Mis-fire when accelerating/1988 Accord..need help...

I'm hoping you all can offer some assistance...

My 1988 Accord is mis-firing as I get up to speed. The poor car physically 'hesitates' when accelerating in various gears (5sp).

Today, the car actually lost power and would not accelerate...I pulled over to the side of the road and it immediately took off and didn't 'hesitate' or mis-fire for the rest of my trip (4 miles).

Any ideas? My local Honda dealership said they have no idea...

Sad that the local Honda dealer can not diagnose this. One question though ... have you actually taken it in for them to diagnose ... or are you like so many other people and just called them on the phone to get them to try to diagnose it? I find it hard to believe that someone in the dealership could not figure this problem out if he actually had the car there in front of him.

I work in a Honda dealership and we get people all the time wanting us to try to diagnose issues like this over the phone. It is ALMOST impossible to give a true diagnosis over the phone ... and it really isn't any easier to do it here.

We can guess ...

First though ... we will need to know if the vehicle is fuel injected or carburated.

Kind of interesting story...

1. it is carbureted..

2. I decided to let the car warm up for about 10-15 minutes (idles high upon start up and I let it warm up until it drops rpms on its own without me tapping the gas) and the problem seems to be much less severe.

3. I actually took it in and had the Honda folks diagnose it for the standard $79...they were going to pull all the after-market stuff and drop in Honda parts to assist in diganosing but I decided it wouldn't be worth the labor for that...

Wish i had some clue..I love that car

Well ... I will try my best to figure this out.

The first place I would start is with a GOOD set of ignition wires. If the wires are bad they will give you the acceleration problems you are describing in here. Why did it run okay after you pulled over? Hard to say. May have been some dampness in the air and if the wires are indeed bad ... the air having moisture will make the wires arc. When you pulled over ... the heat from the engine may have dried them enough to make it run okay at that point.

I know you are gonna think this is crazy ... but here are a couple of ways to check to see if the wires are indeed the problem.

First ... you can start the car and then spray water from a hose on it to see if it stumbles when the wires get wet.

Second ... you can physically grab the wires when it is running. If you get zapped ... the wires are bad. When you have a good set of wires on there that are not leaking ... you should not get zapped if you grab them.

You may also be experiencing a carburetor problem. It may be a low float level or some clogging of the jets. The jets in these cars are very small and the tiniest of dirt can clog them and cause problems.

Keep us posted.

Mark

There is a good chance that your distributor is worn out. If the car seems to miss when accelerating or under load then take the distributer cap off and check the shaft for play. If you can move the shaft back and forth then the whole distributer needs to be replaced. This is a known problem with Hondas.