2002 VFR stuttering/misfiring at low speed

I have a 2002 VTEC that just passed 30k, I'm the latest owner so don't know the complete history of the bike, but the previous owner led me to believe that he was pretty up on his maintenance routine. I've put about 1000 miles on it myself and it had been running great for me until the other day--though looking back, I may have been experiencing signs and not realized it.

So, the incident that happened to me the other day: I was on my way home from work and got stuck on a 20 mph road behind someone that insisted on driving 15 mph. During that time, my bike started acting funny, hesitating, stuttering and it felt like sticky throttle when I let off the gas. At one point when the person in front slowed down even further for a speed bump, the bike actually sputtered and died. Fortunately it started right up again and I got home OK, but definitely concerned with the way it behaved.

Doing a little research around troubleshooting, I took a look at the easy stuff. Air filter looks OK, I pulled 3 out of the 4 spark plugs, and I think they look OK . Unfortunately I stripped the head on the last bolt holding the 4th coil in so will have to come back to that later. I found this video of a guy with a similar issue and the issue for him was the coils.

I pulled the coils out and attempted to test the resistance with my multimeter, but may have been doing something wrong because I wasn't getting readings at all on the 200 ohm setting. Also confused by the 3 pins on the coils when all the youtube videos I saw just had 2 pins involved.

I know the R/R is an issue with these bikes and the PO said he never had any trouble, but has 2 voltmeters installed. The bike has been steady 13.7 v when running since I've had it, and I don't recall it dropping when I was having the issues the other day.

 

sometimes you just buy some bad gas, stale or contaminated with water.

 

I guess anything is possible, but I don't think that's the case, I usually get my gas from the same Shell station and not had any issues. Besides, if it were bad gas, I would think that it would be running poorly across the board. This only happened in the on my return from work towards the end of my ride, i.e. bike was warmed up, fine at highway speeds, only sputtered at low speed.

 

Bad gas is usually just some accumulated water, to rule it out, just add a couple of ounces of Seafoam. The isopropanol in it disperses the water.

 

Hi there, this is bog, did you get your stutter/misfire fixed. I have a 2003 which has a low end stumble/misfire, i have synched the starter valves, and installed a booster plug, still has a small misfire, i feel the low end is just too lean, i plan to perform some electrical work and fuel injection replacement this winter, let me know what you found out. bog