Hey guys, hows it going? New here but not new to car forums.
I am working on my sisters a 91 accord auto with 310k on the clock. Not sure of actual engine mileage as I think its been replaced at some point.

The car was driving and starting fine on Thursday, and Friday morning it wouldn't start. It turns over fine but usually wont fire. I did all the usual fuel and spark tests. Went through the process of swapping the main relay and I can hear it click and the fuel pump prime when the key is turned, and have pressure at the rail. I even replaced the filter for good measure. I checked with a light and I am getting the firing signal from the ECU to fire the injectors and can hear them all click when cranking.

I tried using starting fluid to get it going and that had no effect so then I went to spark. I check for spark at the plugs but to me it seemed kind of weak so swapped out the coil and igniter and now have I think good spark at the plugs. I am also getting the firing signal from the ECU for the igniter.

I have gotten it to fire up a few times but it runs like crap and usually not for very long. I started thinking maybe it was a timing issue so I just pulled the front of the engine apart and to my knowledge, everything looks aligned to me. There is no CEL and no codes and the CEL goes off after 2 seconds like normal.

Lastly, I found a little play in the distributor but I don't know how much is normal or excessive.

So please, help me out here. What am I missing or what looks off from these badly taken pics and 3 short crappy vids. I really need to get this thing going by the end of the day as I'm leaving for a week tomorrow afternoon.

 

Bad gas?

Try a compression and leak down test.

 

i am reading about 142, 142, 148, 142 on a dry test. I've never dealt with bad gas before but seeing as how all the gas we have in CA sucks, would bad gas make the car act like this?

 

What about the cap and rotor, spark plugs ?

 

I believe they are about a year old, maybe a little more, same with the plugs and wires. But like I said, I'm getting spark at the plugs but I could get new ones and see what they do. I just didn't want to take the shotgun approach to replacing parts.

 

no theyre fine, take clear pics of the mechanical timing at tdc

 

Mechanical timing?

 

yes the crank and cam at tdc

 

Kind of hard to get my phone in there and get a good angle. hopfully these are a little better.




nice ninja edit BTW

 

Running fine, means running fine, unless you dogged it on Thursday and jumped timing.
With so many miles on ur car, I was thinking mechcanical failures. Bent/Broken valves, hole in piston, broken rockers, etc.

Bad gas sucks, I've picked up a few people from gas stations before. Bottle of Stabil cured it.

 

the cam isnt looking lined up

 

Potentially bad fuel pump. I just spent a couple of weeks troubleshooting a problem on my daughter's 2000 accord. At the end of it I resolved to go to the junkyard and seek out reasonably well maintained looking vehicles and take parts off them rather than buy new only to find out the new expensive part didn't fix it. I ended up replacing all 4 fuel injectors at a cost of about $8 apiece (cleaned them good with electrical cleaner, and lightly oiled the fine-looking seals first). That was after checking them for other indications of operation (getting signal, proper resistance). And, that was also after replacing all the spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor and ignition coil with new, on the advice of people I trusted to look at the ones I took off the vehicle. So, my suggestion is find a reasonable looking accord in a junkyard and pull the fuel pump (which also includes the fuel filter if you have the 4 cylinder, don't know about 6 cylinder) out of the fuel tank, with access in the trunk, and try that. If it even makes your symptoms somewhat better then that was the problem and you can feel better about buying a new pump. Or, if it fixes it outright, you can ride it until it goes. You might pull the fuel injectors too, while you're there. Just a thought. You may have pressure but you don't have enough pressure, or the fuel injectors have all failed. Why did mine all fail at once? I don't know. Bad fuel injector cleaner? Bad gas? I put in fuel cleaner a couple of days before the failure....

 

You should have no play in the distributor. Take it off and see if the end nubs are broken. Mine broke when I installed it just because it got a little torque'd on the way in. Pretty brittle little tabs at the end where it meshes with the cam shaft inside the engine. Mine wouldn't start at all when that happened.