Im going to try to make this short as possible and hit all the highlights
CRX, b16a1, IHE, vafc.

I recently had some distributor problems, and ended up replacing the distributor with a new one. The new distributor hasn't fixed all my problems.

6 months ago my AF guage started doing some weird things. Driving down the highway...at constant throttle the guage would drop to lean disappear and bounce right back. It would drop and come back in a 1/4 of a second. repeating bout every second. But it wouldn't always do it. After a while I could feel it losing power, like misfireing when the AF would drop to lean. I thought it was bad bearings in the distributor.

SO
after replacing the distributor with a new one, we come to my current problem. First couple days I had it on, the car would just cut off, it would turn over after that but not start. I could pull a spark plug wire and start the car to see if it was sparking and it would get no spark. I would take off the distributor cover and see if the ingition coil was sparking..no spark. Finnally I learned...by giggling the distributor wires(one connection with 2 wires..other with 10 wires)..and after giggling a few times it would run again. I thought it was a bad connection, but I didn't know which wire was bad. I inspected the connections pushed the wires in but, Im still having the problem.

Question one:Is there a way to repin the distributor connections?

Two: Is there a relay or something electrical that controls power to the ingnition coil?

Question three: Is there anything Im missing, something else that could be causeing the problem?





[Modified by FitCRX, 1:50 AM 2/19/2003]

 

If the car seems to run lean then I'd be looking at fuel delivery issues. On an old CRX it's likely the fuel pump or the main relay is on its way out (both my brother and I own/owned CRXs, and both of our fuel pumps died).

My symptoms for the fuel pump included: car would suddenly 'die' in gear - ie., press the gas and have no power, the car would just coast down - and when the main relay went, I'd notice the car was harder to start, sometimes it wouldn't start at all unless you tried 3 or 4 times, etc.

Try this: prime the pump eight or nine times before starting it. Take the key right out, put it in, and prime the pump for that 2 or 3 seconds each time. If it fires right up after that, then it's either pump or relay.

 

Heres why I believe it isn't a fuel problem.
One. I have a fuel pressure guage....never seen it drop to 0...or flucuate* while driving.

Two. The reason I believe the AF guage drops to lean(never stays at lean) is because when the fuel in the piston isn't ignited and stays in the engine, fuel wasn't fired therefore the O2 sensor shows a quick reading of lean!

Also your "try this" I can pump, and prime any car all day...but if the coil doesn't spark it will never start!

Thanks for the help...any one have any other ideas?