Helping a friend out with his car, and don't have manuals handy. Car died while driving, won't restart, WILL crank over. Showing a Code 15, but I have no manuals handy to cross-reference what that means. I *do* have '88-'91 Civic/CRX manuals at home (where I'm not); are the codes the same for the '92-'95 Civics as they were for the '88-'91s?

Any help is appreciated. What we've ascertained so far:

1) Distributor rotor is on (glad they redesigned the distributor end of the camshaft after the '91 model year!) and turning.

2) Timing belt is good and intact (brand new two weeks ago).

3) Crank/cam timing are good, ignition timing is ~good (set by eye, not with a timing light yet).

4) Distributor is brand new. Just put it on. Neither the old distributor nor the new one give ANY spark at the plugs.

5) Main Relay is fine. Car has fuel, air, and timing, but no spark.

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch,

Mike

 

tried attaching file(s) does not work if you want send me a email and i'll reply with a 92-95 helms.

arturo_lomeli_54k@yahoo.com

 

Cisco: thanks a bunch; I did find an online Helms manual and downloaded it (1258 pages!). With the help from that, I've started trying to track down the culprit. Looks like the Code 15 is Ignition Output Signal. Troubleshooting guidelines are pointing to either the igniter unit in the distributor (which was one of the things I suspected), or a bad ECU.

At this point, it could be either one of them. We did replace the igniter - in fact replaced the entire distributor with a reman unit from AutoZone - but it still has absolutely no spard whatsoever. It's not *common* for a reman unit to be bad before it goes in the car, but it's also not unheard of, especially for an A-Z unit... (never happened to me personally, but I've heard the tales).

I printed out the pertinent pages from the .pdf Helms, and I'll head back over to his place tomorrow to see if I can figure out any more details after doing a few quick diagnostic checks with a voltmeter. If it's ECU, I *think* a friend of mine has one I can borrow for a little bit to see if that's the issue.

Again, thanks for the help. I work mainly on '88-'91 Civics and CRXs, so the '92-'95 are a bit new to me, but I'll learn my way around 'em, starting with this one.

Mike

 

my car did this same thing, and it was just a loose wire between the ECU and the dizzy i think honda said.. the car was in a shop for 4 days, guy couldnt figure out what it was, honda had it fixed in like an hour it was a loose wire

 

I got it going again. I was running through the diagnostic procedures in the manual, and when I went to check voltage on the 2-pin connector, I couldn't get any voltage at all. The manual was indeed pointing to a break (or "open") in the yel/blk wire between the distributor and the ignition switch. I started looking a bit closer, and then I noticed that the yel/blk wire and the blue wire at the 2-pin connector were REVERSED on the remanufactured distributor that we bought and installed yesterday (yel/blk on the car's harness went to blue on the dizzy, and vice-versa). Not my screwup at all; the connector only clicks together one way! A quick check on my '91 CRX Si (different OBD system, but still uses a 2-pin connector) showed that it should be blk/yel-to-blk/yel, and blue-to-blue.

I called AutoZone to see if they had another distributor in stock that I could compare our other "new" one to; they did, so we went and compared them. Sure enough, when this one was reman'd, they just repinned those two wires backwards in the connector. They gave me the replacement, with their apologies, and we went back and installed the new one. The car then started right up!

I cut the car off, reset the ECU to clear the Code 15, and we then restarted it, let it warm up, and set the timing. Car now runs perfectly, no codes, no problems at all.

Seems the old (original) distributor - or the igniter unit inside it, more likely - was the original culprit, and then the new one being wired backwards rendered that distributor useless, but the third time's the charm.

One note: I hear a LOT of people trashing AutoZone's remanufactured distributors, but in my years of experience, this is the absolute first time I've ever had a problem with one. For the most part, they're cheap, reliable, and they're lifetime warranted and usually nearby, so I can't really complain too much about them.

Thanks again for helpful hints and ideas. Glad to report the car is now 100% again.

Mike