00ssi

Hello everyone, I was a member here few years back but cannot find my login info so I created a new account. I was out of the scene for a couple years unfortunately I tried the mustang thing . Well needless to say I am back into a honda. This time with a 2000 em1 CLEAN and pretty much stock that I picked up over the weekend.


I will try to shorten this as much as possible. When I arrived to buy the car the guy had it running which was a red flag but like I said the car was CLEAN and drove out good so I purchased it for a fair price not the best in the world but not to bad either. After I got home I let it sit for around 6 hours, got in it and fired it up and it would sputter and die did that a couple times and then began to run fine, I held it at about 3k rpm for a couple seconds and let off. It began to jump from about 1300 rmp to 2100 rpm on its own (map sensor??) that what I initially thought. All the while the car has had a tap tap tap under the valve cover not bad enough to make me not buy it of coarse or bad at all really but it was there.


I removed the plug wire cover from the valve cover and the plug wire on the #1 cylindar was jumping around a little and also was not pressed and seated as good as the other 3 so I press down on the top of the plug wire on top of the plug and the taping stops so...("death tap") right?? AKA loose plug?? well I drive it home and pull the plug....
Plug was tight but the ceramic piece of the plug had seperated itself from the metal at the base where the socket grabs the plug at. I get in my truck and go fetch a good new plug and come home. I jump in to start her up (on 3 cylindars) no plug no wire on #1 and it spits and sputters for a second and dies on its own.... I put in the new plug and put the wire back on and now it wont run at all just spin over and over and never crank up???? HELP!!!! Fried coil???Ignitor??Both?? I need some advice!! Remember this is a 2000 civic si EM1 b16a2....Thanks in advance for any help!

guessohw

Not sure if this helps but have you checked the volatge at the coil as well as ohms? Next how does the rotor look as well as cap? Just thinking of a few small easy things first. Also any codes showing?

00ssi

I am pretty sure it should be 12 volts going in but what coming out?? I cant find the resistance specs anywhere for the coil?? or should I just fire test it by pulling a wire off the dizzy cap and holding it a small distance away and turning it over or what?? and what should the rotor look like if its fried or what do you mean by that?? Thanks by the way!

guessohw

As for the ohm load check haynes manual or online. There should be a certain resistance or load that the either the coil or module in there should be showing. I can't remeber the numbers off hand plus our motors are different. As for the inside of the cap, the four outer terminals sticking down, check them and if they have carbon build up on or around them or appear to have excessive wear go ahead and swap it. The rotor is pretty much the same way. It may look good from a far but use a screwdriver and take that phillips head out and check the actual contact and see if its darkened or starting to crack. Just did mine yesterday and seems to feel a little better. Hope some this at least gets you going in the right direction.

StreetsideStig

Have you checked the spark on the other cylinders?

00ssi

No I am at work and that will be my first step when I get home unless I just put the broken plug back in and try that....because that is the only thing that has changed since i drove it home from work yesterday other than me trying to run it on just 3 cylindars which shouldnt hurt it I wouldnt think. I know it wouldnt run good on just 3 but it should still run without harming anything. I just wonder if my coil got fried? Really I do not know which direction to go in! I am irritated

Former User

If you wanted to blow the coil, this^ would be a good way to do it.

98civdx

Say bye bye to the coil.

00ssi

so pretty much everyone agrees I fried my coil when I started it up on 3?

24TEN

iTrader: (2)

My vote is this. I had a similar problem and RonJ diagnosed the problem correctly. Different situation but same result running with one wire off.

lostforawhile

go down to the parts place and pick up a spark tester,they aren't very much, you dial in the gap for your plug, attach the wire to it, and ground the other end, have someone crank over the car and visually veryify you have a good spark, if you really want to get cheap,attach a ground wire to a good known plug, ground the wire and put the plug wire on the plug, this will visually tell you the same thing

lostforawhile

it's possible if the plug was damaged,the coil could have been building up a higher then normal voltage and arcing through it's case for a long period of time, when you pulled the plug off and ran it, that might have just been what it took to put it over the edge. when the plug is grounded, the voltage can only build so high before it jumps the gap, if it's open circuited, the voltage can build much highr and possibly damage the secondary of the coil, this probably woudn't happen right away, but it's possible this was going on for a long time

00ssi

^That would make sense because it has had rough idle,jumping rpm's,etc...since I got it so this may very well be the case....I am going to pull the dizzy cap off and test the coil to see if it is bad when I get home and guess I will be spending the money on one if it is shot. Thanks for all the help! I will post up what I find to let you all know.... Any more ideas though feel free to chime in....thanks!

00ssi

UPDATE* Yall were right....Thanks for all the input! I tested the coil when I got home and ended up replacing it and put 4 new ir. spark plugs in it. After I did that it fired right up I have been driving it ever since then with no trouble. Thanks again! I will NEVER do that again....

Robin6

I keep a few coils around for this reason as I have gone through 3 total now.

lostforawhile

get one of those spark jump testers for future use if you ever have to test spark output again, it simiulates a plug being in the circuit