Ruh-roh. Check engine light.

drypowder

drypowder

Les Deplorables
Joined
Dec 17, 2016
Messages
4,565
Location
behind enemy lines
Rating - 100%
15   0   0
2001 Honda Accord, 4-cyl, 5spd.

Driving home tonight, and as I'm almost home, I shift into neutral at a stop and the engine starts idling very roughly. Back in gear and I'm able to get rolling again. At the next stop, engine stalls. Took several starts and then some throttle to keep it from stalling, then back in gear and moving. Repeat a couple of more times and I'm parked. So it seems the engine will run at higher RPM's, but at low RPM's, it's stalling.

Check engine light is on, code P0301 - "cylinder 1 misfire detected". There's also a pending code, P1399, which the Torque Lite app on my phone didn't know how to interpret for a Honda (apparently it's a wheel speed sensor code for some American cars, which is what the app showed), but a little googling shows "random cylinder misfire detected" - I'm guessing odds are good this relates to cylinder 1.

I guess first thing to do is take a look at the spark plugs? I replaced these ~30k miles ago.

I suppose it's best not to drive the car until I figure out what the problem is (though driving would be pretty tricky and involve keeping revs moderately high anytime I'm not moving)? Obviously I don't want to damage the engine, assuming it's not already damaged.
 
Last edited:
drypowder said:
2001 Honda Accord, 4-cyl, 5spd.

Driving home tonight, and as I'm almost home, I shift into neutral at a stop and the engine starts idling very roughly. Back in gear and I'm able to get rolling again. At the next stop, engine stalls. Took several starts and then some throttle to keep it from stalling, then back in gear and moving. Repeat a couple of more times and I'm parked. So it seems the engine will run at higher RPM's, but at low RPM's, it's stalling.

Check engine light is on, code P0301 - "cylinder 1 misfire detected". There's also a pending code, P1399, which the Torque Lite app on my phone didn't know how to interpret for a Honda (apparently it's a wheel speed sensor code for some American cars, which is what the app showed), but a little googling shows "random cylinder misfire detected" - I'm guessing odds are good this relates to cylinder 1.

I guess first thing to do is take a look at the spark plugs? I replaced these ~30k miles ago.

I suppose it's best not to drive the car until I figure out what the problem is (though driving would be pretty tricky and involve keeping revs moderately high anytime I'm not moving)? Obviously I don't want to damage the engine, assuming it's not already damaged.
Click to expand...
Engine shouldn't be damaged. Just missing. How many miles are on the car and is it burning oil between changes? It could be fouling out the plugs.

Spark plugs first and see if that fixes it.

Also may be worthwhile to run a can or 2 of seafoam in a tank of gas. Also maybe suck a little in the motor via a vacuum line off the intake just don't pour it in as you could hydrolock the motor. YouTube or Google for instructions on where the line is.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 
150k miles. It's losing oil, but I suspect it's more leaking than burning, as horsepower and fuel efficiency have been good. If all the lost oil was being burned, I'd expect horrible engine compression, loss of power and terrible fuel efficiency. Also no smoke from tail pipe last time I checked.
 
I had a 93 accord Joe. I knew it needed a valve cover gasket and the seals that cover the spark plugs holes from getting oil in them. My car stalled on me several times one night, but I was able to limp it home. I changed the gasket and the spark plug seals and never had an issue again. That is until the timing belt broke :eek:
 
Burt Gummer said:
I had a 93 accord Joe. I knew it needed a valve cover gasket and the seals that cover the spark plugs holes from getting oil in them. My car stalled on me several times one night, but I was able to limp it home. I changed the gasket and the spark plug seals and never had an issue again. That is until the timing belt broke :eek:
Click to expand...
I think it's likely the valve cover gasket needs to be replaced; that and a couple of other gaskets seem to be common wear items on Hondas. Probably the source of my lost oil.

Yeah, could be oil getting onto the spark plugs. I'll pull the plug on cylinder 1 tomorrow and take a look.
 
Check your plugs. You may also have an ignition coil going bad. That's not uncommon. Does it get better or worse based on high or low humidity? A cracked ignition coil can give intermittent cylinder problems based on humidity...a good symptom to know.

If you were burning oil, you'd know. You'd smell it at least, probably see some signs of smoke from the exhaust. But check the plugs just to be sure they're not fouled.

Oh yeah...a bad plug wire could cause this. Damaged/worn/broken down insulation could be causing a cylinder plug to arc to ground through the wire. With the car running at night, with it really dark, look for signs of slight pin arcing along the plug wires. OR you could just run a finger along each wire and see if you get zapped... :D
 
Last edited:
Would a vacuum leak cause this? Or would all the cylinders be misfiring in this case?

Or maybe they are all misfiring and the Torque Lite app is just showing me the first code (cylinder 1 misfire) instead of all the codes.

