I honestly did not want it to come to this but I hit a wall. Let me tell you guys a little story of me trying to help out and now I'm married to a lemon. Her name is Megan.

Anyways,I am the only local tuner in my area of Central Oregon so I tend to offer tuning to local FB honda forums, almost too a default. I had a kid ask me to wire up his wideband and Vtec to his OBD2B Acura Integra. The guy was running the car for a month on a stock P28 single cam ecu, using a jumper of course, for a JDM B16 block with a GSR head, which should be the other way around but Im not going to tell someone else what their car should be. The JDM block does not use the CKF sensor on the oil pump like all obd2 car do but it shouldnt matter when jumping down to a P28 since the ecu does not look for that signal from crank pulley gear anyways. Now his car ran the first day I met up with him but his wideband sensor was broken and we did not try to tune that day. The next day I come back and the car WILL NOT start. I even put his p28 back on since it ran for a month like that with no issues. Still no start.

Now I must tell you this harness had a lot of bad wiring, exposed wires, bad bad bad cluster wiring. The cheepo jumper harness, which makes bad connections with the ecu pins, is being replaced. Its kinda a hack job car harness to be honest, my fault for even saying I'd work on it before it was really ready for a tune. All the bad wiring was re-done and fixed. All that I can see at least. Since this kids car ran the first time I went there to wire up the wideband I feel partly reliable to help this guy get his car running again since it stopped working the day after I touched it.

I did a compression test and got 220 across all cylinders ( did not perform it while WOT) , bought new spark plugs ( a few sets actually), swapped over good known dizzy, my personal hondata, and wires off my working car and she still doesn't want to fire up. The dizzy is not 180 out, I triple check and even took it off and tried to put it on, no dice. Checked the ignition coil and igniter and both passed their tests. All grounds are good and I cleaned them up to double check. Injectors all have battery power with key on engine off and they fluctuate when cranking. Fuel pressure is 40 psi, stock 240cc injectors and dead times are set up as such in hondata parameters.

His ignition wires were beyond fuckered up so I swapped out my old ignition wires into his teggy wires and de-pin and re-pin'd it to wire right up like the Integra ignition. ( Eg and integra wires went to different spot on the same style plug )

ALL FUSES ARE GOOD. So no wires are being shorted out.

I have the car hooked up to my Pilot when trying to start so I know I have adequate battery voltage for all sensors to work properly.

So, Spark, Fuel, Compression and timing all check out, I swapped out good working spark plug wires and ecu to double check, no start. I do believe it has something to do with a loose wire or broken connections but I am not getting any CEL and with spark, fuel and compression I feel like the car should at least run bad if anything. Again, mechanical timing is correct, checked it 4 times now.

Like a cut down tree.....I am stumped.

Any help or suggestion would be nice. I feel like I've tried everything I can.

 

Before anyone says it, yes the dizzy order is correct. 1342. Starting from the bottom left side of the dizzy moving clockwise, 1,3,4,2. I have sprayed some starter fluid in the TB and it does this weird burp noise and I have had the wires wrong on other vehicles and it does not do the loud backfire noise. Order is correct.

 

Valve lash was also re-done but that didnt fix anything. Im going to make sure he has the correct washer on the fuel rail. If you put the incorrect washer between the rail and the fuel damper then it will block the correct fuel to the injectors. I just thought of this a couple days ago and the fuel rail was something he swapped out after meeting up with him on the first day when the car actually ran. I will report back and see if something that small would create a no start condition. If anyone else has some suggestions I am all ears.

 

i understand ya frustration lol

Compression
Fuel
Timing / spark
grounds

Sand all grounds to bare metal just to be SUPER safe

DO u have GOOD spark or just spark-bad/weak?

one time i had a car running and driving
parked it > went back DID not start
ended up grabbing a pocket knight and sanded every single ground to super bare metal Voila started back up
also id try to use his ecu in another car to confirm its working fine

 

Is the starter working/ does it crank but not fire?

Have you tried to pop start it in first gear down a slight hill?

Check the clutch interlock switch it may be broken causing you not to be able to start the engine.

Check the Main relay.

Check the ignition switch.

Check the trans ground.

Is the wide band or O2 sensor fixed?

 

Starter works fine, cranks but no start. Clutch switch works fine since car turns over, it would not even crank if that was the issue. Main relay is fine, swapped it out with a known good relay and it didnt help. Ignition switch was re-done by me, his previous switch was soldered and not in good condition at all so I used one I pulled from a running car. All the grounds have been cleaned and tightened back down. Wideband is wired correctly.

Have not tried to pop the clutch on a hill, car ran before we tried to tune it but the car had a ton of small issues that were fixed. He ordered a better jumper harness and it just came in so we are going try that out. His last jumper was a cheap *** ebay one that did not have great contact with ecu pins.

 

Spark is super bright white.

 

FIXED!

The first day I went to work on his car it ran then the next day it wouldn't fire up. I checked for spark after it wouldn't fire on that second day and discovered we were not getting spark anymore. So that's when I grabbed my "known good" OBD2 dizzy that I had laying around in my garage, slapped it on and boom!! We had bright white spark again. Strong spark but still no start. If you read my first post you know a bunch of other things happened after day one, including a bad fuel pressure regulator that was stuck open dumping fuel into the cylinders. ect.

Well, I was wrong about the dizzy. While it was still delivering spark as is should the, great spark at that, one of the CYP, CKP, or TDC sensors were bad and not telling the ecu to ground the correct injector at the correct time. THATS what was causing the burping sound, firing at the incorrect time. Mechanical timing was spot on and NO the dizzy was not 180 off, triple checked, we did not force the dizzy on.

So we I ended up doing was using his original dizzy, swapping over the ignition coil and the ignitor from my "known good" obd2 dizzy and boom! She started up first go.

So, whats the moral of the story? Dont quit? diag diag diag? I wont say I am even happy about figuring it out since I feel like I put myself in a position to struggle through this experience. I will take the knowledge from this car and carry it with me for future jobs. Just glad I figured it and the car will soon be leaving my driveway.

Can anyone possibly show me some ways I couldve tested the sensors in the dizzy to make sure theyre working properly such as a resistance test or something of that nature?

 

I would check all of your wiring. You're not supposed to do a compression test with the car running. Let alone Wide open throttle. What all did you take apart in the distributor? The distributor cannot be 180 out. The camshaft can. The distributor has slightly different bearing cam teeth. Not possible to install it wrong unless its worn from trying to install it wrong... Strip back the critical wires and check for breaks. Just because there is not fuses popping doesnt mean there is not a bad connection somewhere or everywhere! Could also check that the plug you re pinned is done properly and all pins lock in place when plug ends meet, terminal connectors can easily push back enough to cause a connection issue if not fully snapped in place. There is a depin tool from honda so you dont hack your lock tab with a pick or paperclip. Your problem is with the wiring.

 

1. Apparently you only read the first post and didn't read the last post were I stated it has been "fixed".
2. Compression was done just cranking the car not with the car running.
3. You absolutely want to do a compression test while @ WOT, this is not a debate.
4. I've seen people force there distributors on 180 degrees off, hard to do but I've seen it, which would make the "camshaft" be off.
5. Not sure if I posted it but all wires had continuity that I probed.


I appreciate your input but the problem has been solved already.