Engine sputter, backfire
 

hello everyone... and thats about as pleasant as it gets right now... ok just bought a 2000 Honda Accord LX V6 3.0L 2997cc J30A1 FI MFI Gas SOHC ... w/automatic trans. with 186,000 miles on it. Have only driven 350 in this thing so far... and frankly Im ready to shoot it and put it out of its misery. But for today the problems are as follows...
Engine just started sputtering.. fine when idling, begins to sputter when I hit the gas, stops after Im up to 40mph or so. Hasn't stalled yet or not started. Check engine light has been on and flashes when the car sputters.

Got it scanned and the codes that are coming up are as follows:
P 0301 Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected
P 0302 Cylinder 2 Misfire Detected
P 0300 Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P 1399 Pending Random/Intermittent Misfire
P 1457 Evaporative Emission (EVAP) Control System Leakage

Those are the codes that came up today. Two weeks ago when I had it scanned because of a transmission problem... the codes were emissions and the shift solenoid. The auto part guy turned off the check engine light at that time and it remained off for about a week or so. Also the D4 light doesnt work so I'm assuming that if it did... it would be blinking. ????? But I suppose thats another topic.
Any suggestions for someone who doesnt know much about diy car repairs but is too broke to bring it to a mechanic??? Thank you for any input.

Lisa - things like this go in General Tech, where I have moved it.

Ok thank you Poorman, I'm still trying to figure out how to work this site... sorry.

I'm going to ask a few questions here to try to narrow down the issue.

Does this happen all the time. Or, does this only seem to happen once the can is up to normal op temp?

I'm worried about the miss fire codes right now.....the P1457 is the easy one.

And I have to ask about the spark plugs.....any idea of when they were last changed?

@poorman... it happens all the time... but sounds fine at idle... I just bought the car from a dealer 4 weeks ago... have no idea what the last owner did or didnt do... unfortunately. The check engine light was on when I bought it, I should have known better. And new discovery in the past couple days... although its listed as a v6 on my title... it is actually a 4 cylinder 2.3 vtec engine??? Yeah I should have noticed that too. The dealer claimed it was a 6 cylinder, and even though I saw the 4 plugs in the front.. It didnt click because Ive never owned a foreign car. I feel like an idiot.

Im very confused about the whole 4 cylinder thing now... especially because the diagnostics comes up a 6 cylinder also. Unless thats based on info I gave them?????

There's no reason to feel like an idiot. I'm curious, if your title reads V6 and you have the 4cyl VTEC engine, could there be an issue with installation of the motor (wrong computer, etc.) Poorman, what's your take on it? Lisa, there's a VIN decoder on this website, have you tried it to see what it says about your car based on the VIN number?

@brian74d... how do I get to the vin decoder???

just do a google search to decode honda VIN. You can post a picture of the engine bay on here as well.