New to the board and was looking for some suggestions.

A friend recently bought a 92 Honda Accord w/ 101k on the clock and had some trouble last week. Car would randomly stop running and the tach was jumping all over the place. Checked the distributor and found it damaged along with the rotor being fairly well worn. Replaced the distributor, cap, and rotor and everything was fine for the past week. Tach is no longer jumping around and the car runs smooth as silk.

.. that is until yesterday when it broke down in the drive thru at Jack in the Box. Came over and looked at the car but could not spot anything obvious. He says he just pressed the gas, it moved forward a foot and then died. Was running fine up until that point. It cranks over but wont start. Tried a different ignition coil I had figuring perhaps the coil went out with the distrib but that did not help.

It sounds like the fuel pump is turning on when I listen, but I can't be sure. What is very, very odd is I can crank it over and over, and then the second I turn the key from RUN to OFF the engine detonates like its about to start. But if I go from RUN to START and let it crank and then let go, it wont do that. Never seen anything like it.

The engine compartment smells like fuel, so I'm guessing the timing belt went and now a valve is stuck open which is why it smells like fuel in the engine compartment. He does not know if the previous owner had the belt done, so it could be that. I didn't get a chance to look in the oil filler to see if the cam was moving before the tow truck he called came and picked it up.

Its on its way to the local Honda dealership for a checkup, but I wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas of what it could be. Only others I thought of was the ECU or main relay. The Jack in the Box told us it had to be gone in the next hour, so I did not have much time to try and even check anything other than the very basics.

Thanks in advance!

Jason

 

if the timing belt went i don't think it would crank...
the main relay was a quick fix for me when my 90 would just crank and crank and no start...the fuel smell...dunno...
come back and post what happened

 

beforeu go on doing this and that u need to diagnose if it is fuel or spark related.........if it is lack of fuel most likely a main relay went sour ....get a can if carb cleaner , remove the throttle body tube and spray carb cleaner in there see if engine starts, if it does look at the main relay ....