brock

Hi, I have a 2001 Acura 1.7EL actually, but it has the 7th gen VTEC engine in it, so same thing right? Up front, I also know next to nothing about these cars. I'm simply going crazy trying to diagnose the problem and no one seems to be ale to give me a straight answer. So, I'm trying to avoid a big run around (I've had a couple of sensors replaced with did nothing). I've searched for an answer through these and other threads and found only one other post similar, but there was never any resolution. My hope is somebody here will have seen this problem and can suggest a fix that I can pass along to the garage. So, here goes...

First off, the engine light is starting to come on pretty regularly now, it didn't come on at all in the past. The last time I had it checked it was O2 sensor over voltage or something to that affect. I'll have more codes hopefully after I put the car in for winter inspection soon enough. Now on to the strange behavior. The car can sit all night, I'll start it up in the morning and drive on into work no problem. However, if I were to leave work for some reason after arriving, say within a couple of hours, when I start driving it will start having this power loss, rpms will tank, but it never cut out. This can happen when driving in any gear too. Sometimes I'll make it into 3rd gear and then it will start. I can now do one of two things. Pull over, put it in netrual and rpms will cycle up and down and finally work itself out, coming to a normal idle and driving is then fine. Or, when encountering the loss, I can tramp on the gas, in which case the rpms nose dives for a stall, almost reaches it, but then suddenly jumps up to where it should be based on how far down I've pressed the gas. I now have to keep going at a relatively high rpm for a few hundred feet before everything is normal. By this point, through either option, it never happens again while the car is running.

So, there it is, but it's also kind of random. The above described situation doesn't happen all the time. So, I've never been able to demonstrate the issue to a mechanic. There's no real pattern for diagnosis. The engine light was never on in the past and still is not always on. WTF is wrong with my car?

Thanks,
brock

lordhelmet

iTrader: (3)

DAYUM... You have quite a problem on your hands. Ill give you a free bump to figure out the problem.

HighBoost

2001 Acura 1.7EL not supose to have 7th gen VTEC engine in there maaan .. double check

brock

Well HighBoost, dunno what to tell you, but when I pop the hood, it says "Honda VTEC" on the engine!

letsfightfelipe

thats because the engine in your acura is made by honda. maybe you have a bad ecu?

speedfoos

iTrader: (17)

Get yourself a scanner so you can see what codes it's throwing. You can find a good one on Ebay for like $80 that will allow you to drive around with it plugged in. That way when it throws a CEL, you can instantly see what it is.

It's possible that you have an issue with the cat. Mine was all clogged up and it behaved similarly. Admittedly, my car is boosted and I had banged the cat around a bit, but the symptoms are close.

Bottom line is that you need to see what codes it's throwing before we can do anything.

brock

letsfightfelipe, thanks for the suggestion. However, as I said before, I searched and found only one other person with this problem. This guy tried a lot of different things and checking his ECU was one of them. It was not the cause.

I'm starting to get the feeling that this is a pretty unique problem. Hopefully, somebody out there will recognize it.

letsfightfelipe

now does your RPM gauge go crazy or does your engines rpm go crazy as well?

brock

Uh, if I understand your question correctly, then gauge and engine rpms are tied together. Engine rpms goes down, so does the gauge. The gauge is properly reporting engine rpm.

letsfightfelipe

ok hmm I really don't know

jponto07

Sorry to revive an old thread, but im having a terrible time diagnosing my problem and it sounds exactly like what you've described here. I have an 03 Civic EX(same motor I believe). Were you able to solve the problem? If so...PLEASE clue me in. The dealership is dumbfounded of course, and I haven't been able to force the pro Len to occur regularly enough to steer the mechanic in the right direction.
Thanks,
Jon

aji_nomoto

Hey Brock,

I'm having the same exact problem with my 2001 Acura EL. Did you ever figure out what happened? Any information will help. Thanks man.

kkbh

Hi, I am having very similar problems with my 2001 Acura 1.7EL. It will intermittently loose power driving slowly. It used to happen very occasionally but more often now.

Did anyone found a solution.

Greatly appreciate your time.
Thanks

dhungubc

Any updates on this issue? My EL is starting to exhibit this behaviour...

Alexander99

My 2001 ex is doing the same thing drives fine for a while then boom loss of power turn the car while still coasting down the road an turn it back on then it's fine for a while then does it again!

robfarr56

OK, I'm not buying an old Acura...

GingerBelle

​​​​​​​I have a 2001 and I'm having a similar issue with a slight variance, or addition, if you will. I will say in advance, electrical stuff, wiring stuff, not really my thing. The rest of it, I'm golden, but not this. Ok, so in addition to the random losses of power that are temporarily remedied by turning the car off and then back on while coasting, sometimes, turning the headlights or turn signal on causes my gauges to drop. That is to say, it causes total loss of power to the gauges, and if left on, ultimately total loss of power to the car in its entirety. However, what really perplexes me is that the turning off and on of the coasting car causes everything to function as it should (headlights and cluster lights brighten, head unit functions, etc.), but only for a few seconds. Additional information: the car will sit in the driveway and run without a problem for hours--with and without the battery connected. Sometimes it runs fine with the blinkers or the headlights, but never both. And once the power drain starts it seems to not stop until the car is totally dead. Although, I suppose this could be because more than once it has been "fixed" more than once and I don't turn my headlights on until I need my headlights, at which point I can't turn my headlights off, until I get somewhere to stop, if you know what I mean. Perhaps these are separate, independent issues?? Is it, at this point, good for nothing more than target practice? Thanks in advance for the advice, insight, and assistance.
​​​​​​​~Belle