I'm thinking vacuum leak because if I give it gas, the engine runs. But at idle, it bogs down and stalls. So maybe too much air getting in via vacuum leak, and application of gas improves the air:fuel mixture allowing the engine to run. And if it is a vacuum leak, it might be a large leak because it's too large for the ECU to compensate for at idle by adding more fuel to bring the air:fuel mixture to an appropriate level, thus the engine stalls. And if it's a large leak, it's probably not a slit in a hose, but more like a hose is disconnected. Does that make any sense or am I going off the deep end?
 
Last edited:
A vaccum leak would most likly affect more than 1 cyl. A bad plug wire or distributor cap and rotor is the most likly cause since the plugs are not that old, unless someone put non asian plugs in it. As stated before a oil leak into that plug tube will cause a wire to fail eventually. Distributors are bad for going out on those but it would affect all cylinders.
 
Short Fuse said:
A vaccum leak would most likly affect more than 1 cyl. A bad plug wire or distributor cap and rotor is the most likly cause since the plugs are not that old, unless someone put non asian plugs in it. As stated before a oil leak into that plug tube will cause a wire to fail eventually. Distributors are bad for going out on those but it would affect all cylinders.
Click to expand...
If it was just one cylinder not firing, would the engine be able to idle w/o stalling (i.e., can it idle on 3 cylinders)?

It's unable to idle w/o opening up the throttle, which is why I'm thinking vacuum leak.
 
Last edited:
That engine will usually have a bad idle surge if a vaccum leak is present, those engines are also not prone to leaks of anything except oil. I am not saying no it's not possible but it is unlikley. Ignition issues are what plagues those engines 19 of 20 times. That engine runs off of a MAP sensor to determine how much fuel to add along with the o2 sensors. If it ran off of a Mass Air Flow sensor then a vaccum leak would cause major running problems but that engine does not use one. As too your question about stalling sometimes they will run on 3 cyls badly and sometimes they will not depending on a number of factors such as how bad the miss is, how dirty yhe throttle blades and iac motor are ect.
 
Last edited:
Short Fuse said:
That engine will usually have a bad idle surge if a vaccum leak is present, those engines are also not prone to leaks of anything except oil. I am not saying no it's not possible but it is unlikley. Ignition issues are what plagues those engines 19 of 20 times. That engine runs off of a MAP sensor to determine how much fuel to add along with the o2 sensors. If it ran off of a Mass Air Flow sensor then a vaccum leak would cause major running problems but that engine does not use one.
Click to expand...
If the problem is no firing on one cylinder, would you expect the engine to be able to idle with the other 3 cylinders firing?
 
drypowder said:
If the problem is no firing on one cylinder, would you expect the engine to be able to idle with the other 3 cylinders firing?
Click to expand...
I edited my last response to that as you where answering. Sometimes yes and sometimes no depending on a number of factors
 
Last edited:
2012-03-10_144116_carbon_tracking.jpg
this is what you are looking for.
 
Did you recently get gas?
I think most stations are in winter mix now.

Put a bottle of dri gas in the tank.
Probably got some water in the fuel.
 
We had a Dodge Dakota that would run rough and stall at idle speed when the battery started going bad. Battery was strong enough to crank it though.Ran fine if you kept the RPMs up above 1500. I guess the alternator did not pump out enough juice at idle to keep up with demand of motor. New battery fixed it right up.
 
Burt Gummer said:
I had a 93 accord Joe. I knew it needed a valve cover gasket and the seals that cover the spark plugs holes from getting oil in them. My car stalled on me several times one night, but I was able to limp it home. I changed the gasket and the spark plug seals and never had an issue again. That is until the timing belt broke :eek:
Click to expand...

I had a 95 with the same issue. driving home from college one day, lost almost all power. 3 of 4 of the plug holes were filled with oil. replaced valve cover, took rockers out to replace the bottom seals of the spark plug tubes, changes plugs. ran it another 80k before selling
 
Just since it hasn't been mentioned yet, if you are losing oil and not sure where it's going (no obvious puddles or smoke) check to see if your oil looks like chocolate milk and/or there is foam in your coolant. If so, blown head gasket. Also get a compression check. Has it overheated recently?
 
Last edited:
Flashpoint said:
Just since it hasn't been mentioned yet, if you are losing oil and not sure where it's going (no obvious puddles or smoke) check to see if your oil looks like chocolate milk and/or there is foam in your coolant. If so, blown head gasket. Also get a compression check. Has it overheated recently?
Click to expand...
No obvious puddles or smoke. But no mixing of oil and coolant. Oil looks like oil and coolant looks like Honda blue coolant.

No overheating.
 
Im betting oil in the #1 plug well. Or oil in all 4 and just #1 is faulting at this time.

Not a head gasket. Oil and coolant mixture is rare with this style coolant passage design and oil return locations.

Distributors, when fail, tend to shut off and not restart. Coil is internal, and wouldnt effect just one hole.
 
