Rough Idle and shuts off?

oook, basically, i dont have a lot of money to spend; my mom died when i was 17 and rather then going to school I've had to work, and its hard keeping up with everything. I didnt have a car for a year, and i saw an ad for this honda civic; the 88 DX hatcback. it ran fine when i tested it, and ran fine for a few days. its missing the intake box, but it was still running fine. the other day, i went to drive it and it began idling very rough. it stopped when i was idle at a traffic light once or twice. over the past two days its gotten worse, and stops by itself more frequently. whats wrong with it? I thought it was a vaccum leak, but i dont see one.

is the check engine light coming on? If the check engine light is coming on, turn the key to the on position, not start, you need to pull the carpet back on the passenger side footwell, youll see a metal plate with a little plastic window, if the check engine light is on youll see a blinking light. count the flashes, then use the search here on AF to find the ecu codes, the # of blinks will correspond with the code the ecu is throwin, also post the number of blinks here so we can see what code it is.

It's probably just a main relay with intermittent contact, or a bad ground somewhere... the relay can be fixed with a $20 soldering iron, or you can get a new one for like $59 from parts stores.

bad grounds are simple. Find each ground, clean the contact point, replace the terminal end if it needs it, and put the ground back on.

Clean your battery terminals and get a $10 can of SeaFoam to dump down your engine's throat, it'll run 10x better once you do those things.