Polecat12

Hi All,

Came here for some expert help. My Dad's completely stock 96 Civic DX stopped running when he was driving it one day back in February. I visited him last week and tried to help get it running. I checked everything I know how to, and wanted to see if anyone had an idea what to check next.

Symptoms. No Start. Will crank, but not catch and run just by turning the key like normal. You can get it to start and barely stay alive if you continually press the throttle down and let off (full throttle let off, full throttle let off, etc), but it is very weak and will die immediately if you stop doing this. It will not start if you just give it full throttle. It will rev and run nicely if you spray starter/carb fluid down the throttle body, but dies as soon as you stop.

Here are the major things we've done.

It has spark on all 4 plugs
We checked the fuses in the engine bay in the drivers footwell, but I don't think we checked every single one, just anything to do with the running of the engine, maybe after reading this someone knows specifically which ones we should look at?
It has good compression 140 - 150 psi range for all 4 cyl
It has fuel at the rail, it has good fuel pressure (we rented a tester)
It has zero codes stored in the ECU (we rented an OBDII reader)
It is timed correctly both distributor timing and crank timing (the crank mark lines up with the indicator on the plastic cover and the cam gear mark lines up with the little indicator on the head)
We replaced the fuel filter for the heck of it
We replaced the ignitor for the heck of it
We checked the PGM-FI relay by the glove box, it does have power, however 1 of the wires only has power for 2 - 3 seconds after you turn it to on, I don't know if that's a problem, but my Dad thinks it may be.
My Dad did recently put in something like 8 gallons of new fuel, so I don't think it's bad gas.
I've tried adjusting the distributor timing thru the entire range, and it made no difference.

We made a list of 18 things we've checked, I would just type that up, but I don't have it with me.

I think that since it revved up when we squirted the starter/carb fluid down the throttle body that it must be a fuel problem, and since it has fuel pressure at the rail that the Injectors must not be firing, but I don't know how to check that except to pull the injector rail and injectors and physically watch them to see if they work, but we have not tried that yet. If it is the injectors not firing, I don't know what we would check or need to replace.

Any thoughts?

Thank you for your time!

baconsauce

hmm sounds similar to my previous issues

have you checked if the wires is all good? ignition wires? if nothing works.

my last advice is to swap the ecu to see if it is working.

BS

Polecat12

Thanks for the reply.

Since it has spark, and will run and rev with carb/starter fluid that makes me think the spark plug wires are ok.

If I had an ecu to swap with, I would. Could the ecu be bad and still give a good OBDII reading?

baconsauce

you can try to find someone who you know have same Honda chassis as your and try to borrow their ecu or put your ecu into their to see if it work.

I can't promise if it would fix everything. if it doesn't work then you probably wanted to wait for someone to chime in and help you out.

Polecat12

Turned out to be the ECU. Got one from the junkyard for $53. Thanks for the help bacon.