annointed

I bought an '88 Honda Civic 1.5 liter fuel injected hatchback w/4 speed tranny this week. The previous owner was told it suffers from vapor lock, but I don't think this is the issue the car has.

It can drive for up to an hour like a champ, and always starts up fine. But at some point after driving at least 20 minutes, it suddenly starts hiccuping, and hesisitating while cruising or accelerating. This gets more and more severe, until the car stalls out completely. It will start back up for a bit, but progressively gets worse until it won't even start back up. If its given time to cool down, it will start up and run like a champ again. I'm planning to check if its getting proper fuel and spark this week, but wanted check in to see if anyone else here has experienced this problem, and what the remedy was.

Her service records indicate that the distributer rotor, cap, and ignition coil was replaced in '02 due to customer complaint of "bucking." Six months later, she has a reciept from another shop complaining of "bucking" again, and they replaced the o2 sensor, plugs, wires, and called it a day. Then another shop diagnosed vapor lock, but she didn't have them fix anything. The ingitor was also replaced in '99. The distributer also has a funny spot where someone filled a dime sized hole w/clear silicone.

I don't see the fuel pump ever being replaced, and it seems like I can keep the motor running for a bit when its trying to stall by spraying Carb cleaner in the throttle body, so I'm thinking of finding a fuel pump at a local junkyard, and trying that out.

Thanks.

therealciviczc

I'm not overly familiar with the distributors on the 1.5 DP motors, but it sort of sounds like a cam angle or crank sensor promblem with the delay that it has. I've had two go, and both would take quite a while to act up and then once they started, they would keep doing it until the car had sat for a while. If it feels like an ignition miss, consider just finding a cheap distributor and putting it on there. You should be able to find a 1.5 dist for really cheap and you'll eliminate a lot of potential problems right there.


EDIT: I didn't notice the part about carb cleaner in the throttle body. I guess it could be a fuel problem after all.

If you want to rule out ignition, if you can get it to do it while parked and you happen to have a timing light, check to see if any of the plugs are miss firing while its running by just clipping the light on each wire and seeing if it blinks steadily.

annointed

Yeah, I put a timing light on each plug wire, and they blink steadily, and more rapidly when I open the throttle. But its really hard to tell if the car stalls due to ignition or fuel with just that inductive light.

Also, let me make sure I understand your post. I could throw a junkyard distributer at it, if it feels like a miss...it does at first, but after a few minutes, the hiccups become extremely violent, more like a fuel cut...then they are prolonged, you'll be holding the throttle down, but there is NO power and NO response for several seconds....this is when the car starts stalling...it'll start back up, but usually stalls again within 30 seconds or so. Eventually it won't even start again until it sits a while. Last time this happened I was equipped with the carb cleaner, and foudn that every time I sprayed it in the throttle body, it would start back up, and usually run for a little bit...if I sprayed it in there when the motor started to stumble and stall, I could get it to keep running (albeit roughly) for a bit while I sprayed the carb cleaner in.

Makes me lean toward replacing the fuel pump and filter for now, then examining (gulp) electrical issues, like a bad/loose wire or failing sensor...just seems funny it runs flawlessly for 20-30 min before anything starts acting up...even seems wierd that a fuel pump would behave this way, too, but replacing the pump/filter seems to be my best lead so far.