I searched on this but couldn’t find anyone having the same type of combination of problems.
A few months ago my sub would occasionally quit hitting, I checked all the connections but everything was fine. It would work for like half a song, then quit. It was totally random. Eventually I just took out the fuse and unhooked it.
Then the cd player started turning off. It does it for just a second and then comes back on. This again is totally random.
Lately it is happening more often. Once while driving I turned on my blinker and immediately the cd player shut off and the car actually kind of stumbled like it was going to die.
Today when I started the car it was idling horribly. Sounded like it was sputtering or missing a cylinder or something. It eventually goes away when the RPM’s go up or after a few minutes of driving.
I took it to Autozone and they tested the alternator and said it was fine, I just replaced it a year or so ago.
This evening I cleaned all of the ground connections and they all look okay. From what I can tell on my multimeter the car has a pretty constant 14 volts or so. What could be going on? Thanks in advance for any help/insight.
Did you redo the batt. to chassis ground, under the batt. box?
Different things, [circuits] cutting out or one circuit, [signal lights] effecting another circuit, [radio] is almost always a grounding problem. :stare:94
Yeah I took off the ground below the battery box and cleaned it up. I also cleaned the connection to the transmission and also the connection from the frame to the valve cover.
Then I would do the same thing with all the main power connections, [batt., batt. to fuse box, alt., alt. to fuse box and all screws holding main fuses in place.
The other possibility is that your ign. switch is on it;s way out… http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/ignition_switch/index.html although I would replace it, not try and fix it.:whisper:94
Our tegs are known for having a lose radio harness in the back… it will cut in and out at random times… especially the speaker outputs. I had this happened on both of my tegs.
I just unplug the harness in the back and de-pinned all the connectors and crimped on new ones… problem went away completely.
As fcm stated… check all your grounds especially the ones grounding the amp that runs the subs then if that doesn’t help… check your stock radio harness…
Thanks for the info hybrid. I checked all my amp stuff and everything was hooked up fine. I started getting the engine problems shortly after though so I think the radio and amp not working or working intermitently was more a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
This evening I replaced all the factory grounds (battery to chassis/transmission and frame to valve cover) with new 4ga connections. The car electrical stuff definitely works better, I immediately noticed it started up quicker and the passenger seat belt retracted super fast. However the car still runs like shit. It used to just be an occasional sputter but now I am getting small backfires and a constant stumble, almost like one cylinder is missing or something.
I checked all the plugs, they look fine. The distributor is fairly new and I checked all those connections and the inside of the cap / rotor.
I am leaning towards the ignition switch like fcm suggested. I feel like the ignition system under the hood is fine, it is something overall electrical that is the problem. For example if the distributor or a component inside it were bad that should have no effect on the cd player or amp.
Is there a way I could test to see if it is indeed the ignition switch? Is there a group of wires I could put a jumper across in the switch to temporarily bypass it, i.e. make a hard connection.
I’d have to order the part so I’d like to know for sure if that was the problem. Thanks for all the help guys.
I was reading some other posts and suddenly realized how this sounds. I do not want to hot-wire the car and if you know how to do this please don’t post it on here. I retract this question, haha.:roll:
Intermittent problems can be hard to find, what I do is connect up my “tell tail” box, nothing more then a test light with multiple circuits, you can do the same thing with a 12V+ light bulb or two, temporarily connect up a light bulb to the circuits you want to test, [ign. 1, ign. 2 and acc.]… http://64.85.6.121/diagrams/printpage.asp?ModelID=12667&MakeID=6 place bulbs up on dash so you can see them when driving, if the ign. switch is the problem the lights will flicker, [turn off/go dim] when symptoms appear. 
94
[QUOTE=Gekko;1993169]However the car still runs like shit. It used to just be an occasional sputter but now I am getting small backfires and a constant stumble, almost like one cylinder is missing or something.
I checked all the plugs, they look fine. The distributor is fairly new and I checked all those connections and the inside of the cap / rotor.
QUOTE]
I noticed you said your car feels “sluggish”… when’s the last time you’ve changed your fuel filter and cleaned your injectors? If you haven’t tried that, do it… that will definitely help you take off a lil snappier.
And while you’re at it, clean your IACV, FITV and throttle body… those will give you a smoother response when accelerating… hope this helps…
I took my battery in and had it charged and load tested, everything looks fine on it.
I had made some splices into the dash switches for the fog light rewire and some guages, I took the dash bezel off and checked all of those, they are fine as well.
I also checked continuity in the wire connectors from the ignition switch to the fuse box/panel. Those seemed okay too.
Interestingly, while working on my car in the garage I could fire it up and it would idle okay. Not perfectly smooth but definitely not exhibiting the problem I am talking about. I could rev it up to 3K while sitting and it purrs like a kitten. But…once I take it out on the road it stumbles and sputters before even reaching 3k rpms. Why would it be able to rev up perfectly smooth while sitting but not while driving?
I finally remembered the one thing that changed before I started having problems. I replaced my seats. I had racing seats and replaced them with some stock black cloth ones. I am now wondering if I should check the wires under the seats. Before I replaced the seats I wasn’t having any electrical problems at all.
Cliff Note Version: I fixed my car, it was the spark plugs! :dance:
Who would have thought? I had a big list of stuff to check tonight but I went ahead and bought some new plugs, just for the hell of it kind of. I replaced them and it fired right up and ran smooth as ever. I took it for a several mile drive and so far it seems to have fixed the problem.
I noticed one of the porcelain insulators had a hairline crack in it. I wonder if that was the problem? None of the spark plugs looked terribly bad or anything.
I think my grounds were bad from the get go. That would explain why the CD player and amp stopped working randomly. I wonder if, due to the poor grounds, the plugs wheren’t getting enough power and ended up getting fouled. Or maybe it is a coincidence and both went bad at once.
So far the car seems fine, we’ll see over the next couple days if the symptoms return. I’ll be sure to post here if that happens (hopefully not).