H22A stutter and jumping.

I am stumped, hence writing to you guys, hoping somebody can reply with things NOT related to the fast idle valve issue I have read so much about and experienced, THIS IS NOT THAT PROBLEM TRUST ME!.

My 95 US H22A has an issue that started mildy at about 1 year after the swap(2/10/01) of the 80K H22A motor into the 95 LX Accord. It is intermittent, yeah I know the worst friggin kind, and is driving me nuts plus it feels like it is jerking the car looser and looser apart each day. Now understand it was a little annoying with the motor stock, but still always pissed me off, the tuner I use felt he could hide it a bit with tuning on the fields unit(A little), which failed working a few months back and I had to get an apexi II. Now that the motor is built and expecially low compression it is worse and jerking me forward and back at lite or middle throttle gas pedal points.

Sometime it runs fine and expecially after I chase it, played with a hatch with a B16 the other day and if we went to 100 he would have edged me out but during the race and in full throttle it runs fine, I kept ahead of him until a few seconds into third and could get a 2 car jump with a good start. Reason he was pulling on me is the most recent build is low compression preparing for a turbo,(9.5-1), so it has good torque down low and surprises lots of FWD cars from the start.

I want so badly to buy the turbo but never until I find this issue will I invest another 4k on top of 7K and 9 K for original swap plus lots of parts and the 9K for the build of which the first build(12.5-1) did not work and rings never seat properly. Sick and fed up in south FLA, now hoping for some quidance.

I wanted to come back and touch base for the next round of upgrades on the way to hopefully solving this problem by replacing every damned part on the car if I need to.

Sunday I will be putting a few more parts on, does not matter but the rear two illuminas will go first for a bit of height adjustment in the rear.

BUT!!! I also will try to solve the problem by installing a msd box, coil, and magnecore wires. If this and some tuning of the new apexi II box does not find, correct, or vastly minimize this issue I will replace the fuel pump next and check back to the boards.

Sorry if you guys feel this is cheap top board hunting but feel I could give it a few shots at the masses.

Here's to 9000rpm and 10psi soon.

i really dont mean to sound stupid here, but your problem could easily be an o2 sensor. your diagnosis sounds exactly like what is wrong with my car (and im about 90% sure its an o2 sensor). dont know the details of your swap but alot of times the o2 sensors dont trigger a cel for a long time if at all...anyways, with all that youve replaced so far, it doesnt sound like dropping a couple hundred for new o2 sensors is gonna be that big of a deal. good luck with your problem, hope i helped...

First off why would you sound stupid, I FEEL stupid not being able to get the swap guy to find it and now having to go outside the swap place and start learning some of this stuff from local people with same interests, so far you look a gentleman and scholar to me. Not to mention you are trying to help me. Problem is with that help comes more questions about the suggested answers. What are O2 sensors, how do they work and how do you know they are bad? Can I find a way to get past or eliminate them in any way? How many and where the heck are they, couple hundred meaning multiple sensors located in different places at a cost of about $200 to replace all of them?


Trigger a cel, meaning a code to my engine light blinks? Mine has always been on and the code it has always given is the EGR one, which he says cannot be made to go away. I am starting to get the impression as long as I am installing or spending money they will look at it but if it requires tracking down or something strange they are no better then me trying to fix it with friends.

Call it what you want board masters but I am not a newbie...

purehonda.com was where I first signed up and I had almost 2000 posts before it changed one time while I was away, if I had no job and more money I may have tripled that number in the same time but I do have way too much other crap to do(computer field).

The basis of these boards are great though and just wanted to say thanks to you all.

I would also love to find a 91 CRX and put a GSR motor in it with a serious head worked and bolt ons. That would also be a fun car to drive I believe.

okay, heres my explanation. your Oxygen Sensors (or O2 sensors) consist of two sensors located in the exhaust pipe, one of them is located before the catalytic converter and one is located after the catalytic converter. their basic purpose is to monitor the exhaust gases coming from your engine (before and after the cat converter obviously) and then they relay their signal to your cars ecu. from the ecu, your car then determines whether the engine is running rich or lean and adjusts appropriately. now after filtering (or 'sensoring') consistent dirty ass exhaust gases for hundreds of thousands of miles worth of driving, these sensors can get very dirty. with this dirt and corrosion in your oxygen sensors, they can product false or incorrect readings and send them to your ecu. this then causes your car to react spuratically (for lack of a better term)...it will sputter or hesitate at certain rpm ranges. ive read from some sources that you should change the O2 sensors after 90,000 to 100,000 miles worth of driving. dirty sensors can also rob you of power and even give you shittier gas mileage.

