96 accord lx, auto, 220k, 2.2

Just last week I came a stop light with a/c on and for the first time in ages the car stalled out. I was able to put it into park and it started right up again. I drove it to a parking lot, tested the battery, it was fine, and drove it another 40 minutes home without any problems whatever.

A couple days later, driving on the highway at 65mph, the tach shot down to 0, the car slowed down very slightly, rpms went back, then to 0, then back, all while I kept my foot on the pedal. The speed gauge didn't change except for the slightly slowing when the power cut out, which was for maybe half a second each time. It was fine after that.

Maybe had one other "down to 0" experience, then the car stalled while I pulled onto an on ramp this morning not far from home. Flashers, park, start, no problems after.

The distributor is about two years old, as is the main relay. I keep my wires and plugs in good shape and change them every few years. Fuses are fine. Car typically runs like a champ (for a 4-cylinder accord). Very importantly, my fuel pump usually makes a loud electric sound, but the first day it stalled I noticed that it was much quieter than usual and still is. Because of this my main hunch is the fuel pump, but then I hooked a pressure tester to the rail today and it read 38psi with the regulator hose connected, 45 with the regulator hose clamped off, which means pressure is good (at least at the time of testing). Ignition coil maybe had an A to B resistence of .9 which is a little higher than it should be, but I have no engine codes besides the dreaded P0420. Recently changed the downstream sensor hoping to fix that one- no luck.

Battery is at 12.9 or so volts, my cigarette lighter cheapy alternator checker says the alternator is charging just fine. I've cleaned my battery terminals well. Haven't cleaned the K&N filter in a year, but it looks clean enough. Throttle seems clean.

I keep seeing a lot of discussions about the icm, crank position sensor, and electrical stuff, but I can't seem to make sense of it all (electrical is my weakness for sure).

Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone come across this before? I'm one of those paranoid people who keep extra plugs, coils, fuses, etc. in the trunk, but this one may be beyond my comprehension, and today was my first experience with the fuel system just trying to get that pressure tester hooked up

 

No thoughts?

I swapped out the distributor yesterday since I keep an extra on hand, and it hasn't stalled or acted up on me today. It's possible something like the icm inside the distributor was going bad. If I don't have any problems over the next couple of days, I will try to make note of it here for anybody with similar problems.

Both times my distributor has died before, it died immediately when getting up to speed on on-ramps, so this would be different than normal. If I have fixed the problem, though, I wonder if something is going on that is causing the distributors to die so frequently. Again, I'll post back here if the problem doesn't return.

 

ICM does send the signal to the TACH so I would suspect it is dying or power to the ICM is cutting out, check your wiring to the distributor.
If the 'new' distributor had it's ICM not installed with the heat sink paste the ICM may be overheating and slowly dying.
If you have an oil leak coming from the distributor oil seal(internal) the oil may be washing away the heat sink paste and causing the ICM to overheat and die.

 

I have started having this same issue while hwy driving my 99 LX. The key symbol flashes, the speedo and tach go to zero and the check engine light comes on for a second, then within a second, it is back to power as normal only with a slight hesitation. I have read it could be the main fuel relay, battery (I didn't think this was likely as at full speed, isn't the alternator supplying the power?) or ignition switch. As the car is 17 years old, I am not sure I want to spend a bunch of money chasing electrical gremlins but if a simple explanation is available, I will give it a whirl.