So I've had my '98 Accord EX for about ten years now, and it's been great to me, other than some occasional easily fixable problems. However, this new problem is incredibly frustrating and elusive.

My car will occasionally have trouble turning over, though it has no problem cranking. The strangest thing is that it seems to be related to the time of day (or maybe temperature?). From Googling this to death, I came to the conclusion that it might be the main relay going bad, but I replaced this part yesterday with one from Advance Auto, so unless they gave me a bad part (which is entirely possible) I don't believe this is the issue. Once it starts, it seems to run fine, but getting it started is an incredibly frustrating experience.

It will start easily in the morning, but at lunch time it will rarely start. Leaving work at 5pm is a crap shoot; sometimes it will start, other times I have to intermittently crank it for fifteen minutes or so to get it started. Same deal when I leave class at 7PM.

Only other thing I can think of to troubleshoot at this point is to get some starter fluid and spray it into the intake, just to determine if it's a fuel issue or a spark issue? Not sure what other actions to take.

 

did you get mitsuba or other made in japan relay?
if it's made in china it could be bad outta the box.
might try soldering the old one:

Honda Acura Essential Electrical Repair Website. Troubleshooting Main Relay, Coil, Igniter, etc.

more food for thought:

Starting Problems

 

It's not OEM, so likely Chinese, yeah. I'm going to check for the relay clicks if it won't crank tomorrow. Thanks for the links.