the bad news is that replacing these 2 O2 sensors can cost up to like $380! at least thats what it is for my car (97 prelude). kind of a bitch to be honest...

hey my freinds civic had a similar problem, his car would surge alot when accelerating...ended up bein a bad spark plug/wire...replace that shit first

"ibsixubnine03 - 02-07-2004 at 11:07 PM
hey my freinds civic had a similar problem, his car would surge alot when accelerating...ended up bein a bad spark plug/wire...replace that shit first"

I said I was doing the msd box, coil and magnecor wires today but the guy who was helping me and the friend canceled with a mom issue.

"pheurton-skeurto - 02-07-2004 at 10:33 PM
okay, heres my explanation. your Oxygen Sensors (or O2 sensors) consist of two sensors located in the exhaust pipe, one of them is located before the catalytic converter and one is located after the catalytic converter. their basic purpose is to monitor the exhaust gases coming from your engine (before and after the cat converter obviously) and then they relay their signal to your cars ecu. from the ecu, your car then determines whether the engine is running rich or lean and adjusts appropriately. now after filtering (or 'sensoring') consistent dirty ass exhaust gases for hundreds of thousands of miles worth of driving, these sensors can get very dirty. with this dirt and corrosion in your oxygen sensors, they can product false or incorrect readings and send them to your ecu"

SO to me the next series of questions should be...

CAN I get rid of them altogether?

...and if I have the two not mentioned here I am not sure, but the friend told me one before the cat and one after. I don't think I have one after and or believe if I do have one I don't have a cat in there so who frig knows what iot is reporting and reacting to. Plus a header and am unsure if they put one back with that.

Should I just break down and buy a complete fuel and system management type setup with a 2 settings type boost gauge for when I go turbo so I have two settings to flip to easily?


What are peoples thoughts on how much trouble this crap is causing me?

from my understanding there is almost no way to completely eliminate your oxygen sensors altogether. my question to you is do you have an accord exhaust system or a prelude/h22 exhaust system??? if you have an h22 system, then its gonna cost you $380 for a new pair of o2 sensors. if accord, probably somewhere just south of that price. if your car is running right now without o2 sensors, im fairly confident that that is your problem. your car would have no way of monitoring the engine without them, causing your car to run like poo. if youre buying all these mods, stop. just go pick up o2 sensors and get your car running well.

dude check that your spark plugs wires are plugged in all the way.. along with all the other obvious things before spending big bucks. Oh yeah and type in black it's easier on my eyes.

yeah, orange and green are hard to read on a blue background

Oh yeah and type in black it's easier on my eyes.

Got that right! :bloated:

I am sorry, My intention was to add interest and make it stand out and I accomplished neither, so I will learn from AF friends and fix it.

I was told that many of the honda engines lose spark from the top of the plug wire to the actual plug snap on piece with some going into the head when they start getting hard, cracked and burnt. We needed to do this anyway and the msd stuff for the future turbo app too, so none of this is wasted money. I will chase the O2 sensors and fuel pump after this.

The guy has the car already and was installing the struts at gunther mazda then coming home to place back on the car. Electronic stuff will happen this weekend.

check with you guys after this weekend.

Still believe there is a LITTLE pop or miss but russ says his does that too, it is in the exhaust where I can tell it best. Just drove it around the block Sunday and it has to have more driving time to fully examine, but I feel we got most of the stuttering and cutting out and gone with the MSD products and magnacore wires.

He also found a bare wire going to the distributer and soddered and taped it. Also chose to advance the timing a bit. Also found a small leak somewhere on the throttle body, but to me it is obviously running better and does NOT smell as rich as it always drove. I did have a smell of raw gas I was not happy about.

I am having his stereo guy redo all the wiring that last mamaluke did all loose and crappy, radio should not shake and come loose seperate from the dash when launching, and work on a radio antenna signal problem it seems to have.

I also changed a top radiator hose that blew up on me and get this, the shop put the hose under the a/c lines and it seemed flattened over a whole bend. When I replaced this hose I went OVER the A/C lines and it bends easier and like the round whole shape it is naturally. Now the gauge always sits very low temp wise, so we are wary of it being incorrect and we are going to put a set of needled gauges where I took out the glove box to have those readings.

Hope my stuff helps somebody in here, this is a great forum. Thanks