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Car randomly "stutters" while driving

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Old 03-09-03, 10:22 PM
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Im a tall midget.
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Question Car randomly "stutters" while driving

Sorry for the long post and I thank everyone in advance for taking the time to read and reply to this post.


This problem started yesterday when I took my car to the dragstrip. I got a slit on one of my intercooler couplers and didnt find out until I ran the car. I went up to 2nd gear and let off since the car felt weak. Lost to a civic (14.7) and I ran a 17.0

I changed the coupler and started the car and a minute later the car turned off. The pink fuse closest to the engine blew. Replaced it and the car seemed to run fine. I lined up again and during the run the car stuttered twice. While it stuttered I noticed that my tach died and came back to life. Almost as if all the power on the car was disconnected for a split second. I ran a 15.2. Ran again and the car did the same and this time I ran a 15.5.

Lined up for the last time and when I took off the car felt like it turned off for a second and then all the power came back. Even the idiot lights turned on while the power was gone.


Does anyone know why the car would do this? I checked my battery, all cables coming from it and everything looked good. All fuses are good too.


My car: 88 TII boosting .5 Bar, RB FCD, Cone air filter, Bonez DP, gutted cat, TB mod and stock exhaust.

Cars history: Had a very small engine fire that ate up part of the wiring harness. Could the fire have shorted out something inside the ecu when the harness melted?

Last edited by Juan; 03-09-03 at 10:24 PM.
Old 03-10-03, 01:04 PM
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If my memory is correct, the idiot lights all turn on if your alternator dies, although it also happened to me once when I shorted the ignition circuit. Did you check your voltage, or just visually inspect things?
Old 03-10-03, 03:13 PM
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The idiot lights turned on because the engine pretty much died for a second then came back to life. I'll check out the alternator and see if its still good.

I drove the car last night and at first it wouldnt hold an idle until it warmed up. After it was warm, the car seemed to run perfect with the stereo, lights, and heater on. Anyone else have any ideas??
Old 03-10-03, 03:16 PM
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well if your tac died, I'd have to say check your coils first before anything, use the FSM for the spec, also could be jumping the gun but a compression test is never bad...
Old 03-10-03, 03:20 PM
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Sounds like an alt problem.
Old 03-10-03, 03:25 PM
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I had some similar stuttering issues in my FC, i cleaned up the grounds/ battery terminals on the car and it semi-fixed the problem-- smoothed out some of the stuttering during light cruising and decel....a couple times I dogged the car taking it to the top of 4th and at higher rpm's the power broke apart and the car lost all power a couple times...i think the coils are going bad. Ignition coils are expensive as sh*t for the FC
Old 03-10-03, 03:53 PM
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never hurt to reset, timming, idle, tps.....
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