Over the last two years my civic has not seen much use, new bushings and shocks had the car sidelined for a while as I didn't have much time on my hands between school and work. Finally I am trying to use the car again as a dd. When I first started driving the car again about a year ago, I noticed the tachometer was reading low. Based on speed and memory, the tach is about 20-25% off. 3000 actual RPMs is 2500 indicated RPMs, Rev Limiter is 7500ish RPMs but is kicking in at an indicated 5400 RPMs. I have inspected all the consumables (wires, plugs, cap, and rotor) and everything looks good, Disassembled the distributor and cleaned all of the electrical contacts in it and the underhood wiring harness. Problem still persists, I am not ruling out a bad cluster, but the other problem which manifested at the same time makes me think otherwise.
The major problem which has actually has me concerned is what seems like a spark related miss under load. If I am driving around and am running low RPMs, and try to accelerate the car misses heavily. If I let up on the pedal the problem goes away. This seems to be spark rather than fuel because it just produces very little power like it falls flat. Beyond this problem the car idols fine, will pull to the limiter (while burning a little oil), and is still returning 30 plus MPG. No check engine light BTW.
Now why I want to fix it. I have a Miata which is in much better mechanical shape and I trust it more. The civic will be seeing very limited duty. The car is not in great shape appearance wise, but is mechanically sound (minus this problem). I would like to get between $1200-1500 out of it, but these problems would scare me as a buyer, so I would like to do my best to fix it. Thanks in advance.