My son was driving home on the interstate last night (he called me at 1 am and I referred him elsewhere!) and he says the car was running fine and then started to lose power but kept running and he made it to the exit ramp and then
the engine stalled. It turns over and started a couple of times but won't stay running. He says it smells of gas at the exhaust if he cranks on it. I put in cap and rotor and plugs and valve cover gasket and fuel filter two weeks ago and he says it has been running great. Any advice on where to start looking? Thanks

 

bad distributor coil or fouled spark plugs would be the easiest, bad fuel pump although you would typically see signs before hand. Could be fail spark plug wires. Smell of gas makes me think it was running too rich or without proper air mixture. Could be a sensor that failed. Need more info.

 

Since you did the cap and plugs I would start there. I assume you changed the rotor too.
Sometimes the little screw that holds the rotor on backs out and the rotor spins somewhat freely on the distributor shaft.
You get random sparks and the car doesn't run.

It could also be the ignitor. They fail random your situation describes.

 

Yeah I did the rotor and it should be ok, used 3mm allen and snugged it pretty good but that is a bad setup, my 98 cx has a flat on the dizzy shaft at least.
If igniter goes on my 98 never had it die, just won't start once I turn it off.

Worst thought, how to tell if timing belt broke or jumped? Take off cover?

 

yup just pull the upper cover and push the belt. I doubt it would have started after the first time it broke down though.

 

check screw on dizzy rotor...!!!

 

I would go back to the distributor and inspect. Also what brand cap/rotor did you get?

 

could be bad coil, had the same issue with the ex batch's civic, had a weak spark but it still had one and eventually the car died within 3 days

 

What's the deal with the distributor primary lead wire?
http://info.rockauto.com/getimage/ge...01751005-1.jpg

 

It was the screw on the rotor, both were off and the cover. WTF? I used the new screw that came with the rotor this time, it's a Phillips head and didn't seem as substantial to me as the old one with the allen head but that didn't work out so well. The cap and rotor are YEC branded Japanese parts, I've had good luck with them on my 98 CX.

Any suggestions on avoiding this problem happening again? When I get the car home I'm going to look things over again, waiting on the wife to take a ride with me to drive it home.

Thanks everyone for the great input.

 

thread lock FTW

 

I always thread lock the rotor screw as well.

 

So I bought some hardware but not really what I wanted which was another new 4 x 8 mm SHCS but I got the flat washer off of the original screw and put a new lock washer on and used locktite. A problem may now be that I couldn't get the original lock washer off so I lost about a half thread. I'm going to get another original screw setup and use that. This car was only worked on by the dealer where it was bought. The dizzy was replaced at about 90K I think it was and it now has 136k on it. I got a printout of the service record when I bought the car, which goes back to 2000 in detail. One thing bothering me is that the water pump was replaced but it doesn't mention the timing belt. I'm assuming that it was replaced too but I don't know for sure.