ...and i'm kinda bored. I just want my car to run right. :mad:

EDIT: I forgot to mention that shortly after I filled up the second time (and dumped heat in) I replaced my fuel filter. - it had been at least 8k miles since the last time, and if I by chance it was just a bad tank of gas causing the problem...

[Warwick5s]

i had a similar problem in my car lately and it turned out to be a hosed fuel injector. but it was making a really loud clicking sound...

[syco3d]

hmm...somthing to consider anyways...

[gregsr20]

check injectors w/ test light, check and make sure valve cover id completely sealed, i had oil on my plugs and it did the same thing, have in jectors cleaned for the hell of it, wouldn't hurt

[syco3d]

Just thought I'd throw another wrench in...




Ok so tonight when I got off work, I decided to do alittle 'spirited driving' ...against other people. Now it wasn't a race mind you...more of a ...ummm...means to getting my car good and warmed up.

And as soon as I run off a few, the stuttering comes back. So I drive around abit more, and figure out that the stuttering only comes about at WOT. Now it will also stall when I shift from WOT (ie rev 2nd high and drop to low revs in 3rd) but I'm guessing that's because it's still fuel starved when I switch gears...

So I pull over into the strips main hang-out to check it out, and maybe get some advice. I reach under and rev my car manually using the throttle body, it stammers but recovers quickly...so I do it again...after a couple more, it won't stall. So I get in and rev w/the accelerator, still won't stall. After a good hour and a half of more 'spirited driving' I couldn't get it to stall once. BTW: shortly after reving by hand, I topped off the gas tank (had about 1/2 b4) and dumped in some 0-60 Injector cleaner.

[radrex88]

Sounds like an ignition problem, I would have the ignition system checked out by the dealer or your mechanic. Sorry thats not much help, but thats all I got.

[russian]

wtf igntion has to do with it? im prety sure its your injectors, fuel pump as you said would just go out (like mine :) ) check the injectors and all the wirings around see if they are doing fine.

[BlitzSilvia]

i have a friend with a CRX that had that same problem. I kept thinking it was a fuel filter problem or pump, but it turned out to be his ignition shorting out. One day it just finally gave way completely and wouldn't turn or anything, so he had it replaced and now it runs great.
I'm not sure if this is your problem too, but it sure does sound very simliar.

[syco3d]

Originally posted by russian
wtf igntion has to do with it? im prety sure its your injectors, fuel pump as you said would just go out (like mine :) ) check the injectors and all the wirings around see if they are doing fine.

I know how to test the injectors as far as voltage goes...but how do I test to see how they're spraying? ...ie: to see if they're clogged or what not.

[cosmo]

maybe a bad MAF?

[Apparition]

I have the EXACT same problem. Only in 5th gear doing highway cruising and it surprises the hell outta you, its like you run over a big rock, and then its fine. And its totally irregular. Like in a 5 hr drive it'll happen maybe twice.

[syco3d]

Originally posted by cosmo
maybe a bad MAF?

yeah that was somthin else I was thinking...any ways, the problem seems to be ok for now. I'll just have to wait for it to come back b4 I can figure out what is wrong.

[justeno_heat]

I had the exact same thing happen last winter to me. I got my car stuck in a ditch with the nose sticking in the ground. It kept running for a while like that. Anyways the next day it wouldn't idle. And when I was going around 20-30 it would buckle. I thru some injector cleaner in it and it fixed it almost right away. I took about 3 days to clean all out.

[SimpleS14]

You could have a vacuum(sp?) leak, where unwanted air is being drawn into your car. I had the same problem with my 154,000 mile KA (S14). It became so bad that I was getting crappy mileage, running rich, and had the car stall when idle for less than one minute.:eek: I had a bad intake gasket (between the runners), so I paid someone to fix it. Only because I didn't have the time or knowledge on how to replace it. This gasket is probably the second most difficult gasket to replace...only second to the headgasket.

[syco3d]

Alright, here's the latest...

So I took my car in, the mechanics ****ed my off, blah blah blah, already stated in another thread. If you missed it, don't worry nothing but a bunch of ranting.

But I went and got some new plugs and wires. Put the wires on, didn't fix the problem. I went and borrowed an extension so I could change my plugs, pulled the wires out, and they fell apart on me. :mad: So I put my old wires on after changing my plugs. WHILE I was chaning my plugs, the cylinder one plug was insanely lose. I didn't even think that I had gotten my socket around it good enough, I pulled the rachet up and there was my plug. <---probably part of my problem. So I start up my car to see if the problem is now fixed, it's not. In fact, my car is running so bad now, it won't even hardly idle (somthing that has always been fine). So I go pull my wires off, put them back on, and now it runs fine. Go run around the block a few times (about 6 miles or so) all the while running it pretty hard...

I come back to think the guy for letting me borrow his tools (I NEVER SHUT THE CAR OFF) get back in to drive off, and now I can't hardly get out of his lane. He looks it over, pulls my distributor cap and rotor off, yeah, they're fried. (They are the original parts on a 175,000mi engine.) So I limp over to napa and get a new cap and rotor. That fixs the problem, kinda.

Now when I'm driving, my car will just 'pop' (sounds kinda like a small backfire, only the sound seems to come from out my intake) then all off a sudden the RPMs will drop to zero and stay there. Untill I rev it 3 or 4 times, then it will kick back up and run fine for awhile, then do it again awhile later. But it will only do this when I accelerate. I drove my car on the highway to test it for about 45mi one way, and nothing. Untill I turned around and accerlated, it popped once, then was fine all the way back home.


Now is it possible that my computer 'learned' to run wrong, and now it just need to re-learn to run right? I mean, I know that our computers have basic learning circuits (or so I've been told) so could this be a possiblily. It's just that since I've changed my rotor/cap the problem is almost totally different, and not NEARLY as frequent.
BTW: When I get some more money I'm going to replace my spark plug wires, and rotor? <---I'm not sure what is usual for replacing here. ...I'm rather ignition illiterate

[SSDwellah]

That pop sound is because it's running rich (if it's coming from the exhaust). If you're sure that it's coming from the intake then your air idle control valve is probably shot. You can tell it's the aicv if it wants to stall when coming to a stop or it idles really irregular, although this can be due to running rich. The symptoms are similar since technically, when the aicv is closed at idle you ARE running rich.