dcs62

My daughter came home a week ago from work, car was running fine and shut it off. Next morning, it won't start, just cranks and cranks. My neighbor and I have been troubleshooting in our spare time, he's a master mechanic and I'm just a backyard mechanic! We are getting gas and spark to all cylinders. All cylinders compression check fine. Cleaned contacts inside distributor. Test ICM with some tests for voltages etc. and all passed except a note on the instructions that said when cranking, RPM needle should move. Mine is not. Any ideas would be appreciated. It is the 1.6 L engine.

Thanks Dan

mrspeedy69

Check and make sure the Timing belt didn't break. A buddy of mine had this same problem and he actually used a little bit of starting fluid and it started right up. For some reason he was getting too much fuel and it wouldn't fire.

turbodcxbro

iTrader: (1)

How did you verify spark? For a honda to just randomly die like that its usually the coil or ICM. Did you check to make sure the timing belt is in place and not broke?

dcs62

Timing belt is in tact, compression is OK also. Verified spark by grounding plugged in spark plug to the valve cover. All four are sparking. Tried starting fluid and still nothing. Thanks for the quick response.

95soul

Check all grounds. I know had the same problem before, and it turned out to be a bad ground. Also, check your battery voltage, Sometimes if it drains down, (usually happens in cold weather), it will turn over but not fire.

denraweb

How did you verify fuel? Did you check ALL 4 injectors? As in pull em out and crank it while watching spraying patterns (make sure you have a bucket to catch all the fuel, it will spray everywhere)

dcs62

What ground did you find bad? Battery voltage wasn't checked, but we were cranking with a portable jumper unit connected to the battery.

Verified fuel injectors with the plug in diode and they all lit while cranking. Verified gas by getting a puff of gas in my face while cranking with the plugs out and looking into the cylinders. I didn't need a bucket, but there was gas coming out of the cylinders.

Dan

alx_jdm_99

check your igniter or your coil the same thing happen to me last week
hope it works

Former User

Sounds like the timing belt skipped a few teeth. Remove the valve cover and upper timing belt cover, turn the crank pulley counterclockwise until the cam pulley is set at TDC1, and then check whether the crank pulley is now likewise at TDC1. If not, the timing belt slipped.

dcs62

If timing belt jumps a couple teeth, will compression still be OK?

Thanks Dan

Former User

What were the cylinder compression numbers?

Del Namco Solo

I hate to be a dick, but 10-1 its your distributor. There is more to a distributor than just spark. My car dropped dead while I was at work. I drove it 100% fine on the way to work, and then all of a sudden it started to slowly shut down and then just stopped. I thought it was my fuel pump, but nope, installing a new one didn't help.

I ended up replacing my distributor. It was working fine, spark test n all, but as it turns out the ecm inside the dizzy was bad, causing a bad spark order, which in turn stopped the engine from actually starting.

I say double check that dizzy.