RolanTHUNDER

When I experienced a bad misfire and then sudden switching off of the engine after starting it I found that my replacement VTEC solenoid was stuck open. That caused the whole problem. Reason for replacing my solenoid was none other than "because it looked nicer". Not that my original gave me any trouble. I swapped it back in and the problem went away immediately! Lesson learned. You can see in the pics below that the OPS plastic connector is broken. This happened during transit and is the fault of the courier company

Specimen info:
- Solenoid came from a 2002 AP1
- ~60000 miles

See pics below of when I took it apart. I could not actuate the solenoid by hand or with a tool. I could not see anything broken inside. It's just stuck.

RacerXI

Great follow up. Thanks for sharing back what you found too. I don't know that I've ever heard of this issue. For other people running across this, this car has an AEM which doesn't light the CEL.

RolanTHUNDER

My pleasure! I'm so glad the problem has been solved. Hopefully this helps anyone else who experiences this and saves them the time of going thru everything else with a fine toothed comb like I did
In fact I swapped the stock ECU back in before finding the culprit so I saw the CEL light up a few seconds after starting it and revving it to keep it from switching off. Strange thing is even though it idles and runs great now the CEL comes on 2 to 3 mins after starting the car. I already reinstalled the stock O2 sensor with the stock ECU.
I'll go back to AEM Series 2 and wideband O2 once I get my crank pulley off and AEM fuel rail installed.