Rep Power: 0

Good day,
new to civics and my son just bought this car and was running fine.
over the weekend it started running very poor. idles fine, but when start to try to accelerate it sputters and has no power.
fuel is good, and new filter.
we pulled the plugs and only one is looking fine(tan colour), the rest are all black and sooty...
what can we check?
is there a coil? can we check it?
what is the timing suppose to be?
any help will be awesome.

 
Rep Power: 185

I would start with a compression check. They should all be 135 psi or greater varying only slightly from one cylinder to another. If not, based on your description, it sounds like the piston rings are worn. Low compression equals no power. Black and sooty spark plugs sounds like blow by to me.