Dokta

About 3 weeks ago, my car started acting up. The car would start, then die. While driving it would randomly die, then start up again a second later. Finally it died on the side of the road. I pulled the distributor apart and found that some of the insulation had cracked off some of the wires that go to the ignition control module. After a little electrical tape over the bare wire, I put the distributor back in and all was good.

This was about 2 weeks ago. The car ran fine for about a week, then I started seeing the same symptoms as before. Before the car could leave me dead on the side of the road again, I pulled the distributor apart again and low and behold, more bare wire. This time it was the wires that go to the CYP, CKP, and TDC sensors and the ICM. I pulled everything out of the distributor and very carefully insulated all the bare wire with electrical tape. I assembled and reinstalled the distributor. But this time the car would not start.

I've rebuilt distributors before, and I've gotten it right every time, but I figured I just messed up a connection on the ICM or something. I took it all apart again and double checked my work. Everything was good. Still no start.

OK, fuel pump is running, i can smell fuel, hear the relay kick on and off, and hear the pressurinzation of the underhood fuel system. I checked the spark, and I'm getting good spark on all cylinders. But no check engine light when ignition is on. Thinking that the bare arching wires may have burnt out the ICM or a sensor, and the OBD system was just not registering it to get a CEL, I then went to the junkyard and got a ICM, CYP, CKP, and TDC sensor, with the harness and plugs from a 1995 Accord LX. I replaced all the internals from my distributor with the ones from the accord, installed the distributor and still no start.

So I thought, maybe the timing was off. I took the coupling on the bottom of the distributor and installed it 180 degrees off, still no start. I confirmed the firing order and location of all ignition wires everytime i tried to start my car again.

I've been without my own car for 3 days now, and I'm still not sure what the problem is. Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to what to check next? Any suggestions or ideas will be appreciated.

Scott_Tucker

Since you know you have spark the only only thing you could be without is fuel. Just because you can hear the pump fire up and fuel cycling through the rail doesn't mean the injectors are pulsing. A quick check to see if fuel is the missing link is to spray a few short bursts of carb clean into the intake tract and then crank the car. If it fires off for a second and then dies then you know for sure that the problem is a fuel related problem. The ECU needs the signals from the crank position sensors to determine when to inject fuel so if these signals were somehow disrupted when you played with the distributor there is going to be a problem. You said you have no check engine light with the ignition on. Does this mean with the key-off engine-off there is no light or are you saying it has no codes stored? I would say confirm it is a fuel problem first then post any more info you can - I will try to help you diagnose it after that but we need to confirm that it is a fuel problem first.

Dokta

I will spray some starting fluid into the TB tomorrow to see if it is a fuel problem. I just checked the resistances on the coil and both are within spec so at least I know the coil is still good. I'm also going to do a check on the ignition control module. I now have two ICM's. My original, and the one from the 95 Accord. So chances are one of them should work. I'll post all my findings as soon as I can.

I just meant that there are no codes stored.

Thank you for your help. Anyone else have any ideas?

Scott_Tucker

Didn'y you say you had spark?