I'm having some trouble with my car. It seems to run really rough when under any sort of a load for the most part. Idles decent most of the time and drives ok, but when you go up any sort of incline, etc. where you need to accelerate to maintain speed it starts running rough.

Heres a few things I did to come to this conclusion:
- When idling if you rev to 3k RPM slow and steady the engine stays smooth sounds normal. If you rev it to the same RPM sharply and quickly it will still go there it just gets rough.

-When driving if you accelerate slow it is still rough at times but is generally ok. When you really lay into the gas it runs terrible and has no power.

I've checked all the basics, that the spark plugs are in good and wires are all fitting well. I replaced plugs/wires/and distributor cap-rotor probably 10k miles ago. Plugs were NGK Iridium IX. The PCV valve is new, while I was checking it on Saturday it was cold and brittle so it broke off--I even had to pull the valve cover because some pieces of the valve had fallen in.

Any ideas? My guess would be something like air-fuel mix or lack of fuel/air, but this is only a guess. No codes on the ECM. Everything has been doing well on this car except the speedometer has been intermittent, but I think I have that working again. 202k miles on car. To be honest, I don't really want to put a lot of money into it as I am just waiting on a few things at work that will secure my job then I will be looking for a new car anyway, but I'd still rather fix it if it's something less expensive.

 

make sure that all the injectors are working properly...chk engine lite on ????

 

have you checked fuel pressure?

 

I'll check the injectors, thanks. I didn't really think of that but its been a while since I've had to do car work, just haven't had any time. Check engine light is off, hasn't come on at all.

Planning to replace fuel filter first to make sure it isn't that--it needs to be done anyway. I'll try to buy a fuel pressure gauge and check the pressure then as well. I'm not sure how much a pressure gauge will set me back so we will see.

From a little more reading it seemed to act like what I've read when the EGR ports are clogged, etc... I'm really really hoping this isn't the case or that I haven't a clue what I'm talking about. From what I read, on a 91 I would have to pull out these ridiculous metal plugs to clean the ports. If it means anything I disconnected the EGR valve and ran it with it disconnected and it still ran bad. I'm not sure what the normal state of that valve is so I don't know if that tells me anything.

Thanks for the help, I'll be working a little over the next few days. Luckily its not urgent, my brother is out of the country and I can drive his Prelude until I get mine running good again.