i know there have been a million of these same topics and i searched through them all, but everyone seems to have done somthing to make their car not start. i didnt do anything today and my car wont start. ran fine last night, normal driving didnt run it hard or anything, then today it wont start. pushed it and popped the clutch, nothing, jumped it, nothing. it will crank and it sounds like its almost there, it just wont turn over. i've looked over just about everything and nothing seems out of place or loose. does anyone have any ideas of what i should check or what might be wrong? all help is appreciated.

 

A couple things you might want to check-- have a friend crank the car over and pull the plug wires off. Can you hear them sparking? If not, it's your distributor.

Take the distributor cap off and look inside the cap. Is there red dust on it? If there is, your distributor is fried. how does the rotor look? Bad shape? how do the contacts on the cap look? These are 2 things you might want to replace. They're $34 from Honda.

If the top half of your timing belt cover is off, check to see that the aarows on the cam gears point in the same dirrection. If not, your timing belt tensioner slipped.

Hopefully that gets you started.

 

i just removed the distributor cap and everything looked fine. it was really clean, no red dust at all. also, the arrows on the cam gears pointed in the same direction. i greatly appreciated it, but unfortunetly i dont think thats whats wrong. any other ideas?

 

i dont really hear a hissing sound or anything when i turn the key. i dont ever remember hearing this anyway so i might not be listening for the right thing. how obvious is it, and is there any other way i can check to see if this is the problem?

 

you should hear a small hum or whistle when your fuel pump primes the lines. if you don't hear it when you put your key to the "on but not cranking" position, you need a new main relay. $45.

 

Do you know how to check for spark? Pull one of the spark plug wires and stick a screwdriver in the plug, hold the handle of the screwdriver with the shaft about an inch from a grounded spot. Have somebody try starting the car and look for a spark.

If it's weak or not there, I suggest swapping out the ignition coil or ignitor.

 

it might be flooded. . sounds wierd put for no reason on my 91 dx back in the day just wouldnt turn over one morining. it was only flooded. just a guess??