Civic runs poor at times

[J-Ri]

'98 or '99 Civic 1.6L non-VTEC (engine VIN is "6", if I remember right)

On Wednesday I did a transmission flush, cooling system flush, and a tuneup (plugs/wires/cap/rotor/fuel filter/air filter) and noted that the timing belt was in need of replacement.

I replaced the timing belt and water pump on Thursday. I went out and drove it and it was fine. Customer came back later that day (or maybe the next day and "Wednesday" was Tuesday and "Thursday" was Wednesday and he brought it back Thursday). The service writer's description was "It runs like s--- on the highway when he gets on the gas". I go drive it and it runs good. Brought it back to the shop and checked codes, and it had a P1362(I think?)- TDC sensor no signal. I did the checks and everything was good, so I put it back together, cleared the codes and drove it all over the place. No codes reset. It came back Friday morning still doing the same thing, except this time I drove it and it actually ran bad for me. I got a flashing check engine light and codes P0303 (always) and sometimes P0301 and P0302, never #4. I saved the old wires for testing future vehicles, so I threw the old wire back on #3. Still had P0303. I swapped the #3 plug for #4 and the misfire moved to #4. At this time it would still misfire while powerbraking it, I put a new plug in #4 and there was no misfire anymore. I drove it all over the place trying to get it to run bad again. Ran perfect. I drove it two more times during the day and it ran perfect both times. So the customer came and picked it up, and left with it running fine.

I drove past the shop today and the car's back in the parking lot. The reason the service writer wanted me to drive it so much was that the owner was leaving for a trip to California (from Iowa) today and we wanted to make sure it was perfect. I feel so bad that I/we (everyone's looked at it) can't figure it out. As if making him come back multiple times isn't bad enough, the hood release lever broke (brittle from the cold, not really my fault) and he replaced it. Now his trip might have been ruined.

Is this a common problem after doing any of the services mentioned? I'm an experienced professional, not some back-woods hick with some tools (despite what my avatar might suggest ), I've done so many similar jobs with no problems whatsoever. What am I missing here? I know there's a chance something else completely unrelated to what I did is why it's back, but the TDC sensor code that I got the first time and never got again concerns me, especially since the bad spark plug worked alright once it got hot enough (letting the engine idle to bleed the air out after having the cooling system opened up the first two times I worked on it masked the problem, never misfired at idle for some reason). Seems like the customer's complaint suggests that the spark plug wasn't the problem (or that he let it warm up to defrost before driving it and he never noticed it), but that was the only thing that I could find that made it run bad.

Thanks,
Jason

[honda newby]

sounds like an intermittent distributor problem,have seen a few other hondas with same symptoms.not sure of exact test for this though,go through everything a few times and maybe try a used distributor.

[J-Ri]

Thanks for replying. We put a new distributor in it and gave it back to the customer, so far so good!

[dezso3]

My 1996 Civic with an automatic transmission just got two major tune-ups: the radiator was replaced after mechanics discovered that it was corroded and the car was leaking transmission fluid, causing severe jerking movements. Also, when I hit the gas, there was a split-second delay in acceleration. After I drove into a six-inch puddle during a rainstorm recently, 3 out of 4 of the cylinders shut down, and the check engine light inevitably came on, so I took the car to a mechanic once again, where they replaced the generator and all of the spark plugs. After that, when I hit the gas, there as practically no delay in the acceleration, and the car ran much more smoothly in general. So then what exactly was causing the delay in acceleration?

[dezso3]

How come whenever I'm going uphill on the highway at like 70 mph my '96 Civic starts to slow down? Is the engine normally THAT weak, or is there a problem with either the engine or the transmission? I really don't think it's normal for such a modern car to have such poor acceleration, even if it's 14 years old. I mean automotive engineers should take care to design cars so that they have a decent horsepower to weight ratio to give them adequate acceleration, but unfortunately Honda engineers kinda screwed up with the Civic. Even the newest Civic does 0-60 in only 10.4 seconds

[BishiRST]

Lol, I feel you on that, I really can't stand single cam honda engines, they have absolutely no tourq what so ever, even on an automatic its very lazy, my recommendation is to upgrade it to a 1.8 DOHC from an integra, or better yet, pull out a B20B1 from a Honda CRV and put that in there, you'll enjoy driving it after that upgrade, plus those engines fo for 450-650. all you need to change is the intake manifold with one from an integra and you'll be just fine.