I have a 1996 Honda accord with a 2.2l vtec motor. I recently took it to get inspected and low and behold the damn thing fails! the mechanic told me that I had in sufficient EGR flow and that these cars are notorious for the EGR ports to plug up in the intake. well as I talked to him the man told me he would charge me 300 bucks to unplug and fix them. well in the process he tells me how he is going to do it and me being me I decided to save myself the 300 bucks and do it myself. I don't have much experience with foreign cars but I have built a few chevy motors so I got a pretty good idea of what im doing. so I drive the car like that for apx 3-4 months and slowly but surely when I hit around 4-5000 rpms the car starts to loose power. if im wide open in the throttle it will litteraly throw me forward in the seat cause it will loose power so fast and so hard. I decided enough was enough and something had to be done. I pulled the EGR off and the plate that covers the EGR passageway on the intake and both were extremely clogged. the four holes in the intake for the passage ways were beyond plugged. there was no way any air flow was getting through the gunk that had built up throughout the years. so I cleaned all of the junk out of there and put it all back together and when I put it back together I could tell a HUGE different before I even left the driveway. but as I got it on the road the car was still doing the same thing. it was not anywhere near as bad as it was but it still seems to loose power top end. it seems to be worse if I am wide open, if I let out slightly it will miss then pick back up and will red line with ease. but if I don't then it will just continue missing and just wont go. the plugs and wires are within a year old but is it possible that I may have fowled them out running my car like that for so long? idk what else it may be. I would appreciate any suggestions you may have. thanks guys!

 

Here is a video on cleaning them just to be sure you didn't miss something.


You may want to remove the snorkel and clean both sides of the throttle plate and the bore. Maybe unbolt the IACV and clean the screen with some throttle body cleaner.

I am assuming you had a CEL code for EGR flow. I would pull the 7.5 amp backup/radio fuse to reset the computer. Start the car and let the car idle and get to operating temperature (both fans will turn on).

How many miles are on the spark plugs? You may want to take a look at the plugs to see if one is fouled.

 

I watched the video prior to doing this and watched it again after and I did everything that the video shows to do. I never had a CEL light but when they ran it for the inspection it showed up. there are apx 5000 miles on the plugs.

 

Resetting the idle may help. See my post about pulling that fuse.

I would suggest pulling each plug to see if something is obvious on one of the plugs, or oil in the spark plug tube.

Take a look at the cap and rotor? If you decide to replace, I would suggest OEM caps and rotors. They aren't much more expensive than the aftermarket ones.

What kind of spark plug wires are on the car? You may want to spray some water on the spark plug wires.

Watch these two videos: Use the water bottle to locate a possible spark loss, or intake leak (like in the second video).