98 HONDA CIVIC While accelerating, the vehicle hesitates and even jerks

While accelerating, the vehicle hesitates and even jerks 2nd and 3rd
gear only what could it be.

 

Same bit of hesitation or jerk in my 89 civic. But only it does that
when the speed
is around 38-40 miles. I don't much worry about this bit of jerking
since I don't stay between 38-40 miles.

 

Sounds kind of like what I had when I had an 89 Civic, except mine got
worse.

It started out as a very tiny little hesitation. I'd barely feel it, and
could see a little twitch on the tachometer.

It slowly got worse, to where as I accelerated, I'd feel a big jerk, and I'd
see the tach drop to near zero, then come back.

It got worse from there. It basically felt like the engine had stopped and
then been force restarted by my momentum.

If I quickly hit the clutch and floored the gas, I could usually keep it
from dying, but sometimes it did die.

When that happened, it would not restart for a while. The starter would
turn it over, but it would not show any sign of starting. If I tried
starting it, say, once a minute, it would fail for 5-10 minutes, then it
would start, and run great for the rest of the trip.

This would happen once or twice a week.

The dealer was never able to find anything, and I gave up and traded it in
around 1999.

I'd be a bit more concerned than that. It's something your car is not
supposed to be doing, so something is broken. You have no particular reason
to believe that this will confine itself to just being a minor annoyance at
that narrow range of speed.

 

Too bad. Your symptoms definitely indicate a simple igniter failure. Dealer
techs must have been pretty clueless not to see this one.