Today i took the car out and was driving it home..car ran fine until all the sudden, it shut off...When the car came to a halt I tried to start it back up again. But it only cranks it doesn't start up. I have spark, my fuel pump is engaging, i have fuel pressure, and i looked in the oil cap as my buddy was cranking the car and everything was moving and working fine. What could be the problem??

 

look at the cam timing, maybe you skipped a tooth

 

check to see if you have compression.. blown head gasket?? it happened to me yesterday..

 

This just happened to me Monday. Do you have spark from your dist. cap to your spark plugs? Take off the dist. cap and have someone watch the rotor and see if it turns. If it does, start checking the coil, electronic ignition etc. Most likely the coil. If the rotor doesn't turn its probably your timing belt. A wise person on H-t recently told me you can check your coil by taking a long screw driver and touch it to the coil and ground it and try to turn it over and see if it sparks. If it doesn't the coil is bad, about a $70 part.

 

^^ He said he's got spark, fuel, and that things were moving when peeking into the oil cap.

Had you done any sort of wiring work lately....maybe something came loose or shorted out. Check your grounds as well.

Verify ignition timing as well with a timing light.

 

Thanks chris...another question...would i get spark if my ignition timing was off...and is there any other way to tell besides a timing light...when i am cranking the car a popping sound comes from the exhaust, what is that...ignition timing????

 

That sounds like the ignition is somewhat retarded. If your timing was off, you would still get spark, just not at the right time.

You need a timing light to verify. Do any parts stores around you have loan programs?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EE_Chris &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That sounds like the ignition is somewhat retarded...</TD></TR></TABLE>Can you even rotate the distributor far enough? I figure as far off as you can go, it would still start. But it would run really, really bad...

Someone said firing order in one of your other threads... Don't know if they're different for different years?? My '95 Integra is like this, if you're standing at the right wheel looking at the distributor:
3 4
1 2

When you're trying to start it, does the tachometer do anything? Or is it just dead? Chris... doesn't the ECU need to see a tach signal before it'll fire the injectors?

 

I think the tach moving slightly not really for sure...when i do crank the car over i hear popping for the exhaust

 

So are you & Infinite working on this together? Or are we talking about 2 different cars? What kinda car, anyway? Year? Engine?

If the tach signal is OK, the tach should bounce around a little as the starter spins the engine. If the tach doesn't move at all, that's an important clue.

I just saw another post where someone suggested the drive broke off the distributor shaft... Take off the distributor cap, make sure your rotor is NOT free to spin. For that matter, look around in there for anything broken.

 

Make sure the rotor screw didnt bust and the rotor inside the distributor is rotating freely! happened to me once, took me a long time to troubleshoot!

 

Yes we are hehe, same car (1991 Honda CRX-HF d16a6 block, d16z6 head. I just checked it out and the tach is NOT moving at all when i crank the car, also the thermostat housing does not have a ground wire

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JimBlake &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Chris... doesn't the ECU need to see a tach signal before it'll fire the injectors?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I would assume it needs the TDC/CYL in order to synchronize fuel injector firing events. But when you say tach signal, are you meaning the typical blue wire that comes back out of the ignitor?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ConfusedHF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">also the thermostat housing does not have a ground wire</TD></TR></TABLE>

....a suspect for sure.

 

But if that ground was not there would i still get dash lights and spark and fuel pressure and fuel to the lines?? and if the ignitor was bad would i even get spark

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EE_Chris &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I would assume it needs the TDC/CYL in order to synchronize fuel injector firing events. But when you say tach signal, are you meaning the typical blue wire that comes back out of the ignitor?</TD></TR></TABLE>I figured if the tach was dead, then the rest of that stuff (TDC/CYL...) would be a prime suspect. Watching the tach is just too easy to ignore. Knowing the tach is dead, now you can think about verifying signals from those sensors. I assumed if the ECU isn't getting anything from TDC/CYL it wouldn't fire the injectors at all.

Look inside the distributor cap. I've heard too many stories about the rotor coming loose, or something like that (like Muckman). That's just easy to check. If it's OK you can eliminate a whole set of possibilities.

I don't have a '91 anything, so I can't get too particular. The stuff that's grounded at the thermostat housing? Maybe it's grounded somewhere else? If that ground were open, would you even have spark at all?

 

pull the wire off one of the plugs....touch a screwdriver WITH A PLASTIC HANDLE to the wire that goes to the plug....spark? no?

compression, timing, you have fuel pressure at the fuel rail? pull a plug , you getting fuel injected?

 

same motor awhile ago, i actually had a friend who had a keyway on the cam pully shear off then wedge in, it let the timing fall a few teeth off and was doing the same thing, it had spark fuel and everything just made the same noise your talking about too, that poping out the exhaust. took me a good couple of days to figure it out, deffinetly check the timimg for sure, when it stalled did it make asny kind of noise or just went flat quite?

 

i still say check your compression.. My motor did the exact same thing with the whole popping coming out the exhaust and everything.. # 1 and #4 cylinders had blown head gasket seals..

 

I think ^---he is right, i would check the compression...i figure it would be bent or broken valves, if you heard a sound!! Oh and what would cause it to blow Head gasket seals if the motor was just rebuilt??

 

maybe his wires are in the wrong order...that's what happened to me accidently put 2 in the wrong plug on the dizzy...same problems happened to me...would fire but not turn over and backfired over n over