here we go...

10:00 am start the car and let it warm up

10:05 engine is doing nothing abnormal. idle from cold start at about 1400-1700 and drops to 800-1000 once warm.

10:25 arrive at girlfriend's house, all local driving from cerritos area to buena park/fullerton area.

While waiting for my girlfriend to come out, i notice the engine is idling lower than 800 almost like 500-600 and then vibrates a little and then goes back to 800-1000. A/C is on blast because today was hot as h3ll so i didn't give it much thought, figured ac puting some strain during idle. Girlfriend comes out side and we take off to run a few errands and have lunch.

11:45 i am taking her home when i notice i have a very noticable vibration coming from the engine. (this is gonna sound stupid but...) I think im being paranoid so i come to a roll of 5-10 mph and try to VTEC in 1st gear. I notice there is almost no noticeable VTEC engagement at 6000rpm just a smooth increase in RPM but no VTEC burst of power.

As i am decelerating from 8500 rpm i shift into 2nd gear and then into 3rd and as i give it gas i hear a tapping noise. So i let off the gas peddle and then give it gas again no noise. Now i am freaking out, i remember reading about some horror stories on s2ki about other owners with major engine problems
and the horror dawns on me that it may actually be my turn.

At this point i still do not have a CEL.

I park the car for about two hours and i go inside the house.

When i get back in the car the car started up fine, nice and smooth. With two temprature bars idling at a perfect 800-1000. Car acts normal for about 4-5 miles. Off of a streat signal i hear the tapping again. But this time noticeable louder and more vibration. I slow down to 25mph from 45 and i crawl my way home. Halfway the CEL comes on and is blinking, then turns solid. As i am literally 100 feet from my house the CEL blinks again, tapping gets even louder, engine vibrates as if i were stalling and then completely shuts off and i come to a slow stop right in front of my driveway.


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WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO MY CAR?!

I did no freeway driving, i have no engine mods aside from mobil 1 synthetic oil, i did not drive faster than local speeds(10-50 mph), and only triend to engage VTEC once when i noticed something funny as i posted earlier.

It will be towed to honda tommorrow and checked out.

has anyone had a experience like this before or know any keywords i could do a search on?

any help would be appreciated

 

check your oil. Mine an 01 just ran low yesterday, god knows how long it was low...but i was out almost 2 full quarts....i filled it up. I ddint notice any issues with idling or anythign like that though. Justa thought hopefully nothing major man sorry!

 

Check oil asap. A flashing CEL is not a good sign. Hopefully your tapping was not a spun bearing or worse.

Ryan

 

The crankshaft may have spit out the thrust washer. Hope not, though.

 

yeah check oil

 

if your mil flashes then ... good luck.
if it's only on then... don't worry too much.

 

The only bright side to this story is that the car had good sense to conk out in front of your driveway. I've had a Camry just up and die on the departure level of LAX, and wasn't that fun.

 

The blinking CEL indicates the ECM recognizes a condition that will damage the emissions system (catalytic converter). The blinking CEL can go away by itself if the condition is corrected quickly, or it can cause a steady CEL if the condition is bad enough to require service.

The blinking CEL (emissions system damage warning) can happen from either a too lean or too rich mixture. The tapping sound, hot conditions, and lack of VTEC power all sound like over-heating and/or a lean condition. Running lean will cause pinging or detonation (tapping) and when pinging is sensed or when the engine is too hot the ECM retards timing significantly which explains the lack of power.

It's possible it's something stupid like a bad fuel pump or injector. I've run my car out of gas 4 times (once on a race track) and in one case I had the blinking CEL condition. In that case I was driving on fairly level ground, and when I started up a slight upgrade I felt the tell-tail hesitation of fuel starvation and a few seconds later the CEL was blinking. I let it coast over the rise, knowing it would get fuel on the down-hill, and managed to exit and find a gas station before the condition repeated.

In my case the CEL never came on again because the problem was temporary. In your case the condition existed long enough to cause more serious trouble. Hopefully the ECM shut the engine down on it's own and you don't have a mechanical seizure.

.

 

Well the honda dealer has had the car for two days now and i haven't got any word from them.

I am hoping that me not hearing from them is a good sign. a buddy of mine told me that if they dont call you back the same day they probably just becgan to fix it under warranty.

i hope that is the case.

Whatever it is, im glad it happened now because im at 33,000 miles with three months left on the warranty.

 

have an update?