93NTEGLS

a friend of mine has a 97 civic and her car ran out of gas. she put gas into it and now it wont start. fuel pump is cutting on but i think i have no spark. i pulled the spark plug wire and plug and grounded it to the valve cover while someone cranks the engine and no spark. so i changed the igniter and now i have spark but it is very weak, it is orange in color and it should be blue or white. so i then change the ignition cord and still the same result. if anyone has any ideas or suggestions let me know

vtecb18c

it may need a new distributor

93NTEGLS

but the new coil and igniter should supply the spark correct?

93NTEGLS

i checked to see if i am getting power to the distributor and the only wire that has power is the blk/yl wire. is this normal?

Former User

Check whether the coil and igniter connections are tight and not corroded.

In addition, you must be careful about removing a spark plug wire while the engine is running because you can blow the coil. This could happen if when you are testing for spark, you don't ground the spark plug threads on a metallic engine part. In other words, is it possible that you blew the new coil?


Modified by RonJ@HT at 6:57 PM 7/25/2008


Modified by RonJ@HT at 6:57 PM 7/25/2008

1992Si

here http://hondatech.info/downloads/Auto/Manuals/Civic/

93NTEGLS

i checked for spark while someone cranked the engine, not running.

Xscort

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RonJ@HT &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
In addition, you must be careful about removing a spark plug wire while the engine is running because you can blow the coil. This could happen if when you are testing for spark, you don't ground the spark plug threads on a metallic engine part. In other words, is it possible that you blew the new coil?

</TD></TR></TABLE>
this is true, happened to me last summer. being a goof and not knowing how to correctly check for spark and i messed around and blew my ign. coil. I guess you learn from experiences. Be careful, its quite shocking too, pun intended!

93NTEGLS

thanks for all input. any other suggestions?

93NTEGLS

bump

93NTEGLS

so i am getting spark now. but still not starting. compression is good, getting fuel. what else to check for? only other thing is timing

Former User

Yeah, check the mechanical timing on the timing belt to see whether the belt skipped a tooth or two.

93NTEGLS

how do i know if it skipped a tooth or not? the belt was tight when i checked the tension on it and all of the timing marks seemed to line up when i set #1 to tdc. im not saying its not possible but i wanna know how could it have skipped a tooth. is it a possibilty of what happens when u run it out of gas?

Former User

Running out of gas would not cause this problem, although you may have thought you ran out of gas but instead the timing belt slipped. If the belt is in excellent condition and both the cam and crank are perfectly synchronized at TDC, then the mechanical timing is fine.

93NTEGLS

then if not timing, what else could it be? i am going to triple check the timing today. thanks

93NTEGLS

the timing marks are on point. the up on the cam is strsight up, the key on the crank is at 12 o'clock, and the line on top of the crank pulley lines up with the arrows on the timing cover. one thing tho. the notches on the cam gear that should be flush with the cylinder head is not really flush. theres also two arrows on the inside timing cover that the notches should line up with and they dont.