Why is my 1994 Honda Accord EX losing power (or fuel pressure?) intermittantly, when I drive it?

I am going to have to do a little thinking, but right off the top of my head, I can’t help but recall what happened to both of my Civics (a ‘90 and a ‘91). They both blew the igniter module, which is inside the distributor but fairly easily replaceable.

The first one started misfiring and then, about a week later, it just died all of a sudden. No starty, no vroom-vroom. I replaced the igniter and it was back to perfection.

The second one started acting odd above 2500 RPM with misfiring and a “waggling” tach that was all out of sync with the actual engine speed. Does that sound familiar? That went on for about a month before I bought the car and then one day it went completely and I had to drive 20 miles home without exceeding 1800 RPM under any circumstances (hard to do with an automatic) or else the engine would stall. When I got home, I took the igniter out of the old Honda (it had a snapped timing belt), put it in, and it worked.

Neither displayed a check engine light, but both of them tripped a code 14 on the ECU though, so I knew what the problem was.

I was going to suggest the fuel filter after the first paragraph. It’s probably not a bad idea anyway and it’s not that hard of a job (just make sure everything is tightened up when you put the new one in, gas everywhere sucks)...

@jerv sounds like he has actual experience with this exact problem though, so that may be the place to start just to keep costs down

One troubleshooting step that might help is to have someone follow you and try going up a hill, if it sputters and then blows a puff of smoke out the tail pipe it’s more likely to be ignition related (the fuel builds up and then it runs rich when things come back on line), no puff and I’d suspect gas isn’t getting where it needs to be. Of course you don’t want to do this too many times, starving it for fuel can really damage the engine.

Good luck with it, I always hate the troubleshooting part. I just want to know what to crank on so I can get to cranking already.

Why not take your Honda to AutoZone and let them analyze the problem for free with their computer?

My two thoughts are this: fuel pump(trash) and your timing belt. have you ever changed your timing belt? remember to also change the fuel pump at the same time, in order to avoid having to do this all over again.

Same symptoms with my Subaru a few years back.

Fuel filter. The Subaru had 2. Change however many you have.

@john65pennington Just an FYI; Autozone tends to be a little iffy when dealing with pre-OBDII cars. As OBDII wasn’t standard until 1996, that means that the OP’s car is basically a custom Honda system that Autozone won’t be able to deal with unless one of the employees there has knowledge of older Hondas.

Yep, igniter module or fuel filter. Hondas and Acuras of that era had those problems.

Just to clue you in as to cost, for a Civic of that era with a D-series engine, the igniter module is about $90–100 from a parts store. The Honda dealer will try to sell you a whole new distributor for about $400. I got mine by buying a whole distributor from a junkyard for $40 and it came out with six screws (four wires plus two for mounting) and was done in under 20 minutes.

I imagine that the ‘94 Accord is similar; same manufacturer and not much newer.

@funkdaddy and anyone else: If the problem is my fuel filter… would this also possibly cause cause my tachometer to act wildly? I think you might be right that it’s the fuel filter, especially since the problem is far worse on half a tank than a full tank…. But the wild tachometer confuses me.

The funky tach screams electrical problems of some sort. Even if I hadn’t had that issue with two Hondas myself, I’d be looking at the distributor.