Ok I've had this car occasionally misfire, but now it has gotten very bad to where I can tell that at least one if not 2 cylinders are probably not firing at all. There's smoke and a strong gas smell from the exhaust too.
Main problem is that I need this car to go to work or else I'm screwed and my bank account isn't looking too good. Here are the things I've done so far:
I first pulled the boots off the spark plugs and noticed that there was oil in the spark plug holes (I've seen this before, but now it was bad) so I pulled the valve cover, removed the rocker arm assembly and replaced the seals. When I put the rocker arm assy back, I had to do a valve lash adjustment. It took me forever, but I think I did a decent job. Then I put the valve cover back and it still runs horrible (shakes bad and stalls unless accellerated). So now I was starting to worry that maybe compression is bad, before I put more money into it (it has 205K miles) so I checked the compression in all cylinders and I got something close 180 in all 4 cylinders so that's good. I also checked my spark plug wires and they seem to be within specs as far as resistance.
Distributor cap seems to look decent.
The next thing I replaced was the ICM (Ignition control module), but still no change. I'm guessing the next in line would be the coil and the fuel filter, but I can't afford to keep swapping parts forever. Any ideas what else could be wrong? Thanks

Check for vacuum leaks.

Check EGR valve and it's controls.

Does the car run OK for a little while until it warms up?

Oil is leaking into the spark plug tubes, from deteriorated Spark Plug Tube Seals, and causing the engine to misfire. Easy to replace. Just remove the valve cover (cylinder head cover):

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CEIQ9QEwBw

Coat the tapered portion of the seals with clean engine oil. Afterwards, completely clean the oil from the spark plug tubes. Perform the final wipe down with brake cleaner. Remove the spark plug wires and spark plugs and clean with brake cleaner. Hopefully, the misfiring will stop and the car will run better now.

As an aside, be sure you coated the back of the Ignition Control Module (ICM) with a thin, even coat of heat transfer compound; otherwise, the ICM won't last long. This link may help:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cars-t...tml#post265896

Hey KeekItSimpleStupid, I'll have to try to figure out how to check for vacuum leaks, I'm not all that familiar with that part.
No the car does not run OK until warmed up. It just doesn't run OK at all. It has a hard time starting and then misfires really bad in fact I'm pretty sure that one or two cylinders are not firing at all.

TX Grease monkey:
Not sure you read my original post carefully. I replaced the seals and did a valve lash adjustment so no more oil in the spark plug tubes but it still runs horrible. I might need to do a better job of cleaning the tubes and spark plug boots, but I kind of doubt that's the problem now.
Yes I did coat the back of the ICM with that white crap before I installed it.
Could the coil be causing that problem? I replaced the coil about 2 years ago (I was actually trying to fix the same problem when the coil totally died after I tried to check for spark) I thought usually when the coil is bad there will not be any spark at all.

Quote:

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.. . Removed the rocker arm assembly and replaced the seals.

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Your description was not clear. It sounded like you may have replaced the valve seals, which I couldn't figure out why.

You likely damaged the coil, again.

TXGrease - well on the Accord, there are 2 sets of seals (I'm sure you know this but I'll go into detail for the benefit of others): the upper and lower seals. The upper ones are the tube seals right on the valve cover and the lower ones are the o-rings that mount into the bottom of the rocker arm assembly, so I had to remove the rocker arm assy to replace those o-rings, and in the instructions for doing that, it specifies that one should loosen the valve lash nuts/screws before removal to avoid causing damage, and then it says to do a valve lash adjustment, so that's why I had to do that.

Not sure how I could have damaged the coil this time, I'll take it out and test. I know I should just replace it, but I'm running really low on $ and I don't want to be replacing good parts. So far none of the things I've done had an effect on the performance so it's likely that there was nothing wrong with that ICM. Thanks for the help so far. I'll keep you up to date.

I also think the coil is suspect. Why not move it to other cylinders. Won't the DTC's change?

If you seriously over stress these little coils, they breakdown fast. With two plugs not firing, the voltage has to go somewhere. Often, it comes back on the coil itself. You were obviously runnning high resistance in your secondary, which can be the kiss of death to a coil.

It's best to only run NGK plugs in Hondas.

OK I let it sit for a while until I figure out really what's up with it.
I tested the spark in all 4 cylinders, and there is spark in all for of them. It looks like one of them might be somewhat weaker than the others, but there IS spark, so that really makes me doubt it's the coil. Like I said I replaced the coil less then 2 years ago and it still looks brand new, resistances are within specs.

Can someone answer this: Is it possible for the coil to not be OK even if there is spark in all 4 cylinders? Personally I doubt that very much.
So now I'm thinking it's either a timing problem maybe my timing belt jumped a tooth or something, which I would have no idea how to fix, or timing is off OR it's totally a fuel problem, maybe a fuel injector, so I think I'm going to try taking a look at those injectors.