I have a 2000 Honda Civic 143,000 miles, that I have owned for 2 days. When I bought the car, it ran perfect. No check engine lights, nothing. After a solid day of riding around in it to get tags and the such, the check engine light came on. I plugged it in to my code reader, and it ran bad Cat, but otherwise, it ran great. The previous owner told me the car had been sitting for a few months.

The next day I was driving the car, and out of teh blue, it shut down to what appeared to me as two cylinders. After about 30 seconds, the car ran great again.

The day after that (3rd day), I jump in the car, and it runs only on 1 or 2 cylinders again. I start it up mid day, when a little warmer, and it runs great again (100 degrees F). Shortly after, it will not start at all.

Things I have done to fix this: I have fuel, checked the gas at the rail; I have air. However, my spark is odd. In the middle of the hot day, spark is almost regular, but as it cools down spark is non existent. I have replaced the distributor, a visual inspection of the wires to the distributor seem OK. I visually inspected the fuses, they seem OK as well. I have also replaced the O2 censer, thinking taht was what may have caused it to read for the cat. Since I unplugged the battery no codes show on the ECU, even when I know one of the O2 censors were disconnected.

I'm at a loss. Help is appreciated. One more thing to note, when the car was running, but was running poorly on day 2, the cat didn't seem plugged.

Thanks.

 

sounds like the guy you bought it from had a band-aid on it to unload it..

im means there can be so many things..

did u try replacing plugs and wires?

If the car has been sitting for months, it might be bad gas..

just stabbing in the dark here

 

Did you replace the plugs? It's not much for a set of NGK plugs, repalce them.

You say the wires look good? but do you know how old they are? It's quite likely they are the OEM plug wires.

 

I have replaced the plugs and wires. No go.

 

hmm, no spark... ECU?

know any other Si's that you can swap real quik to check?

hmm cap and rotor- check
plugs and wires - check

grounds?
firing order after dist change?
injectors?


im still stabbing here

 

I pretty sure the firing order is correct. All the engine grounds seem in good shape.

 

Check the coil?

 

IACV???