88 Accord ignition problem seemingly caused by ECU

Hi,

Just following up on the post below:

Replacing the igniter/coil and the plug wires did not fix the problem,
but swapping out the Emissions Control Unit (there is a tie-in to the
ignition, so I'll assume it was an ignition problem) has eliminated
the symptoms over two weeks of normal driving. This is encouraging
because the last occurence of the problem, before the new ECU,
happened after only 20 mins of driving. The real test will come on a
long trip, but so far so good.

"My engine feels like the ignition is rapidly cutting out and in after
a
couple hours of driving. I lurch down the road with the tach
oscillating
wildly between 2000 and 2500, on a 1 second cycle, and can't get the
engine
to go faster even if I floor it.

I can stop, open the hood for 5 min, restart and be good for another
20 min.
of driving. This has all the symptoms to me of a heat related failure
of a
solid state component, like the igniter module (although the radio
noise
condenser is also a candidate). I guess I'll just have to replace it
and
see, unless anyone has any other ideas..."

Thanks to all who replied...
JB

 

Well that's not it either. Next in line to replace is the radio noise
condenser. Luckily a few minutes with the engine shut off always
clears the problem.

 

================

Joe,

You didn't mention whether your problem is weather related. Does it
happen to be worse on cool, humid days? What temperature range are you
having the problems in? Has it been seasonal (what country are you in?)

'curly'

==================

 

I'm in Maryland. I was driving around earlier with a recording VOM
monitoring the power to the coil, in case it was a flaky ignition switch,
but the problem never happened, in 2 hours. (Happened every 15 minutes the
day before yesterday though.)

I'll keep at it. Thanks for the reply.