Solution: Problem fixed Distributor was bad. Thanks for the help

The car is a 1993 honda civic del sol si sohc vtec d16 motor auto transmission. Stock car complete. The car has 261,000 miles on it but all maintence has been done through the years by me since we got the car with 128,000 miles on it 5 years ago. This is wifes car and I just need some suggesting on what could be wrong I know its hard over internet but I've came here alot of years and seen great advice given.

Car problem:

3 days ago my wifes car broke down and wouldnt start back up. It would crank but it wouldnt start. I could hear fuel pump prime and i i pulled the distributor cap off and it was really crappy looking. I clean the rotar button and the cap up just to see if it would start and with a jumper battery pack I started it back up. After this i decide to buy it cap and rotor and she drove it for 2 more days with no problems and then it died today again. She said it just all of a sudden died.

Diagnostic:
Today I tried to check the check engine light with the jumper from the sticky thread. When I do this I get a solid cell. I don't get a check engine light flashing I thought it would do 1 long and 2 short if it was fine? The car after charging will start back up and run again no lights are displayed for check engine. I'm starting to believe it is going to be the alternator going bad or the battery is pretty old but I just don't want to throw parts at the car to fix it. I guess the next step is to pull the negative battery off the car and see if it stays runnign with just the alternator this should work correct after it is full charged back up?


Update: Car died again but I got a check engine code 15. Seems that the distributor / igniter is probably the reason for this. I'm going to replace distributor tomorrow and see if this fixes it.


Any suggesting would be great.

Thanks

Josh

 

Yeah man, thats where i would start. Let us know what you find.

 

Thanks for the reply. I started the car back up and let it run for a while with out the battery connected off the alternator and it didnt die so after 5 minutes I connected the battery back up. About 15 minutes later the car died. But this time I got a code. The code was a code 15. This is ignition output signal. Sounds like the distributor is taking a crap when the car is warmed up. I'm going to put a brand new distributor in the car(it was the original from 1993) so it lasted a long time. I'll let you know if this fixes the problem so it might help more people in the future searching. I figure I'm going to get a new battery too since that one is 5 years old and its about time for a new one.

Josh

 

yeah i was kinda thinkin mayde the dizzy, but if your gettin a battery anyway,
i'd just get it first & see what happens, before spending all that cash on a
new dizzy. I had a stock 90'CRX dizzy that lasted till just about 4 months ago, but
you never know. good luck tho.

 

I vote to change the dizzy... from the sound of that error code that's the issue.

 

Thanks for all the input it turned out it was the distributor and the car is running fine now.

Josh