DaveMcG6thGen

Hi everyone,

I have a 2000 Accord EX 4 cylinder vtec. F23a4, as I'm sure you know.

A few months back I started getting a sort of hesitation or stumble at about 3,000 or 3100rpm. Immediately, I'd hit the clutch and shift to drop the rpms and it would go away. Wasn't really sure what the problem was.

Well it's steadily gotten worse. It started to hesitate and bog just at idle. But it would always go away after a little driving, and if I shifted before about 3k RPM then I had no problem. Infact, sometimes I'd be able to drive and bring it up to 4000+RPM with no issues at all! So the problem was decidely intermittent.
Last night the car died on be all together and I was unable to start it. The battery had lots of crank left in it, so i don't think it was the alternator. Now it just cranks but never starts.

Why won't my car start???

do have slight oil leak into dizzy so I thought maybe oil getting in there is the issue. I've taken the cap off and tried to clean everything out but problem persists. There is also a hole in my rubber intake tube going from airbox to intske

In trying to solve, I've put on the following new parts.

Distributor cap and rotor

Spark plugs

Ignition cool

Valve adjustment

No check engine light...

Any help would be really appreciated. This has me pulling my hair out.

EDIT/UPDATE: I just checked the main relay (common problem) and the soldering all looks like it's in great shape. When I turn the key I can hear the relay click twice like it's supposed to, and putting my ear next to the gas cap (with the cap removed) I can hear the fuel pump run for about 2 seconds. So I know I'm getting fuel anyway...

DaveMcG6thGen

EDIT/UPDATE: I just checked the main relay (common problem) and the soldering all looks like it's in great shape. When I turn the key I can hear the relay click twice like it's supposed to, and putting my ear next to the gas cap (with the cap removed) I can hear the fuel pump run for about 2 seconds. So I know I'm getting fuel anyway...

MAD_MIKE

Could be the crank/tdc sensors or igniter.
If it was the igniter when the car stumbled the tach would have dropped to zero and then come back on.
Even there is no CEL, check for stored codes, as long as you haven't disconnected the battery.

DaveMcG6thGen

This was a good tip. I checked the stored codes and found that it was storing two related to the cylinder position sensor, which is something I'd never heard of. I can't seem to find anything online as to the function of this, and I can't think of a reason why that would cause a bad start. I have an old dizzy hanging around, and that sensor is in the distributor. So I'll swap it over and see if there's a difference.
Any quicktips on testing a crank. postion sensor without removing the lower timing belt cover?

Thanks for the help!

Ps. Don't think it's the igniter. I recently swapped that with a known good one in an effort to solve this.

MAD_MIKE

There are three sensors for engine rotation, Crank, TDC, adn Cyl1. Crank/TDC are on the crank snout, cyl 1 was left in the distributor on 96-02 F series engines.

If you can post the actual codes, preferably OBDII P#### codes that would be ideal in diagnosing your potential issue.

Distributor Cam/Cyl#1 sensor is usually only sold with a new distributor and cannot be purchased separately like the CKP/TDC sensors for 96-02 engines.

DaveMcG6thGen

The codes I'm getting right now are

P1381
P1382
P0500

I could be wrong about the last one, but I know it's for the VSS. I know both of the others pertain to the cylinder position sensor, as per the Haynes manual

You're right that they're not typically replaceable, but I have a distributor hanging around that I'll pull one out of to try. The odd thing is that I was getting a no start...

DaveMcG6thGen

UPDATE:

So, I was able to install a known good cylinder position sensor from an old distributor I had hanging around. Really easy to do, just make sure you attach one wire at a time (like you do with spark plug wires) to make sure It's installed correctly.

So far so good! I'll make another post if this ends up not solving the issue. Most of what I found online said when the CYP fails, you have to replace the whole dizzy. The Haynes said the same thing. But this is not the case. If you ever have this part fail on you, maybe find your closest "you pick it" junk yard and pull one off an old dizzy there.

Here's a link to the location:
http://ww2.justanswer.com/uploads/ebrock63/2012-06-30_201807_2012-06-30_141626.png

Here's to hoping this worked!

calamares58

I would still go through changing the distributor since it had an oil leak and that could have been the cause of the damage.

MAD_MIKE

That's why they say to replace the dist, because noone sells the unit by itself. And if the internal oil seal has failed, it can wash down the sensor in hot oil that can kill it.

On ye olde F18A the igniter is mounted internally and when an oil leak occurs it washes down the igniter and the heat sink compound, eventually the heat sink compound is washed away and the igniter cooks. So Honda recommends replacing the distributor as a whole rather than replacing one component which may fail if the original problem(oil seal) is not fixed.

DaveMcG6thGen

Yeah, that makes sense. I was pretty confident it was the oil that was the root of the problem, but just never wanted to spend the money on a new distributor. I hear that aftermarket isn't really the way to go here. Can anyone confirm that? I'd much rather spend 70-100 on an aftermarket than 200-400 on a remanned or new oem.

So far so good though! Seems to run great