I have a 96 prelude with a 2.2l. It recently stopped working. It was working fine the day before. It doesn't crank. Lights in dash turn on, gas pump turns on but does not crank. It's not the battery or the clutch switch because I recently replaced them

 

ICM or ignition switch?

 

jump the starter with the car in neutral and see if it cranks

 

how do you do that? Btw, it's a manual transmission.

 

put positive power from a battery to the starter to jump it. Check and make sure grounds are good. i had this issue recently and it ended up being my ground to engine.

 

to which part of the starter should I jump it too?

 

I believe its the tab that the little sleeve slides onto. only 2 wires run to the starter.

 

I tried to jump the starter but all I got was sparks. No sign of cranking.

 

so its likely either one of 2 things then. power/ground issue or your starter is bad. check battery terminals too.

check and recheck your grounds if the starter is good. i literally just had this exact same issue in april. pump primed, power was fine throughout the car, car just would not crank no matter what. the starter was GOOD and i verified that by pulling it from the car and bench testing it, but i still could not jump it while it was in the car. ended up being the ground to engine like i posted earlier.

pull the starter from the car and test it again. follow this video if youre unsure.
problems like this are always stupid simple in hindsight because its always a silly problem. do what i posted and come back with results.

 

if you jumped it and it didn't crank then the starter is bad, you can get new starter contacts and replace them or you can just get a new starter, I've had nothing but good results with Pure Energy from rockauto

 

IT WAS THE STARTER. I took it off and had autozone test it and it was bad. The car starts up now but now I have another problem. When I go to turn on the car, it doesn't start on the first crank, but it does on the second crank. Any idea what might be wrong?

 

Also, every time i try to accelerate on either gear (mostly on 2nd and 3rd) it seems like the car is losing power, like if it wants to stall. I press on the pedal to accelerate, but the engine seems like its choking. Any ideas what it could be?