Hi guys,
I have a 98 honda civic ex, 5 speed manual with about 146k on it. Everything has been running great except that recently it started shutting off while driving, and then a second later would start back up while in gear. I would just be driving along and then all of a sudden the engine would shut off and the tach would show 0, speedo, stereo and everything else works. I did some research and many are saying that it is the ignition switch, however i haven't found any that start back up while driving like mine does. They just shut off and then can be started 10 minutes later.
I really hope someone can help me out. It would be much appreciated.

 

Sounds like the ignition wire is shorting out momentarily somewhere in your dash.

Have you performed any custom wiring (or perhaps from a previous owner)? Have you done anything to the vehicle recently? How long has this been happening? Any check engine lights?

 

i wouldn`t rule out the ignition switch.. since they are a known problem with the civics

 

Nope no custom wiring besides a new head unit, amp and sub. I noticed this last week and it has done it about 5 times since then. It's not like it is after a certain time or anything, it's entirely random. There is a check engine light that comes on sometimes and then will go off. A few times when the check light came on the speedometer dropped to 0 and then came back up. A while back I was reading up on this and some said it could be a wire that rubbed loose on the wire harness. I suppose it could be the same thing for this random shutting off?

 

Bingo.

Inspect your dash wiring.

 

sorry i meant engine wire harness. not the radio harness

 

Uh, how did you wire the head unit?

 

Hey guys, thanks for the help. I took it to advanced auto and had them run the scan tool. turns out that it was throwing a speed sensor error, and the P0420 code which is a catalytic converter problem in bank 1. I bought a 25 dollar bottle of cataclean and ran that through. My car hasn't shut off since then so i'm guessing that my cat was just clogged really bad and this fixed it. I didn't know that a clogged cat could cause my engine to stall?
Anyways thanks again for the help guys.

 

I have never seen a clogged cat actually block the exhaust so much that the vehicle stalls...but...I suppose it is possible? That's news to me.

I can't imagine a bottle of cat cleaner could perform miracles though. You should probably consider replacing the cat in the near future.

 

update: okay so i thought it was the cat because the cataclean seemed to work for a few weeks. now it's starting to give me issues again. I talked to my mechanic and he thought that the injectors could be clogged, and that the cataclean had other cleaners in it that would have cleaned them a little bit. I'm going to take it in today and see what we can figure out. Oh and as for the head unit wiring, i had done that a while ago when i first got the car and it didn't give me problems for the 3 years i have had the car. I don't think it would be that.

 

Check ur igniter and the coil inside your dizzy !!!

 

No. Stop. None of that makes sense.

You need to inspect your wiring harness. It's a common problem for the engine harness to rub raw under the intake manifold support bracket - start there.