SSWEET

Long-time lurker, first-time poster .... here goes:

1988 Civic hatch with D15B2 motor was running fine, noticed a slight miss or something before I parked the car for the day. Come back to start it and it will just crank continuously but no sign of even coming close to starting. There appears to be fuel making its' way to the motor (spark plugs smell of fuel and can hear the fuel pump prime). Checked for spark while someone cranked the car, but nothing was visible so I had the car towed home.

Opened the distributor cap up and found a little bit of reddish-brown "dust" and some small metallic pieces in the cap. Tried to troubleshoot the coil and ignitor by way of checking resistance/continuity as per FSM and everything appeared in order. Here's what happened next:

* swapped ignition coil from spare D16A6 - car started up and idled fine;
* let the car warm up for two fan cycles and then took it out for a little spin - started running rough and backfiring before it would stall out;
* tried to start up again and more backfiring through the intake - would start up sometimes but would then run like crap before finally stalling;
* when revving through the RPM range, car was rough and felt like there was a big misfire from idle to 3K RPM;
* checked for spark - weak spark on cylinders 3 and 4, no spark (or extremely little) on cylinders 1 and 2;
* opened up distributor cap and noticed that the inside terminals for cylinders 1 and 2 seem to have a fairly deep "groove" in them;
* swap spare cap from D16A6 onto car and start up;
* check for spark and all cylinders exhibiting much stronger spark than before;
* let car heat up for a couple of cycles before taking out for a test drive;
* noticed that motor is idling higher (approx 1K) in neutral and the motor is not idling smooth;
* exhaust is sputtering and motor is shaking, although not as bad as before.

Is it safe to assume that my problem was ignition related - specifically the coil and cap/rotor? Any ideas on what is causing my problems now? I'm thinking of getting a brand new cap/rotor, coil and spark plugs - does this sound like a good idea or am I just throwing money at the problem?

Thanks for reading through this EXTREMELY long-winded post - any help you can provide is much appreciated as I need this car up and running ASAP.

SSWEET

Someone has mentioned that this sounds like the distributor is on the way out due to the reddish-brown dust ... would this be true even if it were just a little bit of dust found in the cap? Would the car exhibit the symptoms that it has as a result of the distributor bearings crapping out?

If it turns out that it is the distributor, are there any recommendations as to where I can get one from (keeping in mind I'm in Canada)? I keep reading about Rywire and Distributor King.

Thanks again guys.

SSWEET

***UPDATE***

Swapped in a brand new complete distributor and put in new NGK spark plugs. Started the car up without a problem, although it was idling a bit rough. I figured I would set the timing using a timing light.

I let the car warm up, set the idle to 750 RPM, jumped the service connector and pointed my light in the direction of the plastic pointer on the timing cover and at the crank pulley. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, I was unable to see markings of any kind on the crank pulley. I ended up pulling the upper timing cover and saw that the mechanic that replaced my timing belt had made a chalk marking in the middle of the valve cover lip closest to the driver side and at the "up" marking on the cam pulley. I tried setting the timing by aligning those two points (I know that's not the way to do it) without much success. At this point I started the trial and error process until I obtained a timing somewhere in the middle which allowed the car to run semi-decent.

No matter how much, or how little, I moved the distributor, I could not get the car to run perfectly. It still has a little rough idle and the exhaust sputters a bit. I also noticed that my temp gauge immediately goes down to the cold end as soon as you start driving, which in turn causes the car to idle higher and probably run richer. Due to the temp. gauge's behaviour as well as the fact that my heat is not as strong as it used to be while the car is moving, I'm assuming that my t-stat is stuck open.

Any suggestions with respect to the lumpy idle/sputtering exhaust?

Thanks in advance.