Hello, I have a 96 Honda Accord LX 4 cyl car with a long term problem. For some reason the car would work in Park, Neutral, and Reverse but if you put it in drive the car would stall out. Due to a small problem leading to another I basically replaced the top part of my engine: the head, rocker kit, distributor cap and rotor. I've replaced the ECU, the upper and lower solenoids (the lower solenoid welded itself shut).

I plan on replacing the vaule cover gasket along with the spark plug grommet because there's oil leaking into the spark plugs. I'm fairly certain that this isn't going to fix the problem so I'd like Ideals or leads.

The original problem was that the car would stall in drive if I didn't give it enough gas while idling in drive. And that the oil light would turn on because of this and the car would get hotter (but not too hot) But now the car flat out stalls while idling when in drive.

 

There is a lot of repair work recently on your car. Just double check your work. There is an important ground wire that is bolted to the upper part of the intake manifold on the driver's side. Make sure that is attached.

Check for engine codes. If you don't have a scanner, there is a writeup in the common diy thread on top of the gen tech help forum on checking engine codes.

Have you checked the transmission fluid level? When was it last changed?

 

Ah forgot, ya'll think it may be the o2 Sensor or fuel filter/pump?

 

Check-engine light? Did you read any error codes? Without something to go on, you can randomly replace things until it's fixed, or until you run out of money.

With so many things replaced, did you do the idle-re-learning procedure?

 

There's no check engine light on the car, and as for the re-idling yes. But because there's no check engine light on the car the computer to check for errors would read anything would it? As for the transmission level (I just caught that) I havn't checked yet although in the past months when I changed the oil I always checked the ranny fulid and it was within acceptable levels. I'll go ahead and do that and up date the post on any new improvements.

 

I think there's some conditions that can set error codes but not light up the CEL. Not really sure of the details for 1996.

 

It sounds like car idle speed is dipping so low the engine can't sustain idle and dies. This can be caused by dirty idle air control valve (IACV) and dirty throttle plate/bore. IACV should open (more air) to allow engine speed to be maintained under higher load (car in gear).

There are descriptions of cleaning IACV in the DIY forum.

good luck

 

well I cleaned out the throttle + tubes and bought new spark plug wires. And lo and behold for some reason the cars making a clicking sound and the result of this is that the light that indicates what gears it in is wigging out turning on and off really fast. The firing orders correct so i'll have to put on another thinking cap for this. I'm leaning on that its a tranny problem but I want to say electrical is the root of all evil on this dilemma.

 

If the D4 light is flashing, then check the codes. That means the transmission part of the PCM detected a problem.

 

I don't have a code-machine but yeah, I was low on tyranny fluids so I added a quart in. I was told that the D4 is suppose to flash a certain number of times (max of 8) but the light won't stop flashing really fast and there's a clicking sound as I stated be for. I'd push my car to the nearest autozone but I doubt law enforcement would approve of that.