I start my 2003 Honda Civic each morning and drive to work. A few hundred feet down the road, the engine will sometimes behave as though it is running out of gas and lose power momentarily. It doesn't completely stall, I ignore it or pump the gas, and it sputters and then runs normally again.
What should I look at?
- Took it to a mechanic and they said the air intake was full of leaves and stuff, cleared out it, but that didn't fix it. They didn't see anything else wrong.
- It only happens once per drive, just after it's started to move down the road. After it recovers, it's fine for the rest of the trip.
- It seems to happen more often when it's humid or raining.
- On a humid night, with the windows all fogged up, I used a mister to spray even more water all around the ignition coils while idling, and I didn't see any arcs or anything. Engine kept running normally.
- I replaced the spark plugs, and the old ones looked like this:
- I took all the ignition coils out and looked over them in the sunlight, but didn't see any cracks or contamination. The gaskets/boots on 2 of them were kind of buckled inward? But they looked like they still sealed well.
- For a few days after I took them out and wiped them off and put them back in, it was a little harder to start?
- No check engine lights except P0420 occasionally, even after replacing the cat.
