My 1993 Accord, 196K miles, ocassionally has starting problems. I have owned it 2 years and put 30,000 miles on it and it has always done this. Turn the ignition key to start, engine rotates quickly, engine fires, ignition key to run position, rpm jumps to 1,000, then quickly back down to 200 rpm and runs extremely rough until it dies. If I try to accelerate when it is idling rough, it dies quicker. Now, I turn the key off and back to run until the fuel pump goes off, then I try to start it again. Engine rotates quickly and usually briefly fires, but won't run. I repeat this process several times until finally by accelerating before starting I can keep it running. In less than a minute, the check engine light comes on and D4 starts flashing on the shifter display. If I return the accelerator to idle the engine would die. I go ahead and drive it about 6 miles, shut it off, restart it and everything is fine. Check engine goes off and D4 stops flashing. Anything less than 5 miles, shut off and restart and check engine, D4 will still be on. The problem is more frequent when it's very cold, less than 20 degrees F., and very difficult to start the colder it is. However, on those cold days, after the car is warmed up it starts fine. I have done every test that the Haynes manual lists, everything tests within specs. I forget what the fault code is, but I remember it led me the wrong direction. What could this be?

 

had a similar problem like yours but i dont have an automatic. my car would even crank over some days for like 10 minutes or so. especially when it was cold. my problem was the main relay under the driver side panel up under the wheel. those are known to go bad on our year accords. worth a shot to check it out.

 

it sounds like the main relay

 

It took you two years to figure out something is wrong? Damn!

On a less sarcastic gee its midnight and I'm not tired kind of note...

Could be a number of things. Relay, ignition, etc hard to say. What's your check engine light say, that usually doesn't flip on for nothing? Personally I'd probably check your idle adjustment, there's a fast idle adjustment and then another adjustment that keeps the idle higher until the motor warms up. Sounds like one or both might be out. Like I said check your code!

 

Thanks, I found the main relay behind a sardine can, removed it and found 2 broken solder joints with a magnifier. I resoldered all the joints and now I'll wait and see if the problem comes back.

 

good deal, hope that does it for you

yeah if you search around people have nothing but problems with those relays