i recentlty bought a 97 civic ex that had no spark. i took it home and thinking it was the dizzy and put on one off my brothers 97 ex. it ran like crap for 10 sec and just died. we put it back on his coupe and the dizzy was fried. i think my car is grounding somewhere because when i turn the ignition to second click my speedometer jumps to 20mph and stays there. what can make the speedo jump like that and kill my dizzy. where should i start the diagnostics from??? any input would help.

 

Start by making sure your main grounds are good, batt. to chassis and chassis to engine, DO NOT just eyeball them, [disconnect/clean/reconnect].

I assume you mean shorting when you say grounding, to test, disconnect the batt. and install a multimeter in series, set to DC amps, [10A setting, turn on the ign., do not try and start engine, if the 10A fuse in the meter blows, you do have a short.

When doing this test, make sure everything else is off, [dome light, DRLs, radio and so on] disconnect the fuel pump, [simple way is to depin the fuel pump power lead at the PGM-FI Main Relay, but relay needs to stay plugged in] all you want to turn on is the ign. system. 94

 

thanks i will try it frist thing in the morning.