Have not been on here is quite sometime as life has been getting in the way. But thought I would see if anyone else has experienced what just happened to me a couple of days ago. I have a 1990 Integra 1.8 5 spd. Anyhow I have heard of the distributor bearing making a wearing noise when its life span is getting up there and this can go on for a long time from what I have read and is more noticeable when it is gold out and goes away when the engine and parts warm up.
Anyhow it was cold out the other day and I fired up the car and it started right up perfectly as always. As I was scraping the ice off of the windshield there came a crunching noise from under the hood. I have had absolutely no prior warnings of any kind up to this point. Anyhow I popped the hood and the crunching sound was coming from the distributor. Before I could get back around to turn the ignition off the car just gave a shudder and died. I did some visual checks and could see nothing specific wrong so I just tapped the key and the engine moved so nothing was jammed up. I decided to just cough up the cash for a new distributor and decided I would check further into the noise I heard when I replace the old distributor.
That night when I removed the old distributor I found that the two drive teeth on the distributor that lock into the cam were both sheered of clean at the distributor. This was obviously the sound I had heard early in the morning. I was able to retrieve the metal pieces with a magnet and a screwdriver, then replace the distributor with the new one. The car fired right up but will only idle and upon further inspection it looks like the timing has possibly skipped a tooth but that I will confirm in a few days when I have time to open up the side of the engine and inspect things further. When I did some further inspection of the old distributor I found that the shaft was frozen solid in place. As I said earlier there was no lead up to this with any bearing wines or other types of noises, it just made a loud crunch and the engine died. Was wondering if anyone else has had this experience as well?

 

I have a 1991 Integra. When I still had the stock engine my distributor starting making a really horrific noise. It was clear to me the bearing inside was going bad, so I replaced the distributor within a week or two of hearing the noise. I'm sure I probably would have had the same problem you did if I had let it go much longer.

 

But my distributor made no noise at all leading up to this, it was running fine and all at once just locked up tight. I too would have changed it out if it had started making noises prior to what happened.

 

I've actually had the rotor screw, fall out of my dizzy during operation! First time, was an OEM dizzy, had 260k miles (not kidding!) Was just pulling into my driveway, backfired and died. Thought I had blown the engine! Second time ( yes it happened twice! ) was an aftermarket dizzy, that had no split washer on the rotor. Drove it home, with almost no issues. Wasn't aware it was an issue. Only noticed because I have a transparent distributor cap. Saw a bunch of plastic shavings inside the cap. Opened it up and the points were all bent back! I'd recommend checking the screw, make sure it has a split washer, and put some thread lock on it. Other than that, get your car up to operating temp, and adjust your ignition timing. There's quite a few write ups on how to do it. Warm it up, shut down, jump the wire. Restart, adjust timing, shut down, remove jumper.