96 HB completely stock minus a cold air intake. Anyway, some background on the car. I picked it up a couple weeks ago the kid I bought it from did the head gasket, brand new dizzy, plugs, wires, fuel filter, 02 sensor, throttle position sensor, MAP and a few things that aren't engine related. My problem here is I'll start it up idles fine for a second then starts to idle like complete crap and clears itself up. I'll go to drive down the road and it's like I have no throttle at all and then bam it's like my imaginary turbo kicks in. lol I've cleaned grounds checked timing. I've checked just about everything that I can think of. Occasionally I will get a slight misfire through the intake and then goes away. My tach jumps all around from time to time also. I know from my cb7 that the tach problems where due to the ignitor so my brains leaning to the dizzy possibly being a junk reman? Any help is appreciated.

 

From my experience between the random loss of power and the tachometer jumping around it leads me to believe its the Ignition coil/ igniter aswell. They are kind of on the pricey side if you want one by itself thats any better quality than w/e came in the cheap reman. I would try to swap in a know working OEM unit and test before you went out and bought one. The aftermarket dizzys also have a tendency to use crap bearings and develop a squeak much like the OEM ones do. Just in a much shorter time frame, and w/o the tell tale red dust. If you could pick-and-pull a complete low mileage OEM unit w/o the red rust of death inside and the coil included it maybe the best/cheapest route.

PS. Steer clear of the MSD external coil setups. They seem promising given they are priced competitively to buying a new coil/ cap/ rotor and seem like an upgrade. That is just not the case though, the OEM ignition system is more than sufficient for people making 200+hp. After going external coil you also have to run a resistor box which by design have a high failure rate as they turn energy to heat. You also lose the ability to let the car sit with the key in the acc/on position w/o the engine running. Doing so will overheat the coil and could cause it to explode. There are many threads around documenting the phenomenon. If you want to fully dedicate and buy the 6AL MSD box aswell then thats another story, but also a substantial investment.

PPS. Do a valve adjustment if you can, cant hurt.

 

 

I know that feeling, I am also reluctant to get out the cannon until i know for certain. Im just giving you my best guess from the info i have. If i remember correctly alot of the Honda igniters are interchangeable it maybe easier to find an OEM unit to barrow as a test than you think before you dedicate and buy. Also I believe its Autozone that will also test them for free but im not sure of the accuracy of such tests, ive never brought one in myself.

 

Well it seems I’ll be getting some new parts. Unfortunately I have about a dozen dizzies back home in Michigan in my pile of parts that I know work. Should probably get around to getting my spare stuff down to Florida. Lol thanks for the input. I had a feeling it’d be the reman. I’ve never really understood why people like to buy them if there’s nothing wrong with the old one. Lol

 

the airtex icm on rockauto has been good to me so far (2 years) and only 45 clams or so.
the blurb was convincing at the time...