A friends 1999 civic lx 5 speed, died on the road and called me for help. Upon diagnosis, the car would just crank but dont start. There is blue spark and fuel pump primes. The spark however seems intermittent, not regular pulses. Removed cap and saw the cap melted near the contact points. Replaced cap and wires with a known working items. The cap again sustained the same melting damage after few times of cranking. Still no start and still the intermittent spark. Replaced the whole distributor, engine immediately fired up. The next day, car died on the road again. The cap was again heating up and same as before. CEL is on and I get only code 14. I reset the computer and the code was gone. He said it will come again when it gets warm. I opted to deal with the IACV later and want to focus on the ignition problem first. Any suggestions on what to do next?

 

Anybody try replacing the rotor as well?

 

Yea, i'd imagine the dizzy rotor is putting out some kind of weird arc (due to corrosion or whatever) that's melting the plastic. it's either that or the dizzy itself is getting excessive voltage somehow... which seems unlikely.

You're absolutely sure it's got the correct battery for the vehicle? Should be a 51R.

 

Is it possible the camshaft has play in it causing the rotor to dig into the terminals? What did the rotor look like?

 

When you replaced the dizzy did it come with a new coil and ignitor?

 

Strange. Yes pic of rotor and check if there is any "play" with the rotor. I had a part-source brand rotor once and the screw came lose and the rotor ate up my splash shield and took out the 2&4 posts almost completely. is the cap+rotor OEM Honda ?

 

The whole distributor assembly was replaced. It was a used oem part. I have tested it on my car for a few hundred kilometers a few months back. Kept it for spare so I'm sure its working good. The first distributor has some damage on the plastic parts also. Crappy pic below. No info yet on the 2nd dizzy because the trouble was relayed by phone just a few hours ago. I'm about to go there and see what is going on. The rotor has absolutely no play in it. It has new bearings and seals. One other thing, the first dizzy was making noise like a fuel pump priming whenever the key is on ON2 even if engine is not running. On the 2nd dizzy, there was no noise. I dont have info on the history of the car. Might be hacked up wiring. He mentioned something about A/C repair work from a shop, and then the intermittent stalling would happen. I didn't checked the battery as I know my friend probably knows what battery to put in there. would a problem with the ECU make this happen?

 

shouldn't but hacked up wiring could. do you have a dizzy you can borrow ?

 

A call just came in. Problem solved (maybe). The shop replaced the main relay and all worked fine at the moment. I'm not sure if that really is the culprit. Would a defective main relay cause that damage to the cap? The 2nd dizzy that suffered a slightly melted cap was still in there at the moment and it was running the car fine.

 

I already donated my spare cap and a whole distributor to test on the car. Both caps were melted. Now we have 3 melted caps and 2 distributors.

 

How are the plugs and gap? And is it possible for you to swap ECUs and see if the problem persists?

 

All plugs replaced a few days ago. The mechanic instructed my friend to get another ecu and distributor. Although they did not tried the other dizzy and ecu because the car fired up after replacing the main relay. He left the shop with his spare items thinking that the problem was solved. I am however not convinced that the main relay is the cause of the cap melting and i'm expecting the problem to come up again in a day or two. I'm just looking for other options and answers when the time comes I get called again.

 

If you have a multimeter you could try testing the voltage going directly into the dizzy while the car is running. then also test the wires at the ignition coil and igniter unit.