mraudio13

A little history, I have this 1998 Accord LX with 235,000 miles on it. At 232,000 miles the head gasket went out and I took that opportunity to replace the engine using the JDM (F23A) route.

I had to say that I was enjoying having compression again. The car ran like a top and then after about 2,000 miles, I encountered my first hitch. I started to developed trouble starting. At first it took three tries to catch (this was a first for this engine) but, what surprised me was when the car went from running fine to instantly stalled while I was driving. This car has a manual transmission so, I tried popping the clutch with no success. After pulling the car over and letting it rest for about 15 minutes I was able to get it started again.

I was informed that this problem could have been caused by a faulty Main Fuel Relay so, I drove to the parts store and bought one and nursed the car back to my house. Unfortunately the new relay did not change the car's behavior which has now gone to only running for a few seconds and then stalling.

I then installed another ignition switch which I have had to do before and was frankly wondering when I would have to do that again. Still no dice!

On a hunch I changed out the distributor for the one on my old engine and was rewarded with a very consistent result. I was starting to take this personally...

I after putting the distributor back I thought that perhaps I had some bad gas. The rain here in Florida has been pretty steady for the last week. I went to a reliable gas station and picked up 5 gallons of 93 octane and added it to my tank. No good!

The car would still only catch after it had been sitting and only for a few seconds and then die. Throttle didn't seem to matter as far as being able to keep it going. I have started to pull spark plug cables to confirm spark but I am wondering if this is a fuel thing.

Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Lost Again

Double check the main ground (G101 -#16 in the pic) on the drivers end of tht TB/plenum. Not sure but after the engine change it could have "moved" and not making good contact.

mraudio13

Lost Again, I gotta know, did you break into my garage to look at my engine?

I went out as soon as I got home and checked the location you highlighted and I could move the wires with my finger!

I got a wrench on the bolts and then the started the car right up! It ran strong and smooth. I just got back from a quick run down the interstate.

Thanks again, you gave me my weekend back!

Lost Again

.....yes, it was a long drive to FL.

Anyway, glad the car is back on the road. And thanks for coming back with the "answer" - too many times threads just "go dead" and no one knows what the fix actaully was.

Edit: Just me but I would remove the bolts and clean the contact(s) of the wires and the TB then re-install. Want to be sure they are clean, if you ran some time with it loose it could have built up some corrosion. As you can tell, that is a pretty important ground point.