Hi all, I'm desperate now. I have a 98 SS Prelude and I just drove to Socal from Norcal this weekend to be in a car show. Everything ran just fine. After the show, I stayed at a local friend's house and in the morning, the car wouldn't start!

I have an MSD 6 and coil with Magnecor wires and a VAFC. I'm getting full battery voltage and the engine cranks at full speed. We used a multimeter to check that we are indeed getting voltage at the coil (meaning it's unlikely to be the MSD6 itself). We pulled out one of the sparkplugs/wires and we were NOT getting spark there. However, we were getting spark at the coil-to-distributor wire (meaning that it's probably not the coil). We were thinking it might be the distributor, but we could not see anything visually wrong (ie burn marks, loose stuff). I had replaced the distributor cap/rotor and sparkplugs only a couple thousand miles ago.

Does anyone have any ideas for what might've happened? Might it be a fuel system problem instead of ignition? I've never had this problem before and can't think of anything I might've done to cause this mysterious catastrophic failure. I mean, it's serious enough that the car won't start, yet minor enough that we can't find the problem and it never exhibited any symptoms before. And now I'm stranded 500 miles from home! >_<

 

If your not getting spark to the spark plug, I would concentrate on that. Did any of your connections in the distributor come loose?

 

Buy a new coil and install it, if it works you found the problem, if still no spark return and get your money back. if its not the coil then its either a loose wire or the msd.

 

i would say check your main relay, if it goes bad the car won't start. check for spark on one of the plugs, this will tell you if the distributor is at fault. also lift your valve cover, and check your timing belt(you never know)! good luck!

 

check fuses under hood, and cam timing as well..