i was in the drive thru at mcdonalds today when i noticed that my car had a very very unusual rough idle and shake going on. i turned the car off and restarted, but still the same thing. when i went to drive off, the car shook tremedously and kinda felt grindy and grabby, like it didnt want to go.
i have a 94 integra ls automatic.

when i got home i popped the hood, had my brother put it in drive and hold the brake pedal down while revving... the engine went from wobbling side to side at idle to shooting upward while he was revving.

any ideas.. im not very knowledgeable on these things.

 

I'd start off by doing a compression check. Also, but doubtful, worn motor mounts?

 

Check to see which cyl is misfiring. With the engine running pull each plug wire up from the spark plug. Does it run the same or worse? repeat untill you find which cyl doesn't change when the plug wire is pulled. While the engine is running take the plug wire from the offending cyl and hold it close to a ground, does it have spark? If it does, inspect the plug insulator for a covering of oil, also look down the plug tube and see if oil is standing on the plug. If the answer is no, than pull the plug, inspect it, replace it or swap it from an adjacent cyl. does the miss go away or change to a different cyl? Do a compression test lastly. It most likely isn't the cause.

 

do a tune up to eliminate all the minor things like plugs, wires, cap + rotor, fiel filter, air filter, plug wires. while duing this inspect all the parts to hel troublesoot problems if this does not help. but im leaning towards wires, maybe they are old or there is something preventing the spark to flow like water in the distributor cap or water in the plug chamber were the wires conectg to the plugs. know engines moove inside the engine bay specially if they are missfireing. so you can disregard that as a check, but checking your mounts would not be a bad idea. Good luck.

 

thanks for all the help guys, i appreciate it.
yall ended up being right, although your replies came after i had already found out what was wrong haha

anyways well i went to a local shop, they said the spark plug wire on cylinder 3 was shot so i bought a new set at auto zone and now the car runs great.

but they did look at the motor mounts and told me the rear mount was busted and the other two were weak