i picked up a relatively nice 91 crx si for 500 bucks a few months back, and aside from this one major issue the car has been flawless.. its close to all stock, 220k on it, runs shifts drives nice.. its just a very decent car aside from the fact that i am now on my third distributor in the three months ive had it. they last me about a month, and then will randomly just quit out of nowhere while im driving... they go from functioning perfectly to completely dead in a split second..


its happened the same way 3 times now.. the first one was in the car when i got it, the next two were rebuilds from autozone.. since its taken the same amount of time and they have all died in the same way i am starting to doubt that i just got 2 bad rebuilds in a row.. so, is there any knowledge out there about what it is that can kill these things? i know they are common failure items in these cars, but i am thinking there is something more going on with my car..

it has ngk wires in it.. the only thing i can come up with is that they are putting up too much resistance and burning out the coil.. but thats just a complete guess.. and i doubt its right since im sure millions of hondas are running around with the same wires.. but who knows, id rather ask for ideas on here than drop the loot throwing parts at it hoping to fix it.. the car is supposed to be my cheap daily driver so i dont want to put money into it unless i absolutely have to lol.

also, i have been reusing the cap and rotor that came with the car. they appear to be in good condition.. maybe something that i cant see goes bad with them?

i am open to any suggestions


Modified by saw wave analog at 1:58 PM 10/31/2007

 

Are you rebuilding them with pieces and parts? If you replace coil and don't replace ignition module is will kill them. It is common for the ingnition module to go out. My suggestion is quit getting these rebuild POS and get one from Distributor King. http://stores.ebay.com/DISTRIB...QtZkm

Best money I ever spent. I had a friend that seems to have had the same issue you are having until he replaced coil and ignition module at the same time. Then everything was good again

 

I'd go to Honda dealer and get cap rotor wires and plugs. I'm 99% sure the cap comes with rotor, I did this on mine a month ago and it did. Anyway all of these things being bad could be an issue. Do you have a good ground from the motor to the chassis?

Just some things to check.

 

what exactly is going bad in the distributors? coil? ignitor? crank sensor?

 

i meant to ask about that actually.. where is the main ground on this car? id love to test it.

and as far as i know, all parts of the ignition system are contained in the distributor body.. i cant just find a coil or pickup sensor to replace.. is there another part to the ignition system somewhere else that may be killing whatever is being killed?


the cars i am used to have seperate coils, ignition pickups, sensors etc.. its annoying as hell that i cant just carry around a spare coil.. i dont get why the made this distributor an all in one non serviceable type deal

 

Well it is all serviceable. Honda only sells the housings and then you have put everything in it on it own. If you are having all the problems you are saying seriously consider Distributor King, great product, great reliability.

 

what exactly is going bad in the distributors? coil? ignitor? crank sensor?

^^^

im not sure, both times they have died they have left the car on the side of the road and i havent been able to test any of the individual parts inside of it.

i dont really know anything about the ignition systems on these cars.. im not modding it at all, i just want a reliable high mpg beater.. which so far it has been fantastic at.. aside from this nagging problem

 

Distributor King

They are servicable though like CRX Toad said. And rebuilt from the parts store normally means they replaced the one part inside that failed. I had a friend go through 4 in two weeks before giving up and buying from distributor king.



https://www.hondapartsdeals.co...+0501

 

i actually just thought of another thing that may or may not be related-

after maybe 10 minutes of driving the car, the check engine light lights up and stays on. i can kill the car and start it back up again and the light will come on after another 10 or so minutes.

and in keeping with my luck, shorting the diagnostic plug does nothing, i cannot pull any codes from the thing.. i went so far as to cut off the plug and cross the wires directly in case it was a problem with the plug, but the car wont give me any codes

 

Coil and/or ignitor typically is what goes out. Ignitor first however that can be from a coil that is not functioning properly. So you are chasing something that may need two parts replaced.

 

check the grounds straps. easy as that. my b swapped 85 hatch kept eating ignitors because of a lack of ground straps. grounded the intake manifold to firewall, and the valve cover to the rad support.

exact same symptoms too. just quit while cruising.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">check the grounds straps. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Hey that's my line

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by saw wave analog &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">and in keeping with my luck, shorting the diagnostic plug does nothing, i cannot pull any codes from the thing.. i went so far as to cut off the plug and cross the wires directly in case it was a problem with the plug, but the car wont give me any codes</TD></TR></TABLE>with OBD0 ECU you don't short anything to read the codes - just pull up the carpet on the passenger side and look at the ECU - you will see a flashing red LED if you have a code - just count the number of times it flashes and that is the code - if it has more than one code, it will flash a number of times for the first code, pause, and flash a number of times for the next code, etc. - after it goes through the codes it will then repeat - you need to reset the ECU to get rid of the codes - once you have a check engine light, the codes will remain until you reset the ECU - once you turn the ignition off, the check engine light will go off and remain off until the ECU senses another (or the same) problem - with the OBD0 D-series ECU, there are no long and short flashes of the LED - you just count the actual number, i.e. 14 flashes is code 14

 

^^^


thank you.. seriously. youd think that little nugget of information would have popped up in my searching for how to pull codes from this thing.


i just went through and put new grounding in. i discovered that the nut holding the stock groundstrap to the valve cover bolt was stripped to **** by some previous owner.. so the connection there was surely less than stellar. i didnt see a stock one on the intake anywhere so i ran one from a throttle body bolt to the shock tower. hopefully that helps. i had a turbo omni a few years back that would always start misfiring after 18 or so lbs of boost.. spent a solid month trying to figure out why in the hell it was doing that.. eventually tried taking out all of the stock ground straps even though the car was mint and they all looked almost new, i replaced them with a few 10 gauge grounds, and it cleared all of my weird little spark issues up.. hopefully this does the same for the crx

im going to go out and check the codes now.. thanks again for the info

 

ok well the only code its throwing is 9. cylinder position sensor.

im assuming that is something in the distributor?


the cel comes on just the same on all three distributors.. hmm.. ideas?

i havent driven it since adding the new grounds, so maybe that will stop it from happening again

 

take the cap off and try to wiggle the rotor if it has play the bearing is bad, it is one of the mast common problems. It can sometimes wiggle enough to get a cyp code. Ususally when they rebuild them they just replace the broken item clean it up and re box it. The ignitors go somewhat frequently, as do the coils. They are both easy to replace. As stated earlier get one from dizzy king and you should be good for a good long while. They are brand new not rebuilt.