98 Accord LX Engine Shakes/Shuts Off

Hi All, I'm trying to help out an uncle with his car. He has a 1998 Honda Accord LX Sedan AT SOI-IC 16-Valve 4-Cyl.VTEC
I feel so bad cause he's recently out of a job a then his car starts to give him problems. On to the details, as I'm told...

Over a month ago it started to randomly shut off, engine only, while driving (city and highway) and the check engine light came on.

So we initially thought it would be the spark plugs or spark plug cables or both. We changed them but problem persists. Another symptom arose; the engine starts and stays idle but is shaky and seems to sputter.

Now my uncle believes that the "timing" is off. If so how do we go about fixing or adjusting the "timing," the only experience
he has in that regard is with an 82 Camaro, which is totally different from newer, Japanese cars.

Any troubleshooting tips or DIY info would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

Well, first thing would be getting the CEL code read up. I see that your from California, so you can't get it read for free from places such as Autozone. You can always go to a shop and have them read it up. There should be a paper clip trick that you can do to get the code read up. If you don't get the code read up, then you won't be able to ever figure out the problem.

http://www.6thgenaccord.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19

I'm going to throw in my assumptions and say that the random shut off could be a bad ignition switch and the shaky idle could be a dirty IACV. I only say this because my car had the same symptoms and that's what I fixed to solve the problem.