As read in the title I have a 2008 Honda Accord 2.4 liter 4 cylinder automatic transmission. I bought this car for my wife 2 years ago for dirt cheap and have been battling it ever since. Cat converter was cut off from time I bought it to time I drove it home. When I test drive it, it was sluggish and rough. Turned it off and back on it was fine so proceeded with the purchase. Had an aftermarket cat welded and flex piped on. I did everything but the welding so pretty sure it was done right. Before fix and after the vsa light and check engine light came on and would prevent any throttle above 3k rpms and shifted poorly. Pull over turn it off and back on it's good. No vsa lights and or check engine light. Drove normally. I would get same problem more frequently so change spark plugs bosch double iridium plugs. The 10 dollar ones would usually fix it for a few weeks and I would mess with it again and good for 3 weeks. Less frequent troubles anyways. I've recently started driving it. It drove great for 2 months. No issues cranking or running. Thought wife was a bad driver or something. Just lost. So now it has gone full limp mode with no power at all. Sometimes it happens with vsa light on sometimes not.

Here are the repairs and tests i've made while trying to fix.

Removed battery ground and body ground cables. Reinstalled after evaluating and determined to be good. Charged battery up to full.
Tested camshaft sensors after removing from engine. Powered with battery and tested with ground and signal wires on multimeter. Results were 4.8 v for both and 0.02 v for first sensor and .04 volts at second sensor. So determined they were good. Reinstalled both sensors as they were.

Replaced crank shaft sensor and installed
new bosch double iridium spark plugs then cleared codes. Disconnected both battery cables and discharged or hard reset. Let it sit with no battery for a few hours. Cranked like a dream. No lights came on at all for the first half mile then once I tried to give it throttle flashing cel and vsa light came on. Full on limp mode. Touch gas light flashes. Let it sit and it's no light or solid light.

tested battery voltage. Running is 13.8 volts with ac and defroster on. Not running 12.3 or 12.4 volts.

Tested alternator at harness while running reads 13.76.

Ran obd2 scan and came back with every misfire code I think possible. P0300 random misfire, p0301 cylinder 1 misfire, p0304 cylinder 4 misfire. I'm lost and I'm not exactly in the best position to pay for a mechanic but I'm quite capable of performing these repairs. I'm going to order a denso starter but I'm just not convinced that is the problem.

 

My advise for you is to stop buying parts and throwing them at the problem. Sometimes a new aftermarket part can be bad out of the box. If the original part was working fine and not the root issue, and now you have a second broken part, the diagnosis gets more complicated. Hopefully you kept the old parts incase you need to reinstall. I recommend this for future repairs.

Based on your description of the problem, it does not sound like you need a starter. There are only two scenarios for starting the car. 1. Crank/No-Start. This is when you turn the key to start the car, but you have to hold the key because the engine won't run on its own. Or the starter is weak and spinning the engine slowly. 2. No-Crank/No-Start. This is when you turn the key to start the car and nothing happens. If you have no issues getting the engine to spin when you turn the key, then don't waste money on a starter.

To get a start on the diagnosis, please hook up your scanner and post all the codes you get on here. That can start to give you a direction on what to troubleshoot.

Can your scanner read live engine data, like MAF sensor, fuel trims, O2 sensor signals, etc.?

 

THank you for your response. I've only replaced the crank sensor due to code p0339 crank sensor intermittent interruption. I bench tested the two camshaft sensors. They were both good so I reinstalled them. I originally had 6 engine codes.
P0301
p0339 for crank sensor intermittent interruption
P0304
P0300
P0301
p0304

That is the order the codes were listed on the first scan. The new scan only lists p0301 p0304 and p0300. My scanner will list freeze frame and live data. It's pretty in depth but limited due blue tooth technology.

 

Can your scanner read live data?

I'd start by monitoring the short and long term fuel trim when the engine is at idle when cold and also when it warms up and goes into closed loop mode. Also rev the engine up to 2000 rpm and hold to get the short and long term fuel trims. The numbers will jump a bit, but let us know the fuel trims under the 4 conditions above.