Stumble is a polite word- the car just flat out hits a brick wall and won't rev any higher. You can roll in and out of the throttle, and it'll rev back up to 4500, but that's it. Once in a while, it'll work through it and keep reving, but that's getting rarer.

It's a '86 Civic with the CVCC 1.5L. It'll do it in corners and on the straights, so I'm not suspecting fuel sloshing. We did a bunch of work to the fuel system over the winter (cell, new lines, carb rebuild etc.), but it feels more like an electrical thing to me- the engine doesn't bog, it just refuses to rev higher. If you upshift to drop the rev's, it's fine until you get back up to 4500. If you downshift to get the revs over 5000, it'll go all the way to redline. It's been getting progressively worse over the past couple schools/races/practices, and today it was flat out a pain to drive- we were doing all sorts of crazy stuff to shift around it. Timing (at idle) seems to be consistent day-to-day, but my guess is that it's the distributor. I'm trying to avoid buying a $160 part on a fishing expedition, but I don't really know what to look for inside there to replace, so all I can think of to do is swap the whole thing.

Any thoughts? Race weekend approacheth...

[This message has been edited by Dom Pirinchinci (edited May 30, 2002).]