When coming home from work today in my Civic, I noticed that when trying to accelerate, it felt like it was struggling to move quicker. 1st gear felt like 5th gear. When I got home, I popped the hood, and there was some smoke and a bad smell coming from around the intake manifold. I pulled out the dip stick, and a small flame ignited around the dip stick. Although, that may have been because oil probably dripped onto the exhaust manifold. And, the dip stick was really hot. Any ideas as to what could be wrong? Also, I hear a noise coming from the distributor, like the rotor inside is knocking against something.

 

why don't you open up the distro to see whats up ?

i've never heard of a dip stick igniting because of oil. i've spilt oil on the exhaust manifold before when its real hot and never once it ignited. thats just too weird.
how many miles in the motor ?

 

132000 miles on it. I'm going to go look at the distributor right now.

 

Okay, I just took apart the cap and rotor, and it had like a redish-brown film of dust all inside of it. I have never seen that before. I started the car up when i put it all back together, and it sounded horrible inside the cap. So, I took it all apart again, and noticed that the screw holding the rotor on was loose. I tightened it, reassembled it, and started it back up. It sounded bad at first, but began to quiet down a little. I drove it around my neighborhood, and it drove normal again. But I'm still worried that something's wrong.

 

Check to see if your distributor didn't come lose and the timing went crazy on you. Also what did it smell like? If it smelled like rotten eggs your cat it probably going bad, if its getting clogged up it can cause a severe loss in power and make your engine run hot. Try disconnecting your exhaust from your manifold drive it around the block and see if the power comes back. Just a thought

 

That's what my dad told me about the cat. He thinks its clogged, because it does smell like rotten eggs, and is getting extremely hot.

Does anybody know how much a cat costs for the civic?


[Modified by E Swift, 7:12 PM 3/20/2003]

 

unless you're planning to upgrade your exhaust system then i would just get a used but decent condition CAT from like a junkyard. a year ago, i bought a whole factory cat back in decent condition from the yard for $25CAD thats like 10-15 USD.


[Modified by zcivicz, 1:19 AM 3/21/2003]


[Modified by zcivicz, 1:20 AM 3/21/2003]

 

Dude just take it off get a metal stake a hammer and knock that **** out. Best part is its free!

 

I had that dizzy problem in my crx a couple days ago. Lucky I sold the car. So i dont have to worry about that car doing that to me again. As for the rotten egg smell, it could be anything, but the cat sounds like a good place to start....let me know how it goes.

 

ya im the guy thats gunna be working on dgonzals old crx now (damn you bro hahaha) the rotten egg smell is coming from the cat, change that and then change cap, rotor, plugs, and wires, also look at the coil to see if there is any wear and tear on it, and also check the ignitor. i had white film on the inside of my cap when my coil started on fire tho.

 

Thanks for the info Matt.....Remember you have to charge him now.....Hey, we told him what was wrong with the car and he still wanted it.....So its out of my hands now....Its time to start the project once I get that tax return.....

 

Damn, on the way to work this morning, it drove 5 miles before it died on me. I had to be towed back home. It won't start now. It tries to crank, but won't turn over completely. I'm going to take apart the distributor tomorrow because I'm worried of that horrible noise that was coming from it when it did run. If I fucked up my distributor, could I have possibly done more damage to the rest of the motor?

 

over time the honda dizzys tend to go out, mine did, my car just died on the way home from school one day and i had to have it towed home, mine caught fire inside the cap but didnt do any damage to the rest of the motor, but then again i didnt try to keep restarting it, i just pushed it onto a side road and checked for spark and then took the cap off, and bam there was my problem, coil caught on fire, so i just decided to do a mpfi swap and get the new dizzy and get more power. just change out the dizzy on your car and start it up, it should be good to drive after that, the sound might have just been the rotor grinding or something i wouldnt look to much into it. like i said before just change out the dizzy and go from there, the car should run good.

dgonzals, ya josh came over last night and was bitching that the idle was under 1 on the tach, i told him to invest in a helms manual and start reading that way he could learn and i wouldnt have to work on the car every damn time that thing breaks. i have to go to the junkyard with him tomorrow and get something for the car, i dont know exactly what he wants to get but i am sure it is something really stupid and the only thing he was talking about last night is that the car was way to loud and that he need a silencer for it, i told him to just get a stock exhaust! hahaha! well time for me to get back to work.

just change out the dizzy and drive you should be good to go!!

 

Sounds like what happened to me.....Open your dizzy....make sure the screw on the rotor is really tight. I bet your rotor is not even being help up by the screw anymore or its just really loose. Sounds like the symptoms that I had. If that is not the problem, go to the timing belt next.


[Modified by dgonzals, 11:41 PM 3/21/2003]

 

Okay, today I opened up the cap again and the touching points inside of it where cut into pretty bad from the rotor, so I bought a new cap and rotor. Installed it, but, car still doesn't start.

Next, I jacked the car up, and took off the cat, but car still doesn't start.

 

Make sure that you gettin air fuel and spark and that timming is on. Next time you take the lil bolt for the rotor put lock tite on it. you dont want that sucker comming out when you spinning 7k= 3 turns of cam for every stroke = 21,000 spins a min. Insane.

Good Luck

Blaze

 

check the coil, make sure its got power, and check the ignitor also, but my guess is that its the coil causing your problems

 

Well the shaft that connects to the rotor doesn't spin freely when I have it off, so its more than likely the distributor.

 

I bought a new distributor today, but the car still doesn't start.

 

maybe your dumping too much fuel which is saturating your oil, that's probably why when you took the dipstick out , it ignited a flame

 

if you have a oil leak problem you may have fouled the plugs. the smell you are smelling could be oil burning off as it leaks down to block. pull your plugs check em out and tells up what they look and smell like then replace them with new ones.

 

I took out the #1 cylinder spark plug, and it smells like fuel. It's a little black. And I haven't noticed any oil leaks.

 

Could it be anything else? We set it at top dead center, and it still doesn't start.

 

so did you change the plugs?
did you check the ignitor when you pulled the dizzy cap?
got any codes yet?


[Modified by NitrousDreamz, 4:30 PM 3/24/2003]

 

I changed the entire distributor, so I have a new ignitor. No i didn't change the plugs. And no, I haven't gotten any codes popping up.