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Hi when my car warms up and im cruising or taking off from a stop I get a shudder from what seems to be the engine. The car has 173,000 miles and I have changed the following parts since I got the car in 10′ Plugs right away, Fuel filter at the same time(but I ran the old gas through the filter, the gas was in there since 2007.) Should I change it again? I have done a valve adjustment, Distributor, alternator, exhaust, I did replace the top o-rings for the valve cover gasket as with the gasket, but I still get oil in the plugs. When it gets really bad the shudder I pop the hood and almost every time the #2 plug wire is popped out, but it clicks in which makes no sense.
Any ideas?
I don’t know if its related, but sometimes while driving down the road usually on a downshift the battery light flickers on. It has done it since the new alternator. When it flickers the lights on the car do nothing. So I don’t think its anything but just wanted to bring it up.
Oh yeah my CV shafts also clunk going around corners left or right, but the boots are NOT ripped.
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If your #2 plug wire is popped off when you open the hood then, that is most likely why you get a shudder.
Find some way to tape over the plug wire or something to keep it on good and take it for a drive and see if the shudder stops
(this is NOT a fix but just a way to test) You might need to redo your valve cover seals with good OEM parts (only use OEM parts when ever possible)
Please keep us updated and good luck.Please tell us you used an OE distributor and it you replaced the rings correctly, you should not have oil in the wells already.
I got a distributor from a junk yard, but I ended up just swapping the coils. I didn’t change the lower o-rings just the top ones. The tubes are not that full but when I remove the plugs the threads are oil covered.
I would be concerned with why the plug wire is popping off first and foremost. Did you torque the plug correctly? Does it sound like there is any noise coming from that area of the engine when it is running? My concern is that you might have overtorqued the plug and stripped the threads, and combustion gasses are leaking past the plug, blowing the boot out. I really hope I’m wrong. I guess if that were the case, the spark plug might pop out of the hole first. I’m just thinking out loud.
Regardless, it sounds like you need to redo the valve cover seal, particularly the o-rings sealing the spark plug wells. If oil is getting in the wells, you could be shorting yer spark to ground, particularly when the engine is under load, and the voltage is the highest. Electricity is lazy, it always wants to find the easiest path to ground. Do the spark plugs look fouled in anyway, such as burning oil?
And for the battery light, you need to double check your battery and ground connections. Make sure they are clean and tight. The alternator itself grounds through it’s mating surface with the block, so it would be worth your time to pull it, and make sure the mounting areas are clean of debris.
Good luck bud.
+1 with everyones posts.
For Honda’s, you really need to use OEM products for ignition systems over aftermarket.
Here are some video’s by Eric that may help with the battery light issue.
Alternator diagnostics 101 –
Today I removed the rubber boot off the plug wire and bent the two prongs in on the metal conductor thingy and it seems to have fixed my problem with both the plug wire riding up and the shudder.
My only question is does the rocker assembly have to be torqued down. Only because I don’t have a torque wrench here. I guess I can wait until school and borrow it form auto.
Do the valves become out of adjustment after you remove that? And if it is not torqued right will the valves come out of adjustment?
All fasteners on an automobile will have torque specifications.
We also have a free link to Chilton’s online if you need to find any torque specifications. Its in the ‘How To’ section, or, you can use the search.
I didn’t over tighten the plug. I hand Tighten them then just snug them with the wrench. But I do think it has to do with that plug wire.
your plug wire popping off would be the shudder/ misfire. if there not honda oe wires then replace them with honda wires.C8-)
Quoted From curtie94:
I didn’t over tighten the plug. I hand Tighten them then just snug them with the wrench. But I do think it has to do with that plug wire.
All you have to do then is to visibly check to see if the prongs inside the boot are wider for that plug wire than the other plug wires, does it click onto the plug itself well or sort of just ‘rest’ onto the plug without a firm grasp/easy to pull?
Ya thats what I thought was weird. It did snap on really well. Today I took off the boot so I could see the prong and it was stretched a little, so I bent them back in. I’ll see how it does and I’ll write back.
It could be a clutch issue but I would recommend fixing the oil leak first as it seems to be creating an ignition miss. Here is a video I did of that process.
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