Hey guys, I am so upset right now and I am just ready to burn this damn car to the ground. I bought this 5 speed 1994 Honda Accord LX a few months ago for $1200, it was in pretty good condition and it drove good and I fell in love with it as it was my first ever Honda. I took it for a spin the first day I bought it and after about 20 minutes of driving it stalled out and would just crank and not start. I was stuck on the side of the road and I waited a several minutes and started the car again and it ran just fine to get me home however the issue persisted. I did some research and saw that my distributor was leaking oil so down the side so I replaced it and all was fine after that... But not for long. About 2 months later I experienced the same EXACT issue as before, it stalled and wouldn't start unless I let it sit a little. I figured it could be a few things causing the issue so I replaced them all to be safe; I gave the car a tune up, I got a new main relay from AutoZone, ignition coil from junkyard and a distributor from the junkyard that didn't appear to leak any oil down the side, I figured maybe the AutoZone ones weren't made as good as the OEM ones. Put all those parts in and the car fired up and I drove it around for a couple of days just perfectly fine with no stalling and I thought once again all the issues were over! I let the car sit a couple days without driving it and one day I go out to start it and she starts and cranks just fine and let it idle for a little to warm up and after about a minute or so of running it just shut off followed by a CEL. I jumped the 2 pin service connector to see if any codes had been stored and the CEL stayed solid the whole time even after the ABS codes stopped blinking which means no coses right? I thought to myself , not again! Except this time, I go to crank the car and starts up just fine again. I let it run for a little and it once again shuts off after about a minute or so of running. I repeated this several times and every time it was the same thing, runs for a little then stalls. I am stumped guys, it's running at least and doesn't just crank like it would do before after stalling. I heard from some people it could be the ignition switch which makes sense , however jiggling the switch with the key in while running never caused it to stall. What could cause this? Could the icm from the junkyard distributor be bad? Or maybe oil is getting inside the distributor? I'll have to open it up tomorrow to inspect inside and look at the icm however there's no oil coming down the sides like what happened before. Maybe even the ignition coil? But the car starts up just fine after stalling so that's what sort of makes me think it's the ignition switch but I have no idea what it could be. Here is a link to a video I made of the issue occurring: https://youtu.be/kHFaE24gNos

 

Fuel pump relay. My 96 had the same issue. Crank no start. Little brown box up above the pedal assembly.
EDIT: nevermind missed the line of replacing that

 

Here is how to test the ICM:

https://honda-tech.com/how-tos/a/hon...-module-374873

If you have to replace it, I recommend getting a new oem one.

I would also check the ECU on its insides. (Passenger foot well under the edge of the carpet). Open it (5 screws) If you smell rotten fish or notice any of the caps on it leaking, it means its either failing or experiancing other issues.

 

I went and cold started the car today before working on it just to see if I could recreate the isaye and low and behold it ran a good 8 minutes or so before dying again. At least it ran quite a bit longer than in my video. I took off the distributor as well as the cap and inspected the insides and all looks well, it doesn't appear that oil is getting in there. I forgot to mention but I probably have about 5 spare ICM's and 5 spare Ignition coils all from the junkyard in case mine ever crapped out(which I don't think they did since the car runs and starts every time right?). I checked the g101 ground on the intake manifold and it was very loose so I sanded that down and put a washer on the bolt so it got nice and tight. I also checked my battery terminals and they were gunked with pink and blue corrosion so I cleaned all those up really well. Idle isn't sporratic however I'm gonna clean the IAC just to be safe! After that I'm gonna put everything back together and get the car started again and I'll post back results. I would hope it's not my ECU, since that's kinda spendy and I heard chances of them going bad are very low however my stalling is very strange and I can't pinpoint exactly what's causing it.

 

That kind of stalling in my 93 Accord was always the Ignition Control Module (Ignitor). Same thing with hard starting on bitter cold winter mornings. When they get to the point that the spark they produce isn't consistent, you get the running fine one minute, dead the next, and running fine a few minutes later, thing. I used to mess around with trying to pull those from junkyards, but always got bad ones, so I started just replacing the distributor with a high quality new OEM one when needed, and get a lot of miles out of it.