I have a 96 Honda Accord, and the tachometer drops zero sometimes when I'm driving at normal speed on the highway.
I cannot accelerate at this point, then in about five seconds or so, the techometer jumps back up. At low-speed or near idle, it will just stall. Then I have trouble restarting it. It cranks really good but doesn't start. It will eventually start after a few tries. It's scary when you're on the highway and you suddenly lose acceleration.

 

ignition control module is bad, get another from rockauto

 

Honda replaced the fuel pump relay and that wasn't the problem. I have heard that it could be a bad ignition switch but then they said that the engine would just shutoff and stay off and NOT restart. It never occurred to them that it could be the ICM.

 

Yup, tach is a symptom...I have diagnosed a few ignition modules in different vehicles because of a tach not working

 

The mechanic says that the distributor looks relatively new. Everything looks clean inside the distributor. They're going to change the fuel filter and flush out the fuel lines, maybe starving for fuel. They were wondering if it could be the fuel pump? The mechanics are having a hard time trying to diagnose the problem. I guess it's process of elimination.
He took the fuel filter out and it was pretty clogged, maybe that was the problem. He also did the standard fuel induction cleaning. I'll have to wait and see what happens.

 

go ask that mechanic what engine device the tachometer gets its input from

 

While driving, tach drops to zero but engine is still running (even briefly)- that's a signal problem (signal to the tach), not a fuel problem.
Mechanic pulling the fuel filter- that sounds like an Easter Egg hunt. Cleanliness of the distributor? You can't do a visual inspection for an electronic function.
Holmes is right- ask that question and see if you get an answer (and the right one). If not, you may need a new mechanic -or do it yourself. There are several Honda ICM troubleshoot guides available on the Web.

 

From my experience when the car just died while driving it was my fuel pump motor, if the icm doesnt work try the fuel pump

 

I understand this problem is NOT a fuel issue as it would NOT affect the tach.

 

Some of the research suggests that it could be a bad ignition switch. Have you ever seen a defective ignition switch cause the symptoms described?

 

Advanced Ignition Troubleshooting - Team Integra Forums - Team Integra

icm is good for about 100k miles at best so you will need one sooner or later.
i always carry a spare and a spare coil too.
currently running a $40 airtex icm from rockauto, seems decent so far.

 

No. I had the ignition key switch go bad in our '99 Odyssey. When it did it's thing: everything shut off at one instant, as if I'd switched the key off.

Did you check out the ICM yet?

 

I brought my car to a place that specializes in vehicles with engine problems. He said that the car has a bad distributor.
The Honda dealer thought it was a fuel problem. I would have thought that they're highly experienced Honda mechanics would have been able to identify that this was a problem with the ignition and NOT a fuel problem. I asked the mechanic that is working on my car and he says a lot of these mechanics, even the dealers, they troubleshoot based on the code stored in the car's computer. He said we also do as well, but we can analyze it a step further by actually hooking up an analyzer to the vehicle and measure the response of the engine and we can tell what parts are being affected if they're any defects while it's running, but just takes a highly skilled/diagnostic mechanic with many years of experience to do this.

 

Good-Here's hoping they get you up and running soon. If you would, pls post back with the 'final resolution' when it's fixed.
Really surprised that any engine tech, much less a Honda tech, would jump into the fuel system that hard, while the entire blogosphere (that can't even see the engine, much less hook it up to an analyzer!) knew where to start looking.

 

They replaced the whole distributor and now everything is working fine. I cannot believe that the mechanics at the Honda dealer didn't even know what the problem was, The master mechanics there are supposed to have about 25 years experience.They replaced the main relay that controls the fuel. The mechanics at Tire Kingdom said the distributor appeared to look clean inside when they removed the cap and so they figured it was good. I can't believe I went through all this hassle for the last 3 weeks because these so-called mechanics don't know how to diagnose an engine problem.

 

I told you all the way back on the 8th what the problem was, a $35 dollar part at rock auto.

Dealers are just going to try to extract as much out of you as possible, thats why we call em the stealership instead of dealership.

 

That's the other lesson learned- don't go back to that dealership, except maybe for OEM parts that YOU are installing!
BZ for holmesnmanny, both for the ICM call, and for the 'see if your mechanic has a clue' question.

 

Don't even go to the dealership for OEM parts that's what Majestic and Honda parts now is for its cheaper.

 

You don't even need to go there for fluids I learned a while back that all you need is the Prestone coolant for all engines and makes. And for brake fluid you can just use the PreStone brake fluid at Walmart, for power steering fluid you can use a Prestone power steering fluid for Asian cars or whatever you have period for transmission fluid you can use Valvoline maxlife 1 gallon for $17 on the Walmart website or O'Reilly you literally need the dealership for s***

 

I get a lot of parts from Honda Parts Now. Sometimes I get it from Majestic Honda out of New York.