Hello, I'm usually pretty good with these 4th gens, I have 2 and have owned 4 now. But my daily, which is a 98, has been driving me nuts. At a stead driving state, no load, under about 45 mph the car surges. It's not bad but noticeable for sure. At or below that speed the transition between on and off throttle and back can be abrupt and jerky. Also, at times it is almost impossible to start, seemingly firing only on a few cylinders, but not enough to keep it running. You have to pump the throttle fast and after some starter burning minutes it will finally start. Since this problem started it usually idles at about 1400 RPMs and when in gear sometimes it drops below 500. Also the car has been getting crappy gas mileage so obviously it's running way too rich but Why?

Used my Snapon scanner to check codes and all I got was P0141 which from what I read is the rear O2 sensor and does not effect drivablity. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. To me it sounded like a MAF going bad so I bought a new one and everything was worse once installed. Just changed the plugs and all coil packs are good OEM parts.

Keep in mind if the car has some type of load on it it drive fine. And yes I have done a search, actually took the past to nights to read way to many posts but none that are quite like this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

 

Crankshaft position sensor maybe? When you are cranking the engine does it register on the tachometer?

 

Can your scanner record live data when you're driving? Might be useful. When I had similar surging issues it was my TPS.

 

Could be a bad maf even though it's new. Did you try cleaning the old one before replacing it? The Ect sensor is another potential culprit. Also, when's the last time you cleaned the iacv?