I bought the car sunday before last. I inspected it, drove it, and everything was fine until I came back to pick it up. The only thing I found that I didn't like was the leaky exhaust (cheap fix). As soon as I got back to pick it up (couple of hours later) it started to smoke from the exhaust when I started it. It got better when It warmed up. The next day it smoked again, but stopped when it warmed up. That night, it wouldn't start. Engine would turn over in start position, then dash lights and everything would cut out when the key went to the run position. Finally it started and stayed on. While I was driving home, the craziest things started happening. The Tach and Speedo started to zero out and bounce back. Then the ABS light started to flash, then the doors started to lock and unlock. This is all happening at about 60mph. Apparently there were two things happening. 1-faulty manual ignition switch, I replaced that. 2-Faulty Underhood AC wiring (recall item) honda apparently fixed that. I'm apparently coding, I have no V-Tech. Don't know what to check and my buddy and I couldn't find the connecter to hook his reader up to. Also, I noticed under the hood that the ABS fuse box seemed to have arked, burning a hole in the cover. nothing looks weird in the fuse box except the goo they put around the wires in the connectors. its seems kinda dark and a little brown, I know it sounds like it was burnt, but doesn't that stuff start looking suspicous after about 13years anyway. If anyone has any ideas of things I should check, let me know. Also, if anyone knows where the connector to hook the reader to should be, or might be relocated to, let me know. It was supposed to be to the right of the center console near the kick plate, but we couldn't find it. O'yeah, just to make it a little bit harder to understand, the engine idles just fine. Thanks.

BHash

 

You mentioned that you replaced the mechanical portion of the ignition switch, do you mean the part that the key goes into or the part with all the wires coming out of, I vote for the second part there.

I do not have all the locations to memory of the plugs to get codes but look up under the dash, under the glove box??? Blue holder holding a two wire plug and a three wire plug, the blue holder is just a dust cover, wires do not come out of the other side.

Is your buddy going to short out the two wire plug or connect a code reader to the three wire plug, scanner???

 

I would also suggest the electrical portion of the Ignition switch (#8 in this illustration)



P

 

Thanks for your reply guys. Here is a list of what I have replaced so far:

-Manual ignition switch (this is actually the electrical part that connects to the back side of the "phyisical ignition" where the key goes in) apparently this was a recall item at some point, but isn't an open recall anymore.
-PCV Valve
-Electrical Underhood Wiring for the AC Unit. Factory recall honda repaired for free.

As far as electrical problems I seem to be in the clear. No more Christine / Blair Witch action while driving. I do seem to still have a code somewhere because Vtec will not engage. I don't have a way to read the codes. Last time I had a honda it was a crx with b-series odb0 ecu. The ecu would give me the codes in the window.......i miss that. Anyway. I have a smoke from the exhaust issue on start up ..... sometimes, not all the time. Seems to be worse in the cold. The exhaust is a frankenstein of about 12 different pieces. I don't know if the smoke is coming from my motor or from the random pieces of exhaust that may have been on a car with total motor failure. I bought a new cat-back, but don't want to put it on yet and coat the inside of it with goo until I find out my motor is okay. I thought the smoking might be the pvc valve. Since I changed it, I don't get any smoke on start-up, but still do at high revs. and......no vtec. I've thought, maybe its the head gasket, the smoke is kinda white. It does smell a little sweet, but so does the spray paint that is burning off of the valve cover ( I didn't do it). The car has about 180k miles. Are there any sensors I should be checking o2 or vtec silenoid, knock sensor. Anyway, I'm considering a motor swap. JDM f22b1 or god willing h22a. But money is tight currently, don't want to swap yet unless I really have to.

As far as the plug we are looking for. Apparently it is a 3 wire connector. That is what will feed into the reader. We could not find anything like a blue connector you discribed. I found an orange one just under the glove box, but that looked ABS related, just above the ABS brain. The dealer just charged me for a diagnostic, but they did not do a compression test and I can't find where they could have done an electrical. They told me they could not reproduce the smoke so no reason for compression. Anyway. Any thoughts?

 

Yep, #8 in the diagram, thats what I replaced. What else should I look at.

 

http://alflash.com.ua/OBDII/Hondaloc.pdf

http://alflash.com.ua/honda.htm

These are from Russia so let them have some time to download, should work though, it was pretty fast for me just now.

 

ooh. one of those diagrams you sent seemed to say that it could be behind the ash tray. I know it is not in the passenger side under, around or near the dash. Thank you very much for the diagrams.

 

Yay. I found the connectors. I checked behind the ashtray and found nothing, but checked under the right side of the dash again. There they were tucked in tight behind a ABS connector. Thank you again. I'll let you know when I read them and find out what is coding.