Hey fellas, I had a 93 civic dx that had a problem with the fuel pump energizing. Thanks to your blog, I found out that the problem was a bad ecu. Bought a rebuilt one on ebay and, problem solved.
Later on I bought a 93 ex/vtec with the same problem. Took the rebuilt ecu I had in the dx and put it in the ex, and walla! It ran great!
Lately, the ex has been having a problem starting after I shut it off. Like to gas up or go in the store. The engine cranks and the fuel pump energizes, I can smell the gas. It's like it's not getting any spark. Once it cools down a bit, it starts and drives fine. This happens intermittently, but lately more times than not.
Could this be happening because the computer is made for a 1.5L engine without vtec? Has anyone experienced anything like this? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

 

More likely a problem in the distributor.

 

Yes, I've been looking at other threads and started thinking the same thing. I hate to throw parts at a car, but since I don't have the knowledge to fix it myself, that's what I'm gonna do. Thanks for the input TomCat39

 

You just need a digital multimeter and use the ohm meter to test the resistance in parts of the distributor. Much cheaper to replace parts inside then to replace the whole thing. And if it isn't the distributor (tests check out okay) yer really throwing many at nothing.

I can pull pages from the FSM for the various tests if you are interested.

 

Has your tachometer been acting funny any? I would lean towards a bad ICM inside the distributor. When they start going bad the tachometer often displays strange behavior (as this is where the tachometer signal originates from), but not always.

 

I am definitely interested in doing some tests to find out if the distributor has a problem. Would really appreciate it if you could give me those pages from the service manual to check it out.

 

No, I haven't noticed the tachometer to be doing anything strange. Just the re-starting problem.

 

 

Thanks for the info! Will check it out and let you know what I find out.

 

So, yesterday had little time so instead of testing the dist. I chose to just swap it with the new one. It started right up, but after a test drive, it did the same thing. No start. Put a test light on the #1spark plug. Had spark. Put noid light on #1 fuel injector. Had pulse. Had to wait 25 min. before it would start again and drove 15 miles home. It ran great! Best it ever has. Got there, shut it off, and it restarted. Did 2 more times and each time it started. SMH
Original owner had a car alarm installed and had removed it before I bought the car. It had crimp-on connectors attached to several wires on the under dash harness. Could that be the real problem here?

 

It's always possible. A good crimp connection is better in the long run than solder or so I was told. But if the job was done shoddily, it could definitely be an issue. You might also check your main relay. The solder joints are known to crack and heat does cause it to expand which would fit the situation of needing to sit and cool.

 

I had ruled out the main relay because it had been replaced a year or so ago with an new original honda relay. But decided to try it. Swapped it with a new one from autozone on Sunday. That seems to have been part of the problem as it will now start again after I shut it off, and will continue to restart for about 15 mins. After that amount of time, back to not starting. An absolute gremlin! Planning on checking the resistance of the fuel injectors and the fuel injector harness for a possible short, and go from there. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

coolant temp sensor (for the ecu on the distiributor side) does a no start thing when warm if it's bad.
use an ohmeter to check resistance at the terminals.
cool engine = about 140 ohms.
hot = 30-46 ohms.

 

Funny how things work out. Tamboo, 2 days after your post, the ecu threw a cel #6 for the temp sensor. Two of the injectors turned out to be bad so I replaced all 4 and the coolant temp sensor as well. So far the starting problem is gone! Kudos to you, TomCat39 and all that post in this forum! Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.