Miata Mailing List: May 1999, Message #109

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Its' been about two years since I've been on here and I need help
desperately! 
We drove our '93 Miata about thirty five miles, out of town, and went
shopping. It drove great. We would drive, park, shop several places. We
were driving a couple of miles then had to stop for a traffic light. The
Miata began sputtering. When the light changed we still had a block to go,
and one more traffic light, and it "coughed" all of the way. We stopped at
the light and it really began "missing" and "sputtering". We parked the car
and went inside the store. Thought maybe when we came out it would be
alright. Wrong! On the return trip home, thirty five miles, it got worse
instead of better. It really seemed as if it was out of time, one cylinder
seemed totally dead. I even had to down shift to keep up speed, on slight
inclines. 
When I got home I bought a set of plugs and a can of injector cleaner. The
old plugs looked good, just a little wide on the gap. At first it ran
better on the new plugs, but not good enough so I put in the injector
cleaner. It seemed OK till I drove it out of town last night. It was the
same thing all over again, coughing, wheezing, missing. 
The Miata was put up all winter, as it usually is. This Spring the battery
was weak so I replaced it. I only drove it locally a few miles until we
went out of town as I described above. Does the computer lose memory when
the battery is removed? Would this be the problem? The plug wires measured
between 70 and 90 ohms, depending on the length. If this is wrong, what is
the proper resistance?
The hardest thing to understand is that it happened all at once, no
warning, just at that traffic light.
Does anyone have ANY ideas? Has this ever happened to you? I need help
badly since we have all of this wonderful weather and I'm forced to drive
the HONDA!
TIA,
Karl  
>From the Top of Ohio
'93 Black & Tan
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You don't stop playing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop
playing