I hate ingition troubles!!!

As of late, i've been having 2 main problems with my car. Both occur mostly at 3000-4000 rpms and above. The first is the fact that my car misfires at those RPM, its more noticeable in 3rd gear and above than 1st and 2nd. Somedays its not so bad, other days (more like most days lately) the car makes ZERO power.

The second thing I get is the tach does read above 3000-4000 rpm. It hits those RPMs and anything after the the tach just dances around barely telling me what RPM i'm at. Some days the car will do just one of the problems...lately its been getting closer to both at the same time. Tonight was the best example and scarriest.

I was on the highway goin to a friends house, its me and my friends 1st gen SOHC neon. We both have the same mods engine wise and we both know our cars are rated really close to each other. We've never gone from a highway roll and he knew about my troubles, but what the hell we messed around a bit anyways. I couldn't hang obviously my car was really having alot of trouble tryin to make its NORMAL power. So after bout the 3rd time of tryin to go from a roll we shut it down and I pulled back in front of him. No more than a few seconds later my car shuttered, then i heard a popping noise (like air gettin loose) and the car really lost power but still ran. So i pulled over to see what went wrong. Somehow on the far right cyclinder, the sparkplug came outta the hole pushed the wire boot out too. Thankfully my neon friend had his auto-x tools still with him so we just reinstalled it and the car seemed fine again. However a loose plug was not the source of my troubles, all of my problems are still there.

I know its all in my distrubor, i had to crack open my distrubtor a few months ago to check something, and it hasn't been the same since. Tommorw i'm gettin a hold of a spare ingitior (even though the tach wire that connects to the ignitor is all messed up, i think this could be the source of the tach problem, a bad connection). And i need to hunt down a Ohm meter to check the coil. Also my seal for the disturbtor cap is gone, i'm gettin a new one in the mean time i have to seal it with blue silicone so its a real bitch. I'm so tired of this crap, and i don't have the $$$ to just buy a new disturbtor and say screw it all. I have a new cap and rotor on there, that helped me some but not enough. To top this nite off...i nailed a rabbit comming home lol. Anywho if anyone has any clue what it might be, even a theory, i'm all ears. In the meantime pray that my civic will someday be able to chase neons again lol.

Thanks,
Chris-

Damn thats a long post!:D Anyways so it didn't pass over 3-4 grand rite? If thats so then you do need a new distributor. That happened to me before and i replaced the coil but then it wasn't that. I had to replace the whole distributor.:)

i've already been chatting with you on this. so i'm just gonna take minute to throw some humor into it.

we are both having some of the same issues. i know just when your at the point to :zx11pisse you get a :thinkerg: and you go and try to fix it. but that doesn't work, so now you're thinking :what: WTF? so you ask for :help:. your "mechanic" says "i dunno what to tell ya" and you follow it with some :argue: which just leaves you feeling like yanking out your hair & :cry:. you have no idea what to do, so you :flipa: and then :rocket: the car and leave it until tomorrow.

you wake up in the morning and suddenly it :stormzap: and you feel hella :bloated: and :eek: because you knew the answer all along! :evillaugh

now your :jump: :ylsuper :lol2: :licker:

ami

A little sad update on things. Today, thanks to a friend i autocross with, i went and picked up a spare ingitor for my car. But comming home to install it I had the sinking feeling it was gonna be the last time in my car for awhile...i couldn't have been more right.

Swapped ingintors as planned, started the car. Just by revving a little past 3000 rpm the tach would go insane and you could hear the exhaust note become a series of pops (big time misfires). So ok screw that, put the old one back in, check connections, throw it all back together and let it run for 5-10 mins. Ok so its about back to where it was before...at least it was stable again up till about 3000 rpms...thats good. So while it was running I went to get the gas can for the lawn mowers and I was off to the gas station. Well soon as i got outta the driveway, things went horribly wrong.

Instantly the tach just went crazy...didn't read at all just flew around and i was barely even on the gas. The car began to jump and studder even in the low RPMs, i decided this was good I better turn it around. Didn't make it, soon as i turned to head back up the hill to my house the car died completely. I couldn't talk in into starting again so i pulled off the road and ran back to my house. Got some tools and my dad drove me back down, at the least we were gonna use our family car to tow it back. Well for whatever reason, the car did something amazing once i got back, i tired to fire it once more and BARELY it ran...it was on the brink of stalling. So i hopped in and nursed it back to my house best as i could, the motor suffering hard all the way.

Its amazing this is the 2nd honda to carry me home under damn near impossible running conditions (first was my DX when the alternator went on a rainy night, it got me to my garage door and stalled). I feel so bad for it but at least its back in my garage. I think i'm gonna have my friend at NAPA get me a whole new distrubtor now. Granted I just might be the coil, but inside on my current distrubtor the wires are so hacked and other dumb shit (missing seals, beat on igintor, etc) that i'm no longer willing to put up with it. Sorry i'm just at a loss right now, gotta take out a loan from the parents just to fix this thing :( I'll let everyone know if i get back on my feet here, wish me luck!!!!!!