I am not entirely sure if my lambda has decided to die, but, I figured it will be the first place to look. It all started a few months ago when I put a 2.5" bore catback + decat pipe on my 98 Prelude. The symptoms are that when cold, you engage gear (its a tiptronic box) and put your foot down, and, at around 3K rpms the car just bogs and sputters, lift off the throttle and press down again, it either goes, or sputters again, pop her into 2nd gear, sputter, leave your foot down, and, put, put put BAM...off we go and all is well. It is fine when warm, well, almost, it does do it sometimes when warm.
if take the bung out of the exhaust, during the puttering phase, a lift off the throttle will result in pops, even with a stone cold ehaust system, sounds a bit like a misfire, but, not that extreme. also, under heave accelleration there is a fair amount of blackish smoke from the exhaust like you would get in a rich running engine.
At one point, during a flat out accelleration test I got a check engine light, which, stayed on until I switched off the ignition, and, it has never reappeared.
Would a bad lambda cause an extremely rich running condition, and, is there a quick and easy way of determining if this is the case (I was thinking about taking the plgs out to inspect them, they are alost brand new).
Cheers all
Jake