Pulled out of a store parking lot today and stopped at a red light. Light turned green and I started to engage the clutch, and the engine suddenly died. Naturally I thought I stalled the engine, tried cranking, and nothing. Tried several more times and still nothing. Sometimes when I tried to crank it, after letting go of the key, the engine sounded like it would sputter or "diesel" for a couple seconds and then quit.

Got it towed home, pulled off the valve cover and distributor cap. Everything appears fine. Timing belt fine (50K on it), cap and rotor look fine. Oil level is just under the full mark on the dipstick. When I was cranking it, I did notice the oil pressure light went off until I stopped cranking, so the oil pump is working.

I have not run through the usual testing procedures yet for the PGM-FI main relay and such, but I did re-solder every single pin on the PC board of my main relay after having troubles with it over the summer, and it has been flawless ever since.

Actually I'm starting to suspect this Walbro 255 lbh fuel pump I put in over the summer. Before I figured out my main relay issues, I thought my old fuel pump was going out, so I put in a Walbro unit, but that turned out not to be the problem. I just went out and turned the key to On and could not hear the fuel pump running, and that Walbro is normally quite a bit louder than the original OEM fuel pump. I'll have to pull the rear seat and check that out.

Any other ideas of what I should check? I'm really thinking it's something electrical or something else outside the engine, such as the fuel pump or its wiring.

 

You could also try testing your ICM and coil in the distibutor. May be time to bust out the ol' manual and look up resistance specs and such. Just an idea. Good luck!

 

heh yeah manual is out for sure. Just checked the main relay to be sure and it's fine.

And actually I read that the fuel pump is only supposed to run for 2 seconds when the key is turned to the On position, and I think I did hear it run for 2 seconds, so I don't believe that is the problem.

Which sucks because now I surely don't know what the problem is.

 

Check gnds to body, trans, and battery.

 

Okay I just checked all my spark plug wires for resistance/continuity. It looks like the #4 cylinder wire is completely dead. Could that actually keep the engine from starting? I thought it would still start but just run really rough if there's a dead cylinder.

 

It could make the coil actually fire through the housing and screw it up.
40000 volts makes a home somewhere if it has no place to go aka plug

 

You're right. One cylinder wouldn't keep it from starting and it wouldn't kill it. I've had a plug blow out on me before and it ran like crap but it ran.

Really all you can do is check for the three main factors.
Fuel
Air
Spark
Make sure your getting fuel and at the right pressure.
Air is an easy one, lol
And make sure you're getting spark to all cyclinders and don't assume that it's good if it sparks. The spark should be near white maybe a hint of yellow not a blue. If it's blue you may have a weak coil.
I have heard a lot of problems like this caused by the igniter.
Just trying to help the best I can.

 

Are you testing us, Patrick?

Compression, fuel and ignition. Since you suspect your fuel pump, did you check fuel pressure?

And I agree: typically, 1 dead cylinder will not kill you or keep you from starting.

 

Well I don't have a fuel pressure gauge, but as I said I do hear the fuel pump for 2 seconds when I turn the key on, so I do not suspect that.

Also the engine was running 100% fine up until the time it died, and now the #4 spark plug wire is completely dead.

I just ran the tests for the ignition coil and ICM and they all checked out fine. At this point the only problem I've found so far is the plug wire. I'll pick up a new set of plug wires tomorrow and see what happens. I want to say these (NGK OEM blue wires) have been on the car around 50K miles. I think I put them on when I did the timing belt, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

Any red dust in cap?

 

CHECK THE CODES FIRST. always always always. you can save yourself so much time by utilizing the system that was put in place for this very reason. check the codes, REGARDLESS OF AN ILLUMINATED CEL
if no codes present, do this:
crank the engine for 2 seconds. now pull a plug out to test for spark. check the plug to see that there is raw fuel on it. if there is, you know fuel is at least making it to the cylinder. check for spark. this is just a quick and dirty spark check. just to see that there is spark. but just because there is, doesn't mean it's good. if there is, use an HEI tester to load test the ignition system. USE THE HEI TESTER. they are extremely affordable and should be readily available.

if you have fuel, have spark (GOOD SPARK!), the next check is mechanical timing. if that checks out, compression

the thing about diagnosing an issue like this is you need to have your ducks in a row. you're skipping steps. and the steps are crucial to saving time in finding the issue

 

No red dust in the cap. Also no MIL codes are stored in the ECU.

Alright I ran through some tests. Got some new plug wires and an HEI spark tester. My battery is pretty much drained so I had to run these tests with jumper cables attached to my wife's car with its engine running.

I installed the spark plugs in the engine in their original cylinder locations. With no wires installed on the spark plugs, I attached each plug wire one at a time to the spark tester, with the tester clipped onto one of the valve cover studs. Then cranked over the engine for each plug wire.

