Hello all, I recently purchased a 1992 Civic as a daily driver but has been giving me a really confusing problem that I have never been familiar with. It all started on a drive to work, I felt that the rpms were falling lower and lower at every stoplight and the engine just died abruptly and had the CEL and oil light on, car did not want to turn on at all so I got it towed home. I bought it a used known working distributor and the car ran fine for about a week then the car died in the middle of the street again, but the car turns on for a solid 10-20 seconds and just dies(this is at idle) and wont turn on at all after it dies.
Have no clue what to fix,adjust,or replace. Anyone had a similar problem before? Thanks in advance.

 

Some more things I forgot to add, the car is a 92 civic lx sedan auto d15b7
the battery is good I put on another car and it was good
car did overheat twice the day before this happened
the ignition switch is loose and missing a few screws
has a new auto p06 ecu
still iffy on the used ditributor

 

Just the fact it overheated, twice at that, the day before it died on you makes me think head gasket is now toast.

Compression test the cylinders is a good first step.

Do you know how to perform a proper compression test on this car?

 

my friend's got a tester he's on his way, I'll update with some compression numbers

 

that and suspect ignition switch

 

Do you want both results dry and with oil?

 

dry: 145 145 148 155, we didnt have to do it wet since it's late and we are both busy in the morning

 

test the switch

 

When it stalls, look if the oil and battery lights on the dash come on. They should be on whenever the key is on but the engine is not turning. If they don't come on that usually means the ignition switch is bad.

Can you keep it going by pressing the gas pedal?

 

I can get a video if that helps

 

I went to check on the car to see if was going to do it again but this time it didnt want to turn off, but the ignition switch acts funny, the key does not go into ignition all the way in unless I push the ignition switch in, and the car stutters and turns off for a split second when I move the key back slightly back but wont turn off if I jiggle the key. So for a fact it's not the ecu or compression. Only things left is the ignition switch, distributor, or the main relay?

 

Replace igniton switch

 

Okay will update when I'm done with results.

 

Do I replace the lock-cylinder(where the key goes in) or the wires with soldering that runs down to the fuse box

 

The wires not the cylinder.

 

Okay I'll update when done.

 

Hmmm so I went to try turn on the car to move it in the garage, but it was only cranking over and didn't turn on so I'm leaning toward the relay and distributor again.

 

Does CEL come on then go out when you turn key on but don't crank? With the brake handle pulled up, does the BRAKE light come on and stay on while cranking?

Everyone with this generation should pre-emptively re-solder their main relay, though a main relay problem usually causes a cranks but won't start. Stalling out once started is less likely the main relay.

 

Can it possibly be the icm since that too cuts the ignition while driving?

 

It could possibly be a lot of things. You need to do some troubleshooting. The fact that it won't start at all now makes that easier.

 

Okay I'm going to try to start and see what lights are on check main relay and distributor and see what I find.

 

Did you even take time to replace the ignition? Electrical part.

 

Update: I went to turn it on, it turned on, but died putting it in drive and going forward leaving dash lights on, tried to crank it but it did nothing. Then I took off the distributor and took it apart found nothing, everthing looked decently new, but the contacts on the cap were white and corroded so I took some sand paper and cleaned them all thoroughly and slapped everything back together. It turned on and I let it warm up, drove it around the block and it seemed ok, for now.

 

The switch looks to be new, I popped the white cap off and it looked nice and clean, even the wires are nice and bright.

 

Roger that, glad you appeared to have fixed your issue.