I have a 1990 Honda Civic EX, I was out and about last night, Driving at like Midnight. I pulled up to a stop sign, And it suddenly died after I had been driving it perfectly fine for the past 2hours. I through it into Neutral and attempted to refire it. It refused to fire, and remain running. After cranking it over 3-4 times, It will finally fire, and stay running for 15-30seconds, rpms jumping, and just backfiring, then die again. When I try to crank it over, it backfires over and over, just winding. I have pushed it a few blocks from the site to my father's house to be garaged until I can get it moved home. The ECU will not shoot me any codes. There is a small hole(smaller then a dime) in the cat, and a broken weld on the pipe going into the resonator from the front of the car. It has been driven this way for 8months now. I don't this has anything to do with the price of tea in China, considering a car does not need any of this to run, I could take it all down back to the manifold and it should still run... So I don't this is part of the problem. The car showed no apparent signs of any issues, prior to dying... Any thoughts? Timing is/has been set. Idle was acting normal. Tune up was done 2months ago(1500 miles). I need some advice. Anything anyone can think of, is greatly appreciated!!! Thanks in advance!!

 

Sounds like either the Timing belt jumped a tooth or 3 or there might be a dizzy problem. But backfiring is a timing issue whether it be mechanical or electrical the timing of the spark event is not in correct relation to the engine. Base timing check would be my first thing to check.

 

agreed, check that the timing belt didn't skip then move on to the distributor and check that

 

take off the distributor cap and make sure the screw didnt back out of the rotor button

 

Thanks guys!! Will have to take a look at that in the morning. down the exact road I was thinking the issue was going to be. I had a feeling it was going to be timing, I just wanted to know some others opinions before I tore the POS apart!! It's just kind of funny, I was slightly going downhill, stopped at the stop sign and it choked... Was kind of odd, that it decided to die at the stop sign, or atleast I thought so. Thanks again guys, will let you know the outcome of my research in the morning, Any other ideas or thoughts are also more then welcome.

 

How does one check the timing belt without tearing down the engine? I am new to this, but tearing the engine down is the only way I know how... Is there a MAJOR Shortcut to this... that I am unaware of...? Let me know.

 

yes you can set the motor to TDC by using the crank pulley white mark and the pointer on the the lower timing cover and a long screwdriver and just remove the top cover to check if cam timing is correct. Here is an example pic http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1.../91-6-26-2.jpg You will need to remove the #1 spark plug, place a long screwdriver down the hole and watch for #1 TDC as you are using the white mark. Search around for more info. This method is def. easier than a full fleded T belt job just to check.

 

Alright, So I took the Cap off the distributor, and found my rotor just slide right out, screw stuck to the stator, Got the screw out and put it back together, however, the teeth on the distributor were snapped. It did fire and drive 5 blocks, and died.... Then pushed it home the other 12 blocks. Is there a fix, other then a new distributor?

 

when you say teeth on the distributor, do you mean the teeth on the inside of the distributor cap were broken off? because you can buy a new cap for probably like $10 or $15.. the only other teeth i can think of are the teeth for the camshaft , which in that case means you are going to need a new distributor.

clarify what you mean by teeth.

 

Yes on the distributor itself. On the rod the rotor screws onto, right behind the rotor there are teeth on the gear that is right behind the rotor

 

yeah if those teeth are broken off, then you need a new distributor. The teeth are for one of the sensors in the distributor to read, so without them, your distributor will send some crazy signals.