I've got a completely stock 1990 CRX Si, with 191,000 miles. Until I drove it in an amateur rallycross event up here in Northern California, the engine has run beautifully through the 35k miles I've had it, including two years spent delivering pizza. I love to drive that car. It's one of my primary sources of entertainment. Here's the problem:

As I said, I drove my car in a rallycross. Maybe I had a little too much confidence in rex; on the first lap, after the first turn -- a bumpy downhill left -- I redlined it and the check engine light came on. After the lap, we took a listen to the car; she purred like a kitten. I drove on. All told, I went around that track 8 times, at the tops of 1st and 2nd gear the whole way around. Imprudent, but if that car went down in flames driving rallycross... well, I can't think of a better way to go. At the end of the day, I drove the car straight from the track onto the highway after a brief inspection of the underside for any dangling bits. Incidentally, the car managed quite well on the track and I'm hoping to go back.

There was nothing odd to report about the car (apart from the insistent check engine light) until the next day when the engine hesitated during acceleration, somewhere short of 3000 RPM. It happened twice, while the engine was cold. By hesitate I mean a brief lurch, like a cylinder missed. I turned around and brought my car home.

Suspecting the problem was old spark plugs, and old they were, I replaced them and did a compression test (good compression for its age). The plugs were old, but with no tell-tale damage. Afterwards, I started it up -- the engine was alive after the first revolution -- and drove out onto a country road. The check engine light was still lit and the engine hesitated consistently at exactly 3000 RPM during acceleration. Every time through the gears at exactly 3000 RPM. Warm or cold.

Today, it consistently hesitated at a lower RPM, around 2200.

The obvious next step is to see what the ECU is trying to tell me; I will do that tomorrow and append this post. I've spent time looking for information about an issue of this kind. Failing, I'm posting here to see what y'all might know.

Tim

 

first thing you want to do is to check what code you are getting. pull back the carpeting on the passenger side kick panel and you will see the ECU there. turn the ignition to ON, and count how many times the LED blips. the blips will pause in between new codes. tell us what you get.

 

It's showing a code 9 (No. 1 cylinder position). I found this: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=468260 and followed the instructions there; I removed the hazard fuse, the engine light remained on. I checked the resistance between the F and G terminals on the on 8P connector looking for a result between 350 and 550 ohms, but found no resistance at all. That seemed awfully fishy to me, and I know I measured properly. I don't know what kind of bad result I should be looking for. According to that troubleshooting guide, I should replace my distributor assembly.

Any suggestions?

Tim

 

Try measuring resistance once more. If you get the same result, either buy a new distributor, about $187 from advance auto parts, or try to find a used distributor that is known to be in working condition. I usually ask a friend with a known workin distributor from the same engine to borrow it to make sure the distributor is the culprit of the problem.

good luck

 

A 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th test all yield no resistance between the F and G terminals. It's junkyard time. I'm curious, though, as to what it is about a bad distributor that causes the engine to hesistate so consistently at certain RPMs. And why did hard driving in the 'cross cause this problem to rear its ugly head?

Tim

 

the dist tells then engine when no1 is at TDC, its used for spark timing and fuel delivery. that would do it

your car hits like a rev limit @ 3k right? thats called limp mode. it runs the car on factory conservative maps and timing so u can drive it to a mechanic.