Cyl. #1 seemed to have good spark. Bright white. Cyl. 2 and 3 - NO spark! Cyl. 4 seemed to have a weaker, orange spark.

Took out each spark plug, and could definitely smell fuel on the end of each one. Put the plugs back in.

I'm reading through this article: http://easyautodiagnostics.com/honda..._systems_1.php and am currently on page 4 and am about to run tests 2 and 3 to see if the problem could be the cap, rotor, or the ignition coil itself. I'm really hoping it's the cap/rotor, and not the coil.

 

You can buy ignition coils for like $20 on ebay.

 

you've just narrowed down the problem to the cap forward. anything before the cap, ie rotor, coil, etc..would result in a fault to all cylinders equally. we can pretty much eliminate the plugs, since they weren't tested here. so that really only leaves cap and wires. since you'd tested one of the wires and said that it failed (assuming you were testing resistance), i'd say it's a safe bet the problem is the wires.
get a new set of wires and cap anyways, for assurance. if the plugs and rotor are relatively old, change them at the same time just so it's all new.
see how easy that was? HEI tester baby. great tool

 

Okay so apparently the valve cover stud wasn't a good ground or something.

I put the HEI tester directly on the coil and grounded it to the body with another jumper cable. My wife cranked it while I held the tester to the coil - STRONG spark! So then I tested continuity (resistance) of the cap, the coil-to-rotor terminals, and the NEW plug wires again through the cap, and it all checked out.

So then I re-tested the plug wires by connecting the HEI tester again to each plug wire with everything connected, but this time the tester was grounded to the body with a jumper cable. STRONG spark on each plug wire! Put the plug wires back in, still no engine start.

Pulled plugs one-by-one and checked compression. 170-190 compression across all 4 cylinders. Pretty darn good I think for a 324,000 mile engine never having any internal work done on it. Note this is the FIRST time I have ever checked compression on this engine in the 11.5 years I've owned it. I did realize I didn't do the test quite right as I forgot to hold the throttle open while cranking over the engine. But still, the numbers were quite close together across all cylinders, which is what's important there.

So I'm still at a loss. I have fuel, and I have spark on all cylinders. I have compression. Would else could be missing to keep the engine from starting?

*edit* I did also turn the engine by hand and verified that the timing belt is intact and the engine is still perfectly in time, mechanically.

 

check for codes, bud.
checking codes should always be the first step anyways. REGARDLESS of an illuminated CEL

 

No CEL codes. The light stays on steady with the diagnostic connector shorted. I do have an ABS code 1-8 but that may be from cranking the engine over so many times both Sunday afternoon and today during troubleshooting. Pretty sure that wouldn't prevent the engine from starting.

 

Without removing the timing belt cover , it is impossible to determine the crankshaft is at top dead center .
If you have fuel and spark ,you need to dig deeper to ensure the static timing is correct.
You said you have 300k miles o this car ,when was the timing belt last changed ?

 

Timing belt only has 50K on it, always replaced at 90K intervals. I turned the crank pulley to TDC with the white mark aligned to the pointer on the timing belt cover, and the cam gears also pointed up and aligned perfectly. I don't see how there could be any problem with the static timing.

 

alright. you're getting fuel. that was just quick and dirty. verify the pressure though

 

Sounds like the dizzy is out? But if u got spark that clears that out. Sounds stupid but if ur battery is dead with out the right volts the car wont start even with jumper cables,try changing ur batt sounds far fetch but i had the same issue. One day my car flat out died couldnt start it with a jump,did the whole process u did i just flipped batts from my wife honda and the car started up with no issues. So i would try to replace the batt and see what it does.

 

hmm interesting that you should mention the battery. I measured the voltage at the battery and it was about 12.2 volts. Tried cranking the car and it turned over 4 or 5 times and then just gave out. Battery wouldn't turn it over any more. Measured battery voltage again and it still read right at 12.0 volts. Maybe I should get it checked? It's been in the car 4 1/2 years now.

However Sunday afternoon after this all started, the battery was working fine and cranking the starter just fine. The engine just wouldn't start.

I have checked all the sensors on the distributor and they're all fine. Pretty much the only thing left I can think of is to check for fuel pressure, or a bad ECU itself. I'll have to see if I can rent a fuel pressure gauge from AutoZone tomorrow.

 

I would replace the batt,just try it u can always take it back,or have them charge ur batt and put it back in but i have a good feeling its that?

 

Anybody think the alternator could have anything to do with it? I had a crazy problem back around Christmas 2004 of the battery charge light staying on when the car was off, and then the oil pressure light flashing when the engine was running. The problem turned out to be the alternator. I put a remanufactured alternator on there, but that alternator has been on the car 8 years now, and has seen well over 150,000 miles.

 

no. it's not going to be the alternator or the battery.
it's just discharged because of all the cranking.