bad miss; stutter; hiccup
 

Recently, my 1992 Civic VX started to have a stutter. Noticed it first at low rpms, now it does it at most all rpms, but definitely much worse at low rpms. It's gotten really bad that I don't want to drive the car. It seems to be worse when it's wet out, but now it's doing it all the time. When the engine is cold it does not do it at all. It's only when the motor has been up to temp for a bit that it starts to do it, so I would say it's temp related. It was also just now blowing white smoke. It's never done that before. However, I recently got an oil change at Mavis and the guy wanted to use some oil he preferred/recommended and I allowed him to, but then realized I had put Mobil 1 which is a full synthetic in a couple oil changes ago, and the oil the Mavis guy used is non-synthetic. It's possible the white smoke was condensation burning off (there was quite a bit of moisture on the end of the tail pipe while the car was idling) but the smoke was fairly thick. I'll keep an eye out for drop in oil/coolant, but there hasn't been up to now (there was some oil loss awhile ago during some rigorous driving, but none recently).

My mechanic told me the miss could possible be one of the following things:
1. something to do with the ignition system; the rotor, cap, plugs or wires, but given that all were replaced a year ago, it'd be disappointing if they were failing again now. He also said it could be one of the modules inside of the distributor I believe he said.

2. fuel pump or something with the fuel system.

3. chipped tooth on the timing belt? or misaligned or something wrong with the timing belt.

Any other ideas?
Thanks.

IACV(idle air control valve) may need to be cleaned or replaced. I've had those symptoms(with a few hondas) after warm-up as well. Since the iacv has cooler lines, antifreeze runs thru it and could possibly cause water to be burned?

This would be specific to idle only issues of course...

You should recheck the plugs, wires, dizzy, etc. Also think about a fuel filter change...

How much white smoke? Any scent?

When I had white smoke it was a fuel injector stuck open, dumping way too much fuel.

Fuel economy is definitely way down since this stutter problem. So that very well could be it. I also like the fuel filter idea. I wouldn't say really thick white smoke, but very visible--no mistaking it. I don't recall any pungeant odor, but I didn't really smell for one. Although I had smelled the exhaust when it was burning clear (before engine was hot enough to start the hiccup problem) and it smelled fine. So my feeling is, given what you just said THC, the white smoke is related to the miss/hiccuping problem. Thanks guys!