how do you test to see if its going bad. everything else is new but the car still loses spark. completly stock under neath the hood. new wires plugs, cap rotor, ignitor and coil.

all oem from honda.
loses spark and cuts off. had a problem with revving past 5500 rpms too.

 

bump

 

first question is do have a check engine light on?? if you want to learn how to test e-mail me!!

 

no check engine lights, no ecu codes

 

When my engine is cold I hear a rattling sound in my distributor housing region. I bought a 99 LS distributor from eBay and installed it and I still hear the noise. Typically, when the engine is fully warm the rattle goes away. My idle and performance is not effected. I have a 97 LS M/T.

Now that I have my original distributor out of my car, how can I bench test or analyze it for problems? Help!

 

use a test light to make sure the current is making it all the way through the distributor... test it at the cap, at the coil, at the plug
-Bryan-

 

There are a couple things to check out in order to verify operation of the distributor.

First off, +12v needs to reach the coil. The igniter also shares this +12v inside of the distributor. This +12v is only present when the key is in "ON" or "START", its also fused through a 15amp fuse in the under dash/relay box.

Then you have the Ignition Output Signal which is sent from the ECU to trigger the igniter. You can use a test light to see that this signal is being pulled to ground. If you got no pulse, you got no spark.

Then you have the three sensors: TDC (top dead center), CKP (crank position) & CYP (cylinder position). You can measure their coil resistance, which I believe is about 300 - 700 ohms, however, this alone does not verify their operation. While your measuring their resistance, you can also check the ignition coils primary and secondary resistance.

You should also check wiring integrity of all wires to/from the distributor to the ECU for opens, shorts & continuity.

Of course, the condition of your spark plugs, wires, rotor & cap should be in good condition as well.....when was the last time these were replaced?

A Helms manual would also help out as well, as the information above is given in it. See my sig for link.