this is a newly swapped d16z6 in a 90 civic, converted to odb1. we idle the car for a while in my friend's garage, and it drove over to my house fine, but just after i backed out of the drive to run my friend back home, the engine simply shut off. it looks like i'm not getting any spark (no spark jumping from plug wire to engine). it cranks fine but doesn't start. it does look like some of the distributor wires were resting on the engine and melted slightly, but they all still look intact (just some melted insulation). any ideas what's going on here?

 

check fuses.....I had this happen and it was just a fuse.

 

yeah, check the fuses and if they are all good, I would fully rewire the distributor. Make sure all of the wires have the correct voltage by using either a DVOM meter or just check for power with a test light.

 

what are the chances of the distributor itslef simply dying?

 

it's happened to me... the ignitor died on my si dizzy shortly after doing my mpfi swap.

there shouldn't be any part of the engine that would accually get hot enough to melt wires except the header, and the dizzy wires don't run anywhere near the header. So I'd say something shorted out in the dizzy and caused a huge current drain melting the wires from the inside out. Check your coil.

 

the only thing that would die would be your coil.

 

I would swap the ignitor out... I remember some years ago there was a recall for them because of the same issues..

 

ok, so there's not much danger that the backside of the engine burned through part of the wire harness? i redid the harness, but everything wrapped in wire loom and then wrapped in electrical tape, just like honda does it.

 

also, are all the fuses i have to check in either the engine bay fuse box or in the fuse box under the steering column?

 

Check both to be on the safe side but mainly under the hood.

 

I was thinking timing belt no ?

 

lol, this wouldnt cause the wires to melt, but check the rotor screw in the dizzy. are you sure that the wires melted after this? and that they wern't already melted when u put them on?? im guessing no, but just making sure

 

the fuses are ok.

the wires were fine before i put it on.

the wires are a melted glob, the insulation on two of them got kinda deformed, and the on the third got through to the wire in one place. i also diconnected the battery for a while to reset the ecu, but nothing.

 

did u check for spark?

 

i checked, and no spark. first i checked by hold the end of the wire right over the engine while my friend cranked it, and no spark. then i put a piece of 10g wire in the end of the spark plug wire and held the other end right over the engine, but no spark there either.