Hey guys, looking at this car for a friend. It's a 97 Accord with the 2.2 VTEC and 5 speed manual trans. Seems to idle smoothly & accelerate fine in 1st and 2nd, but doesn't seem to make any power in 3rd-5th..we're talking holding it to the floor to maintain 30 on a hill in 3rd.

The car has just shy of 170K miles on it & she isn't certain of maintenance history. I replaced plugs, wires, cap, rotor this afternoon. I also cleaned the throttle body. No noticeable vacuum leaks or anything like that. No CEL. I dumped in some Chevron FI cleaner, probably going to change fuel filter next since I doubt it's been done.

Any suggestions? From searching, it seems as though I might want to also clean the EGR port, but I didn't really see anything else definitive as far as diagnostics.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

 

If you have a multimeter, you can test the fuel injectors.

Part 1 -Fuel Injector Test (Honda 2.2L, 2.3L).

 

Thanks, will give that a shot next weekend.

 

Ok, so I got ahold of the car for a few hours tonight and tested the injectors per that procedure you linked..they are all pretty much the same resistance so I guess that isn't it. Any other suggestions?

 

Does this only happen when the car is in closed loop - meaning at normal operating temp. Or will this happen when the car is cold as well.

 

If O2 sensor is original, suggest a change. These are available at very reasonable prices (Denso brand) from Amazon, Rockauto, ebay, etc.

Occasionally, there have been fixes w/ O2 sensor change that are not accompanied by ECM fault code. It may be that a "lazy" O2 sensor doesn't get caught before drivability symptoms arise.

good luck

 

@poorman - seems to happen both open and closed loop

@texas - i will suggest an o2 sensor change. It probably wouldn't hurt regardless TBH

Thanks for the suggestions guys,