My daughter's 96 Civic automatic quit while driving down the road. Battery, timing belt, compression and fuel are fine...but no spark. No check engine light either...it just cranks.
Replaced the complete distributor, PGM FI relay, ECM and still nothing.
Any ideas??

 

fuses ok I assume

 

yeah, I should have mentioned that.

 

did you check the grounds?

 

well, no check engine light is a good place to start. the light is controled directly by the ecu. Now if the ecu is dead.....or no power or ground to it you can have the same situation. Sort of sounds like there is a wiring problem somewhere.

 

bad igniter? possibly the replacement dizzy no good?

 

As I understand it, the igniter is inside the dizzy? We tried 2 rebuilt dizzys with no results.
We replaced the crank angle sensor last night and no help either.
Could it be in the wiring somewhere?

 

Sounds like you've covered all of your bases....

What about checking the distributor wiring for the proper voltages, resistance, etc



I have the service manual for that car in PDF I will email you it

 

I have acess to all-data which is just like the service manual.

I would jump the check engine light to see if it comes on, it you still have nothing. Source the ECU power.

 

any update on the car??

 

Did you check the wires and the plugs?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Crazydave &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Did you check the wires and the plugs?

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The car died all of the sudden. I somehow doubt all the wires are bad. No check engine light is what I would be going after first. This is a sure sign there is ecu problems, but he already swapped that out. So its likely a wiring, power source or ground issue.

 

Have you checked the ignition switch? The contacts inside of the electrical part wear down over time and can cause a car to stall suddenly or have problems starting.

 

or the main relay

 

Turn your key to the on position

all the warning lights should turn on a second or two.


If not you have an electrical or ECU problem.

 

I'd check the ground for the ECU...I had the same problem with my b16 swapped 96 civic and this was the root of my evil. It'll also cause a no-CEL since the ECU has no ground. You should be able to do a search here and find the pinout to your ECU no problem, then just take a VOM and check for continuity between the ecu ground wire and any metal surface in the car.

 

do you have an anti-start or something like that (alarm...) if so un connect it just to make sure .. already happened to me. also if it's wired to cut fuel pump or ignition, make sure youy have those (that they are working well) when you disconnect your alarm etc. sometimes, it's wired to stay disconnected even if the alarm module is out of the car... (sorry if it is hard to understand, english is my second language... )

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by earl &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My daughter's 96 Civic automatic quit while driving down the road. Battery, timing belt, compression and fuel are fine...but no spark. No check engine light either...it just cranks.
Replaced the complete distributor, PGM FI relay, ECM and still nothing.
Any ideas??</TD></TR></TABLE>

Had the same problem last year...kept ruining ignition control modules. I ended up redoing all the distributor wiring between the ecu. Funny thing is, whenever I tested the wiring with a DMM, everything checked out. It worked only after I completely rewired everything...

 

when my car died, it was b/c the cam gear bolt backed out and the end of the cam shattered, thus throwing my timing off ~30 degrees. u may want to advance/retard the dizzy all the way and see if it will start, if so, its timing.

 

I took a few days off to go to SEMA. Came back and the car did not heal itself. I am playing around with a few of the suggestions above but I am not exactly a wiring genius. If nothing works, I guess I will kick the car all the way to an electrical shop.
Seems like it is easier to start an 800hp Honda than a 100 hp Honda, haha.

 

possibly the coil/ ignitor but if you tried 2 other dizzies I would highly doubt they all have the same problem.

no spark, so definately ignition related or related to the sensors that would control the ignition firing.

maybe a cam position sensor (or maybe crank position sensor)? I am just guessing from another car I know that did the same thing that a friend had. Ran good and then poop, nothing.... would not start one morning. Did NOT have a cel for either but after replacing the cam position sensor... fired right up.

 

also check under the manifold, there is a possibility that the harness has rubbed against the mnifold brace and has shorted out. this usually has other issues, but its not impossible that it could stop the car from starting.

 

I know you you checked the fuse but by chance are you getting an oil light? I know from past if you dont have an oil light chances are your not getting power to the main realy then the ECU. See if this helps http://webpages.charter.net/roachracing/ right click on the 11-22 PDF and save then open it.


Modified by zCivic at 9:58 PM 11/6/2006

 

Main relay is working, I tested it. There is also fuel pressure. I installed a new crank angle sensor and that did nothing. We checked the gear selector switch because that would shut the motor off without a check engine light or codes and it was fine as well. So basically every hard part has either been checked or replaced. So like someone said above, maybe its a short in an ecu ground or another wire similar and that made it so the computer could not throw a code? We did try another ecu we got from a junk yard, but I am taking it back to see if I an get another one with hopes that maybe they just sold us a bunk ecu and that still is the problem...

Thanks for the help and input everyone

 

definately check the ignitor again. Maybe by chance you got bad dizzys two times in a row. Ive heard of people getting bunk ones. The same symptoms happened to me like 3 different times with 3 different cars, was the ignitor every time. Or maybe check the coil.