Today I drove my car to work. It started up with no hesitation and ran good and strong. When I went to leave work it didn't want to start. It was cranking over, but not starting. I didn't want to sit there holding the start button, but I noticed it almost started after holding it for a few seconds. I started to pump the gas pedal while holding the start button just a little longer and it finally fired up. It was hardly running, and idling very rough (felt like misfire and sputtering) once I got it started, so I reved it up to get it going. I started to drive and it drove really smooth as long as I kept the rpms up. However, once it went into idle it would start to run rough, or drop idle very low. I got it home and let it idle for a little in the garage and the car was still idling rough with rpms dropping like it is going to stall. I shut the car off and tried to start it up again, but it didn't want to start. I almost got it to fire up, but it stalled. I didn't want to push it, so I let it sit.

I have an 03 with about 147k miles. I didn't get any codes, but did notice my oil light flicker very fast once or twice when i let it drop down to idle (oil level is full).

The engine is pretty much stock. My battery is hardly a year old, spark plugs were changed about 40k miles ago, valve adjustment was done around 40k miles ago, checked all connections on spark plugs and map sensor, reset ECU, and still nothing. The fuel pump is priming too. It was raining very heavy on my way to work and I hit some deep puddles, so I'm not sure if something got wet. I have been searching for something that would cause the car to hardly start and idle rough, but no luck. I see a lot of people say to check IAC, but I'm not sure if that would be causing the car to hardly start, because that's more of a rough idle problem. I'm thinking maybe fuel pressure regulator? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Update...went to try and start it up. Got it started, but it almost stalled until I revved it up. I was holding it around 3,000rpm and it still would sputter a little. It made the garage smokey, but not enough to see the color. It just smelled like straight burning gas.

 

I check all connections and grounding points under the hood. Have you done a compression test on the engine, in the recent past?

Good luck!

 

Grounds are good. I'll try the map too. Went to start it today and it's still messing up. It started, but was running really rough. Had the hold the start button for a few seconds until it finally fired up. Once it was running it was idling really rough. It smoothed out a little when holding the rpms up, but it was still rough. It smelled like it is running really really rich just during that short time of sitting there, but still no codes.

 

Have you done a compression test on your motor?

I have a sneaky suspicion that one of your cylinders has low compression. I ran into this issue last year and symptoms are similar. After I ran the compression test, cylinder 3 had zero to no compression.

 

Could it also be a stuck injector dumping to much fuel?

 

I haven't had too much time to look at it today, because of work. I'm leaning more toward the fuel rather than ignition related, but still am a bit unsure. Is there an easy way to check if the injector is stuck and spraying too much fuel? Maybe some fuel cleaner might help? When it runs it smells so strong of gas. Not like straight gasoline leaking, but like its running really really rich. When it idles it almost pulses. The rpms will drop and then the car trys to bring it back up, but then they drop again (it also sputters and does not sound smooth under the hood), sometimes almost stalling. When I hold the rpms up to about 2,000 it smoothens out, but still stutters a decent amount. It still takes a bit of cranking as well to get it to finally turn over, and when it does it is not a smooth, vroom type of start. It is like its coughing and about to pass out until you kick kind of start.

I have not done a compression test on it. My current kit is broke, but would that through a CEL if it lost compression?

 

I mean you would think it would throw a light for something if it had no compression, but you could start with a compression check which is pretty easy to do. If that checks out then maybe if you have a friend with an s2k borrow his injectors and swap it around for yours and see if that fixes it.

 

 

thanks guys for all the responses so far. Without a code there is just too many things to guess on that could be causing this. The last thing I want to do is start wasting money and time replacing things that aren't the cause. I'll try to check the compression to see how it's looking. When I was driving it home last night it drove decently smooth. I even went into vtec for a quick second to see if it was all working and pulling normal. Felt pretty good. Just in the lower rpm spectrum it started to stutter again, and felt a bit worse this morning when I got it fired it up. Hopefully the compression is all good still. I really don't want to have to pull the motor apart.