MugenGuy

Hi, my car have a really weird problem. i will try to add as much pertinent info as possible and feel free to ask me any questions if you need more informations.

Ok so here my problem, some time my ecu will prevent the car from starting or will stall the car. Here is what mostly happens, when i turn the key in the ingnition to the second click (The last click before the one to crank the engine) i am able tell if my car will start or not. How can i tell that ? Simple : the fuel pump will not start and i will have a check engine light. and if i try to crank it it wont get any sparks. So this looks like my ecu is preventing me from starting my car by cuting two important things required to start my car. The car will do that randomly, sometime when i try to start it for the first time of the day, sometime it will cut while im peacefully driving. I cant see what triggers this, since it doesnt seems to happen more if i drive the car more agressivly or if its cold outside or very hot or anything it just happens randomly. I found out that the problem is related to the engine bay fuses since when i touched the metal contact of the ecu fuse with my check light the check engine went away but when i tried to crank it it wouldnt start since the fuel pump did not start but when i tried to start the car again the check engine came back. I found out how to get the car starting again since cranking the engine , boosting the car, or try to start the car by compression wont do anything. The only way to stop the ecu from preventing the car to start is to wiggle the fuses & the relays in engine bay. It seems like wiggling the 15A Fuse (The Ecu one) is more effective. This problem migh have apeard when i changed my battery but i cannot confirm that. I tryed with a different battery but it did not solve my problem.

The connections on the battery are not the best but the contact are clean, the fuse box is also very clean so i dont think that the problem is related to the battery since im never running out of juice, my battery never go down and the engine crank perfecly.

Another weird thing is when i did not know about the fuses i began changing some parts here is what i changed : Spark plug, spark wire, distributor cap, cap rotor, then i changed the full distributor and the problem went away for some time, after my engine would start after more and more crank , some time it would take like 7 crank and a little bit of gas to start it until it just would not start at all. But when i discovered that i was able to get the car starting again by shaking the fuses i never had that issue again.

So where do i go from now ? i changed all the fuses and this did not fix the problem. I can drive the car, some time it will start perfectly during the day but its just not reliable and its humiliating to stall in the middle of the traffic and have to pop the hood and go wiggle the fuses then get back in the car and pray that it will start. So which part should i change, the fuse board ? the ecu ? I have no idea my experiance is very limited on the electronic side. i need to get this fixed as quickly as possible since this is my daily driver and my only way to work.. The car is a 1995 Honda Del Sol with a B18c Type R JDM engine. The ecu is also a JDM one. The swap was not done by me nor the previous owner. And the previous owner never had such problem and i can trust his word since he is a close family member. Beside the ecu problem the car has no problem everything runs great and smooth so this is not happening due to a beated up engine or wathever. I hope you did not had too much trouble to read my post, i know that my english is not perfect but hell i am trying to learn. Thanks in advance for your replies.

Thank you in advance for your help

holmesnmanny

I honestly only read about half of that, but it sounds like a main relay issue. Typical Honda issue.

MugenGuy

i changed all the relays in the engine bay and also my fuel pump relay and no luck.

holmesnmanny

If the dash lights don't come on when the car dies it could be the ignition switch.

MugenGuy

thanks for the reply holmes but sadly all my light are still on when the car dies. another little bit of information i can add is when i turn my key in the second click i have 2 lights, one is check battery and the other is check oil light.

holmesnmanny

all those lights should come on when you go to start the car....the check engine light should turn off after a few seconds...

ok do this...under the distributor are two sensors. One had two pins, the other has one.

Unplug the two prong sensor and test the sensor across both pins with a multimeter for ohms. It should be around 2000-2500 ohms when the car is completely and totally cold. After testing put the connector back on.

Then warm the car up if you can, completely. When the fan comes on turn the car off and remove the connector and test it again. Should now be 180-300 ohms.

One more things, can you explain exactly what fuel relay you replaced and where it was located. I just want to be sure you replaced the main relay. This is not meant as an insult.

If everything checks out, another thing it could be is the ignitor. If you have a junkyard nearby it might be a good idea to pull a used one and swap it in. If you have the ability and know how to use tester tools you can also test it along with other things in the distributor such as the coil using the techauto website as a reference

MugenGuy

The fuel relay which i changed was located somewhere on top of the fuse box under the dash. And for the sensors i will check this out as soon as i arrive at home. I'm grilling my a** in Florida right now.. Thanks again for your help ! I will let you know about the sensors.

holmesnmanny

is this what you replaced ?

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/par...mString=search

MugenGuy

Yep thats what i replaced.