haven't looked for any sparking yet... just replaced the 7mm wires with 8mm Kingsborne yesterday. will look for sparking at the coil. also bought inline tester to confirm that no spark is getting to the plug. appreciate all the suggestions and assistance.

 

inline spark tester confirms no spark to plug in cylinder 4... looks like I'm getting a new coil.

 

They're not super expensive but a little pain to install. You should remove the intake manifold and get a manifold gasket at the same time.

Good luck!

 

Just remove the upper intake plenum. That should give you plenty of room to replace the coil. The gasket is cheap and it's easy to do. And no you're not missing a bolt! LOL! It seems like everybody asks about that empty hole the first time they take the plenum off.

 

coil swapped... WITHOUT removing the intake... (just had to pull the SAI pipe and grope around alot) broke two of my brand new Kingsborne 8mm wires at the coil trying to get them off... kept the 7mm wires that were replaced, because I'm a pack rat, so I went ahead and put them on for now... no more #4 misfire or engine code. Took it for a drive and notice what I can only describe as a shudder between 25-30 mph... seems to only happen there. I live on a tiny little Island, so I could only get her up to about 50 -didn't wanna go too far away on a test drive in case I have to push it home As stated earlier, I do have the 3 brake warning lights. previous owner said it was the ABS sensor in the driver side front wheel. shudder didn't feel like a brake thing though... more like engine... feel like I'm at least making progress... thoughts?

 

Transmissions can shudder. You could also take a look at your drive shafts and make sure you aren't getting any vibration there. Drive line vibration is usually more constant, but quick to check.
A friend of mine had some shudder in a Honda. He added a couple tubes of Dr. Shudder Fix. He said it was amazing how well it worked. Maybe it would be worth a try.

 

I don't know. I thought that I had transmission shudder on my '03 and it ended being a bad spark plug wire. The truck would stutter under load, I always noticed it when accelerating up a grade/hill and gears changing from 3 to 4. I went through a bottle of LubeGard, 2 fluid and filter changes before I finally got the flashing SES and code for misfire 1-2 weeks later and found the bad wire after searching very thoroughly. Replaced plugs and wires to fix.

But if it is shudder for sure, I had 2 career tranny rebuilders suggest the dr Tranny or LubeGard from the RED package. I believe Hondas and other imports use the black bottle.

 

It can be really hard to tell if you've got driveline shudder or a misfire. My friend's Honda felt like it had a dead miss on one cylinder. He said he hooked up his scan tool and the misfire counters all stayed at zero. That's when he started checking the rest of the car. He narrowed it down to the transmission after that. So I know what you mean. sometimes you need a way to check for misfires to determine what's going on.

 

been waiting on stuff, but ready to get back at this in the morning. got the ultra-guage this morning. from what I've read, there's really no baseline on temp, so I'm going to see what I get and go from there. got the shudder fixx, since I don't wanna crap something else out just trying to get baselines... not sure how to proceed with adding it... gonna look up tranny fill procedures and assume that I should act accordingly, unless somebody chimes in with another suggestion... also going to go the bleed route, since there seems to be a little bit of bubbling in the expansion tank... also did an oil change and went with the Rotella as mentioned in a ton of posts here on the site... already sounds quieter at idle...

 

Hello there
So by replacing the coil you got the misfire resolved??
Thanks