I drive a 97 Honda Prelude with around 112,000 on it. Oil freshly changed and everything. Recently while driving my check engine like with turn on inconstantly (I can go some trips without anything happening) and when it does go off and the engine light comes on my car will start kinda like dying while driving for a split second. Also when i'm going from 0-xx speeds every time I press the clutch in to switch gears the car just feels like its going to slam into the ground ahead of me. My exhaust also makes a different noise also kinda almost sounds like a bogging noise even while accelerating and when i am idling down the car sometime sounds like it back fires, when I get out it smells kinda burning or hot. metallicy smell. I try not to drive it and when I do and the light comes on I instantly shut it off and restart it and it will go off for awhile.

When the light is not on the car drives perfectly fine it seems.

Somone said this could be my Air temp or throttle position sensor and than I have heard more drastic idea's I kinda want to get an idea before I take it in.

Not the easiest thing to diagnose...

It very well could be your TPS. This and a lot of other senors can be tested with a multimeter before replacing so you arent just tossing parts on it.

Do you have a repair manual for it? If not I would get one to start. Then start reading and testing things.

Btw if you dont have a multimeter I suggest visiting harbor freight.. Dont go blow $100 or something on one when a $10 or less one will work for jobs like this.

This post was edited by Killerme99 on Mar 29 2013 01:38pm

Thanks man, and trying to find someone with one around so I don't have to wait. im open to all suggestions on what it might be and such.

97 should be obdii


my first thing to do would be to get a scanner, and see if its throwing codes

See the jerking and struggling to accelerate ontop of the engine light leads me to believe its your fuel system ie fuel injectors miss firing fuel rail etc as for the transmission that part throws me off it could be tied due to the lack of fuel getting to your motor its giving the illusion of tranny problems due to lack of constant flow

Yea this, it's probably a fuel system malfunction, fuel pump or filter clogged. Your car is dying out while driving it, and when it dies the front end locks up, then starts itself back up because it's rolling in gear...like bump starting it. It's really not good to do this even tho ecomodder guys do it at 55mph all the time.

This. Don't throw parts at it. The check engine light is on for a reason. Find out why.
Honestly could be something as simple as plugs/wires.

Just went through this with my bros car. Ended up being a bad wire..

Never overlook the basics.

ANd a scanner would throw a code that is telling me its a bad wire? and if it is a fuel system problem how easy is the fix for that? and costly?

if you do all your own work on ur car you really should invest in a code reader there pretty inexpensive.

it could be a number of things. one question when the check engine light is on does it ever flash?

i had a similar issue with the integra i just bought because the seals around the sparkplugs went bad allowing oil to get outside and onto the plugs/wires causing a misfire. new seals and vcgasket solved my issue. pull the wires maybe u got the same problem.

idk what code you've got but it could be one that makes ur ecu run in safemode dumpin extra fuel at it so u don't blow up. kind of makes ur car run like shit you would need to give more fuel to start off then u would think and it would feel kinda bucky like u described.
maybe ur map sensor went bad? probably not though don't think this would cause an intermittent issue.

This post was edited by NickTheHcPlayer on Apr 1 2013 02:58pm