Engine hesitation and poping sound
 

2000 Accord SE 2.3 Vtec

Ever since I took off distributor cap off and put it back, my engine hesitates and I can hear some poping sound from exhaust pipe. I went to autozone to ask and the person over there told me it sounds like timing issue.

I heard before distributor cap itself won't have anything to do with timing.
Can it be really timing?

any advice would be appreciated.

Did you remove the distributor cap or the entire distributor?

just cap to see if oil was leaking. Even with hesitation, RPM is very normal and the car runs very good. I recently cleaned up throttle body, changed o2 sensor and the car ran very until that point I took off the cap. I check the wire which looks okay to me.

I don't feel I lost any power.

Make sure the metal part of each spark plug wire was inserted all the way into the post on the distributor cap.

Since you have an SE that is a vtec engine. There is a spring-loaded part of the distributor cap that makes contact with the coil. Make sure that you didn't lose it when you removed the cap.

is it the center one with spring action? or is there a spring itself?..I don't remember seeing one spring when I took off....by the way, are you saying it may be a cap itself?

Just take a look at the inside of the cap. Look where the post on the coil touches the distributor cap. See if there is a metal piece that has a spring on it.

I looked at it and learned that there is a spring. Yes there is a spring like you said. It was amazing I never noticed......

I also purchased new distributor cap and tried. most of the issues, hesitation and poping(blurping is more close I guess) are fairly gone. However it still does a little which I didn't have before.

Should I change coil and rotor to see more? or get a timing checked.

Since engine oil was leaking from the shaft ( it was the reason I opened the cap..), I was debating if I should try to change inner seal explained in this forum or change entire distributor. I found new Hitachi distributor around 100 on ebay.

any suggestions?

Its really up to you. You can try to replace the rotor to see if things improve.

At some point you will have to replace the seal or the distributor.

I have been wondeeing if I need to get timing checked