I have a 1996 Accord (180,081.00 miles) that I plan to keep forever, but it seems to have other plans. Lately it has been stalling (while driving) and seems to be starving for fuel (I can hear the motor and it sputters out) sometimes it fires back up the first time but not always. This doesn't happen all the time, some days its fine not an issue at all, but today I had to restart it a dozen time just to make it home. My question is; can a main relay be the issue?

 

a common symptom of a main relay is for the car to die and then take a few seconds to start back up as the solder in the main relay has a few seconds of time to cool down...however it can also be the ignitor overheating in the distributor as well

just replace the main relay and see what happens...if you plan on keeping the car for a while...it usually doesn't go bad until over 200k miles but it is possible

 

As mentioned, it may be the PGM-FI Main Relay, it may also be the fuel pump, or ign. related.

Start by doing the PGM-FI Main Relay "fix"... http://techauto.awardspace.com/mainrelay.html


You can also sometimes confirm the problem is the relay by listening, turn ign. switch on to the run position, [not all the way to start] and listen for the fuel pump. 94

 

Well it is the main relay. I had some time to sit in the car while it was running holding the main in my hand ( wasn't very comfortable by the way lol ), it clicked and the car shut down. Thanks to this site and you all who replied, I was able find out why it was happening, it was getting hot and well you know the rest. So loving a challenge I found a way to prolong the part until the one I ordered offline comes in. I took the cover off drilled some 1/2" holes in each side to allow for air flow and moved it in front of the air vent (with the cover back on lol). I use to not run the air to conserve gas but now I run it to keep the main relay cool and so far Ive driven it the last two days and no issues. THANK YOU ALL SOOO MUCH

 

The PGM-FI Main Relay will always get "hot", if it is getting overly hot it is because of poor connections, [poor connections = resistance = heat] Those poor connections are cold solder connections on the circuit board, resolder the connections and solve the problem. 94

 

Cheap solution. Always works.save you buying new one.