99 Stalling/Erratic Idle
 

For the past few days I've been noticing erratic idle and today the car stalled. It will normally idle around 700-800RPM's then drop and shudder, or jump to 1000 RPM. When it dipped today in traffic i revved it to around 1500 RPM then after releasing the gas the car completely stalled. Also noticed during constant speed the RPM will drop or jump by 100 RPM or so and feel like a misfire or jolt. The car has thrown a P0420 code before and was cleared, if that has anything to do with it.

Any ideas??

My first idea would be to check/clean the throttle plate area as well as the IACV and it's screen.
Did the P0420 code come back after 2 drive cycles?
BTW...how many spark plugs does the car have?

Nope the code was cleared i would say about 3 weeks ago and the CEL hasn't come back since. It's a 4 cylinder with all new NGK plugs. It has an oil leak @ the distributer area too, would that cause this?

What kind of oil leak at the distributor?

Oil leaking INTO the distributor (& leaking out at the bottom of the distributor CAP) can get around & maybe mess up the timing sensors.

Oil leaking past the distributor O-ring will just leak down the end of the head. That doesn't actually get INSIDE the distributor at all.

I'm not sure, would removing the distributer cap tell me?

Yes. If you find oil inside of the distributor, then try cleaning the sensors in there.

Yes. The difference is whether the oil gets INSIDE the distributor or not.

If there's oil inside, you can clean it up; but you'll still have to figure out why & make it stop.

Well i popped off the distributer cap and saw no oil in it. All the terminals on the cap looked fine, no corrosion, but on the rotors center terminal it was brown around it like it was burnt. IDK if that could cause the problem or not but think I'll replace it tomorrow, but what brand? OEM?

Replaced Distributor Cap and Rotor, which seemed to have cured the idle issue for the most part. But whenever im driving i still notice a the cars rpms drop or jump by a 100-200 rpm and you feel a small jolt or hiccup. Thinking of taking it in for a transmission servicing.

RPM dropping by 100 might be the torque converter locking up. Normal if that's it.

Honda auto trannys don't like to be "power-flushed". Drain & fill with Honda ATF.

It should only do it once per gear though right? This happens multiple times even at set speed with CC on. Is it really expensive to replace the TCC?

There were some design flaws in the 98-02 accord automatic transmissions, that caused them to fail. This may be the start of your problem. I think that an internal bearing would fall apart and start plugging the fluid passages.

Changing the transmission fluid using Honda ATF by draining ~3 quarts, then refill, (i should double check my posts) then drive for ~100 miles, repeat for a total of 3 drain/refills should exchange most of the original fluid and possible debris. If you find a lot of metal shavings, be prepared to have the transmission replaced or rebuilt.

I would also suggest cleaning out the shift and lockup solenoids that are on the transmission housing, because they can get plugged up over time. The gaskets for those solenoids have a screen that should be cleaned too.

I hope that's what he means...
Don't drive 100 miles with the ATF 3-qt low.

Also the torque converter only locks up in 4th-gear when cruising. If you drive just the right speed it can lock / unlock / lock / over again. Kinda like you can drive at a constant (slower) speed where the transmission can't decide which gear it wants to be in.

I posted something about my car doing this some time ago and didn't get any response. I'm guessing that I didn't make sense in the way I was describing it. Mine only does it once it is in 4th gear and is cruising between 30 and 48 mph. Kind of annoying since I had the transmission rebuilt and it wasn't doing it beforehand. BTW, my car is a 2002 with the 2.3 and has 113k miles. Most of those are highway too.. so go figure. Sadly I wish I still had my old 1992 Accord.. that thing was rock solid and the guy I sold it to still drives it.

Hunting between gears & locking TQC are 2 "features" that cause me to only buy manual transmissions.

I probably missed your other post, sometimes if I'm gone for several days, I don't get the opportunity to wade through ALL the posts that I've missed. Sorry.