After about 30 minutes of driving on my way home from work, I was stopped at a stop light and all of a sudden my car started to idle really rough, I put the car in 1st gear and started to move forward, but it felt like I was in 4th gear starting from a dead stop. Lots of vibration and no power at all...the motor sounded really loud too. The car felt like it was in some sort of limp mode and had no power at all in any of the gears and it felt like it was about to stall out. I also noticed a couple backfires when I let off the gas and the service engine light came on.

I made it home wich was about 1 mile from where I started having problems. I popped the hood and noticed a burning smell and the engine was pretty hot, but the temperature guage in the car was reading normal. I didn't see any fluid leaks or anything out of place, fluid levels looked fine, intercooler pipes were in place, etc. I let the car cool down for about 3 hours and took it out for a spin. It drove fine, no issues at all other then the engine light. I decied to drive it down to my buddies shop which was about 20 minutes away, I made it almost all the way there when the car started acting up again, same symptoms as before. I was able to limp it to his shop. Hopefuly he'll be able to check it out tomorrow.

I've never had any issues since I've owned the car and have been very meticulous to maintain it. It's a 2003 Evo 8 with about 70,000 miles on it, Timing belt, water pump and all the other recommended parts were changed out 2k miles ago.

Mods are:

GSC S1 Cams
3" TBE
255lph fuel pump
Intake
Open source tune

I'm hoping my buddy will be able to figure out what the problem is, but if you guys have any Ideas, I'm all ears....crossing my fingers it's nothing big.

 

Sounds like it's misfiring. Which is what the CEL will show.

 

did you pop an intercooler pipe off? sounds like some sort of vacuum problem. hm yeah or could be a misfire. that would be a hell of a misfire though to even do it at idle

 

I checked the IC pipes, they're all fine. Like I said before, when the car cooled down a for a few hours, it started back up and drove fine for about 15 minutes before it started acting up again.

 

When I seen the title, It seemed like a pipe blew off. But since he drove it after 3 hours and it seemed fine it couldn't be a boost leak.

Sounds like coilpack failed.

 

^ yeah I'm hoping it something simple, I never did pull the cover and check the plugs and coils. I'm hoping it's not a head gasket, it doesn't seem like the symptoms of that though...other than the hot engine and slight burning smell.

 

damn thats weird. well thats good atleast that theres a CEL on from it. that should tell you the problem when you scan it

 

You were right - melted coilpack.

 

Good stuff