diyengineer

92' civic sedan 299,000 miles manual, 1.6L Vtec.

Previous history, car runs great, replace the Ignition Control Module once every 2-3 years (seems to just die). about a year ago did a major tune up and T-belt change. No issues ever, other than the coil, plugs, rotor, etc. Does have aftermarket dizzy.

Went to start car, car just turns over. Threw code #15 Ignition output signal.
Popped in new coil, rotor, cap, and ICM. No luck.

Reffered to honda factory manual. 23-100 ignitions system check, found voltage at BLK/YEL wire (11.6V). Found voltage at WHT/BLU wire (11.6V).

Checked resistance of coil, as stated in factory manual, and it was good.

Checked for continuity between the YEL/GRN wire between the PGM-FI ECU and the ICM, it had continuity.

Checked the BLU wire between the tach and ignitor unit, good continuity.

Checked ACG fuse under dash, fuse was good.

Checked voltage on connected pin 21/22 of ECU 3.3V exist.

At this point i was stumped. Luckily i have a matching 95 civic!

Swapped ECU, COIL, and ICM. 1995 civic started up with no issues!!

That means these parts are good!

What should i go after next...?! Stumped!
Thanks

Former User

Check the Yel/Grn wire for a short.

diyengineer

So it's an aftermarket Ebay Dizzy. So far it has worked fine. With much troubleshooting i found my previous voltage on the BLK/YELLOW not there!? I tracked it the 2 wire plug connector next to the dizzy and found 11.6V there. I then checked at the + coil and had 0 volts.. I thought the wire must have a break in it internally, and figured it was that or the plug on the dizzy side. I cut the plug out and spliced in a new plug for that and the tach sensor. Still didn't work.. Still have voltage at the plug but not at the coil + on the yel/black wire. So now i moved on to the notion we have a break in the wire between my new plug and the coil. I replaced 90% of the wire, and left the last 10% (where the factory crimped ring terminal that attached to coil, and the 1" wire coming off that, that goes to the ICM plug).

The last inch had zero continuity. I skinned the sheathing back to find a heap of corrosion and the wire just came apart.

Installed new ring terminals, and it fired right up!

Buy a $5 light probe. Attach the clamp to the Neg battery post, and touch the + coil terminal. When cranked over, the light bulb should fast extremely fast. That means the ICM is working. Could have saved me a ton of time. This is my 4th ICM over the span of about 4 years.

Hope this helps others!

BTW, next time my cap/rotor/ coil need replaced im buying the external unit from MSD.

google search:

92-95 HONDA CIVIC MSD EXTERNAL COIL DISTRIBUTOR CAP KIT

jbpnoman

The MSD external setup is known to be absolute garbage for our chassis, highly prone to failure, pointless below 500bhp (the stock system can handle that) and worthless over 500bhp (there are many better options).

diyengineer

What are the better options other than OEM? Next time this goes out, i wanna do something different.

Thx