Glenn roldan

Hello everyone,
I’m posting this because I’ve come to a roadblock is literally about to have me growing white hairs. Allow me to explain in detail..

so I bought a 95 accord ex (I’m 3rd owner) about a year ago. I was starting a new job that was 45 minutes away and didn’t have any transportation so I hopped on the markets and was quick to look for older civics/accord because ofc.. cheap, reliable, fuel efficient. Cool. Found one for 1400 2 hours away and drove it home with 0 problems. Claimed it had “135k” but i could obviously tell that they had swapped the cluster to make the mileage seem lower. Little did the old man know, the cluster he bought was for an auto and the car is an original 5 speed.
Anyhow, a month down the road. I noticed the car would get hot at idle and I was mysteriously loosing coolant. Ended up being a bad head gasket. Cool no biggie. Parked my car a Friday. Had it back together ready for work that Monday. Again everything went flawlessly & I did everything by the book. Car was running A-1 again.
8 months later, to about 5 weeks ago, car starts to misfire on cold starts. Barley noticeable but imma maniac with my cars and can sense the slightest change. Found it weird but figured it was gonna be something dumb. Did plugs, wires, cap &, rotor.
I did notice that when I pulled my plugs, the car was running extremely rich because the plugs were close to charred. And yes I do keep up with my maintenance. Those plugs probably didn’t even have a thousand miles on them yet. That’s where I first knew something weird was going on. Also because I didn’t have CEL on.
Did some digging and finally realized that the previous owner had pulled the bulb on the CEL light to help sell the car. Stupid me didn’t realize I’m the moment because I really needed a car like ASAP but whatever. Slapped a bulb in and sure enough I had a CEL.
Put a paper clip in and pulled code # 4 (crank position sensor) I immediately was like “oh shoot I didn’t even know I had one lol. Cool ez fix gg”
did some googling annnnddd it’s in the dizzy. “Wow, didn’t know dizzies have CPS. Cool, nice to know”
pulled the dizzy off and apart to see if there was any signs. Nothing. Pulled out the multimeter, opened up YouTube, and learned how to test all the components inside the dizzy. Did so and all my readings fell well in spec. Scratched my head and did more digging. Read that it could maybe be the ECU. Broke my heart but figured now would be a great time to buy a chipped p28 and get a spicy tune to have some fun being annoying 2 stepping everywhere and fix my problem at the same time. While I waited for it to arrive, I had no choice but to drive the car. The days leading up before the arrival of the ECU, the car just started running worse and worse. Spitting and sputtering. High idle and bobbing idle. Was running extremely rich. Like to the point where it smelled like I was pouring gas out the exhaust. eventually it limited me to 2.5k rpms and would not go at all unless I was floored all the way lol. I parked it and just waited on the ecu.
ECU arrives, i pop it in. Car starts easier than it did before. CEL turns off & idle lowered to about 800-1000 rpms. Go for a test drive and notice it’s still running rich, has a slight misfire, and now I can pass 2.5k rpms, but not 4.5k. And it also sounded like Vtec was engaging. Pulled my Vtec switch and tested it, all good. I literally pulled my engine harness and went thru the cables to see if find any shorts. Nothing. Bought 2 new dizzies, nothing. New 02, nothing. New coolant temp sensor nothing. Tested map and tps again to ensure, nothing. They were both in spec.

im literally at the point where I wanna sell the car but I know I’m not going to get back half of what I put in it so it’d hurt me. Also knowing that I’m not going to be able to find another car that’s not going to need work and is going to be as reliable as my girl.


please guys, help me out. I’ve gone thru all the top replied threads regarding this problem trying everything and to no avail.

im willing to try anything. Maybe even burning it to the ground 😀

Steve Massey

I’m pretty sure the crank position sensor is at the crank. Remove lower crank pulley and timing cover and have a look under there.

Glenn roldan

The CPS is located inside the the distributor. My car is a 95 OBD 1.

Chrisfrom1986

iTrader: (1)

No it's not. It's obd2.

Ryanthegreat1

I thought 1996 was the obd2 cut over?

Chrisfrom1986

iTrader: (1)

The accord is a weird model.

90-93 obd1
94-97 obd2(a?)

I can confirm my 90 was obd1.

Ryanthegreat1

Yeah 1995 the distributor is the TDC sensor. In 1996 they moved the TDC sensor to the crank snout.

Look at the parts fiche for the oil pump on the 1995 vs the 1996. The 1995 doesn't list the sensor.

Part number for the distributor also changed for 1996.

Jeremy64

i have a 96 ex it has three major electrical components in the dizzy.
i would assume if the crank sensor was in there, you would have four?? However i am not sure!!
my chilton book starts at 96 and 96 is also when the added obd2 as a requirement.
so that said if you had more components in your dizzy that is where it is at.
There was link on the cps but it is for the sensor located on the crank.
you could be chasing a broken wire or electromagnetic field from a failing alternator. Or your aftermarket parts are not within spec

nicolaselias

Honda can be strange. I have a 96 JDM model and it is most definitely OBD1, even verified this with the dealer, despite the US models switching over to OBD2.

From experience with other cars, crank sensors are a SOB if they go bad, and can really mess up how a vehicle runs. I've had bad luck with aftermarket crank sensors too, so may be worth pulling one from a junkyard if anywhere near you has accords scrapping

Glenn roldan

My car is definitely OBD 1. I had purchased an OBD 1 p28 for it and didn’t use the jumper harness. My car is a 95. My CEL is no longer on but I can’t pass 4.5k rpms.