I have taken my distributor apart, because I was curious to see the condition of everything and it seems all good and clean until I looked at the wiring for the ICM the yellow/green wire has a cut in the insulation. So I was thinking since I want to replace the ICM anyways and cap, plus rotor on my oem distributor maybe hold off and purchase a new one from eBay or another used oem unit. Don't really know if they are trustworthy but maybe its worth a shot in the dark. Please let me know if you guys have had any luck with these China made distributors, or if I should try just fixing my oem distributor. Below are pictures of my existing distributor and the cut wire. The little brown covers over the wires look old as hell and are brittle so I think this distributor has plenty of miles on it, I did buy this oem dizzy used over 3 years ago when I first did my engine swap, and miles on it were unknown.

 

China NO. If you can get your hands a new oem or used oem I would purchase those. Autozone or aftermarket for some reason fail and have issues constantly.

 

Will do I will get a hold of a used oem unit and run that. Thank you for your input much appreciated.

 

You should simply fix this one! Just replace that wire and you will be just fine! I bought one from china and had tons of problems.

 

The only things you will ever need to replace is the icm and the coil. I had an intermittent misfire with my coil, swapped it out with a new t series standard motor coil from rockauto and got an immediate 3mpg jump in fuel economy.

The sensors will almost always just get dirty or the pickups will get dirty over time and you just need to blow them out with some electrical cleaner. They rarely go bad

The bearings do go bad. You just need another one you can get from any Napa and swap it in. When the bearings go bad they sling red dust all around the distributor which causes the sensor to not be able to pick up signals. This is when people just replace the distributor. It's not really necessary.

 

id either fix it(easiest and cheapest)

or get a used one from an importer

 

Does anyone know what the symptoms are of a bad ICM or one that is on its way out? I have had this issue where my car feels like its lagging in power when its all the way warmed up. It feels to be sluggish a bit throughout the entire power-band now. I was thinking about replacing my ICM with a used OEM unit and as well as checking my timing to make sure my belt has not skipped a tooth or anything like that. I know that I read an article stating that the igniter if going bad will display the same symptoms as a bad main relay, but I have changed my main relay and it has not done anything differently, which leads me to believe that once my car warms up so does the igniter and it gets to hot causing a hard starting, or no start issue, I know in Summer it was a huge bitch to take my car anywhere because of this issue.

 

It's possible. Normally when the go bad they have issues when they warm up. Get one from any 90-91 accord at the junkyard.

 

Awesome I think its worth a shot at $15 for one to see if it helps out at all. Thanks for the input as always.

 

Hey, no problem.

Worst case scenario, you have a backup icm you can use if your existing one goes bad. That's the way I look at it. I have a lot of backup parts that I can use over the years from testing things.

The only thing about it is that distributors are one of the fastest things to go on accords. Hopefully you will find one. It might be wise to pull a coil too.

 

Thats a good way of looking at things I really have no idea how many miles are on my distributor now so replacing the icm is a good idea cant hurt anything. I have an extra external coil in my tool box so I am good to go on the coil if and when it ever fails.

 

The reason I am questioning my timing and or my ICM/Ignition components, is the fact that no matter what ecu I run in my car it seems to just have a flat spot throughout the power band range. I have replaced so many sensors and components I can think of and still the issue persists.