If you suspect a vacuum leak, take a can of starting fluid and start spraying around the vac lines and intake areas, if there is a leak, you'll hear a change in RPMs.

I don't have any experience with Honda engines but ignition coil/rotor/wires/plug is where I would start looking/testing.
 
Pulled all the spark plugs. Here they are numbered by cylinder (assuming #4 is the closest to the distributor). Cylinder #1 is the misfire per the code. The plugs are as they came out of the engine, I didn't wipe them down.

Mc4549g.jpg

eiTN0hz.jpg


Here's the boot from spark plug #1. The others didn't look as bad, but can take pics of those if helpful for diagnosis.
0WzV5wH.jpg
 
Last edited:
Wasn't expecting that. Do you have a cheap spark tester?

IMG_2238.JPG
 
Hold up. Went back and reread the op.
Whats up with the p1399? Im not seeing a code listing in that make model for p1399. There is a po399, crk sensor interuption. That can cause misfires.
 
Mike Overlay said:
Wasn't expecting that. Do you have a cheap spark tester?

View attachment 25205
Click to expand...
I don't, but I can get one. The car won't idle without stalling, so not sure I'd be able to start the car and observe the spark tester, though I guess I could set up a camera to record the spark tester while I'm applying enough throttle to keep the engine running.
 
Mike Overlay said:
Hold up. Went back and reread the op.
Whats up with the p1399? Im not seeing a code listing in that make model for p1399. There is a po399, crk sensor interuption. That can cause misfires.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that showed up as a pending code, and Torque Lite app on my phone connected to the OBDII plug didn't seem to know how to interpret that code for my vehicle - it listed a bunch of wheel speed sensor faults for some American cars.
 
Last edited:
Does it make sense to swap spark plugs, say #1 and #2 and see if the error code changes? Or swap the wires at the distributor cap? Trying to isolate if the issue is spark plug or plug wire or neither.
 
drypowder said:
I don't, but I can get one. The car won't idle without stalling, so not sure I'd be able to start the car and observe the spark tester, though I guess I could set up a camera to record the spark tester while I'm applying enough throttle to keep the engine running.
Click to expand...

A missfire in the spark should allow idle. Rough, but doable. A faulty crk sensor can be hard to run.

Does this app show any data or just codes only?
 
drypowder said:
Does it make sense to swap spark plugs, say #1 and #2 and see if the error code changes? Or swap the wires at the distributor cap? Trying to isolate if the issue is spark plug or plug wire or neither.
Click to expand...
Wont hurt anything to try. See if misfire moves also. (Doubt it will, but you never know)
 
Mike Overlay said:
A missfire in the spark should allow idle. Rough, but doable. A faulty crk sensor can be hard to run.

Does this app show any data or just codes only?
Click to expand...
It shows the codes, and then it provides a little detail. So for example, when it shows P0301, I can press on that for the app to reveal "Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected".

The OBDII reader is very basic, $20 unit: https://bafxpro.com/products/obdreader
 
drypowder said:
Pulled all the spark plugs. Here they are numbered by cylinder (assuming #4 is the closest to the distributor). Cylinder #1 is the misfire per the code. The plugs are as they came out of the engine, I didn't wipe them down.

Mc4549g.jpg

eiTN0hz.jpg


Here's the boot from spark plug #1. The others didn't look as bad, but can take pics of those if helpful for diagnosis.
0WzV5wH.jpg
Click to expand...


Plug 1 should be the one closest to the accessory end of the engine, altenator, water pump, etc.
 
Have you ever replaced the distributor and rotor? If not I would start there.
 
Last edited:
So I can't get the Torque app to connect to the OBD2 reader. Multiple phone restarts, uninstall/reinstall of app, and many minutes of watching the app try to connect to the car's ECU, I am fed up with this reader + app.

So not much point in switching spark plugs or spark plug wires since I can't clear the existing code or get new codes.

I did give the spark plugs a quick and dirty cleaning, and reinstalled. Car starts, but idles very low - like 500 rpm, and eventually stalls. Possible idle air control valve issue?

Anyway, I think I can make it to the auto parts store, but not sure what to get since I'm not sure what the problem is. I suppose a spark tester is in order. Anything else? Spark plugs are cheap, but plug wires are not so cheap that I want to blindly replace them. Distributor cap and rotor are fairly cheap (though I guess these have to be matched to the particular distributor I have?), but dunno if those are the culprits.

I can also have the store use their OBD2 scanner to pull codes.
 
Last edited:
disconnecting wont clear a hard code. o2 sensor went out on my Toyota and it was a hard code had to reset it with a code reader.
 
dewey said:
disconnecting wont clear a hard code. o2 sensor went out on my Toyota and it was a hard code had to reset it with a code reader.
Click to expand...
It will clear. Some faults may reset instantly upon ingition switch turned to on or start. However in this case in particular, a po300 or po301- po304 will clear and not reset untill its running and the misfire monitors trip
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom