Last night I swaped out the old tach less gauge cluster out of my beater standard civic for an si set up with a tach. It took about 15 minutes and everything wroked fine. This morning I took it out for another test drive, again everything looked good, until I got home. I shut the car off, then restarted and the tach needle started jumping around all crazy like with the car at steady idle. I started driving it and it continued to jump up and down (with no rythem just kinda random movements). Dose anyone know what causes this, is it a bad ground on the cluster, or some one said that it's a symptom of a distributor going bad. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

have the same damn problem, i need help with it too.

 

Well I been driving the car some more and found that it only acts up when the engine is warm, and below 2500~3000rpm. Above 3000 the thing works fine, so I'm pretty sure it's not the cluster. I have a spare ignitor that I'm going to install this afternoon to see if it makes any difference. I'm open to any and all ideas at this point.

 

Well for those of you who care the problem was the ignitor. I swaped that thing out really quick and it solved the problem, so here's the lesson of the day, jumping tach needle=bad or going bad ignitor. Thanks for the replies.

 

Can you explain the process of how you swapped your ignitor with a little more detail, and how much it was? Thanks.

 

I'll try to tell you how to do it sort of breifly. I had this same problem.. asked about it on the crx resource site.. and was given a direct answer that it was my ignitor. So I went out and spent a damn $80 for a new ignitor from Napa.

Unbolt the 3 17mm (or 14mm, I cant remember) bolts that hold the distributor to the engine. There are 2 electrical connectors located behind the dist. that you have to disconnect, so do that. Then pull off the dist. so you can work easier. Take off the dist. cap by unbolting the 3 little bolt/screws. Pull off this plastic peice that just sort of sits inside of the dist. The ignitor will look like this..



There are two screws holding it to the body of the distributor and the screws are on the outside of the dist. Unscrew those and unplug all the wires on the ignitor (remember which goes to which) and ur done. Now do everything backwards to install ur new one.

About 300miles after I did all that, my freakin dist. went bad. I had to dish out another $100 for a used dist. and the person I bought it from claimed it only had 30K on it so I doubt I'll be needing my ignitor from Napa anytime soon. I'll sell it for a reasonable price.. email me. drfreddavis@***.net


[Modified by drjondurst, 1:30 AM 1/6/2003]

 

drjondurst gave you guys an excellent right up on how to change the ignitor, but for those of you who are too lazy or just don't want to have to set the timming on your car when it's all done, you don't really have to take the distributor off. Just pull off the cap and the plastic cover and your there. Follow drjondurst's instruction from that point and your home free.

 

i have been working on hondas for over 10 years i'll put mone on the ignigtor, its easy to do make sure you buy a new one fron honda stay away from aftermarket junk thats all good luck

 

heh I've taken off my dist. 3 times and havnt set my timing... car still runs the same. Would I feel a difference?

 

if you advance the timing you should fell more power but not too much then you may have other problems

 

I dont see anything wrong with aftermarket stuff. actullay, some of the parts that honda sells are bought from the same people that aftermarket stores buy from. well some stores anyways. I will admitt there are some aftermarket stores that are crap. But ones like Carquest actullay have great products, in some cases better than OEM.

 

i hear you you've done you're home work thats cool but some people out there the dont know there head from there *** when it comes to car parts

 

drjondurst, you set the timming by rotating the distributor one direction or the other, obviously if you take it off it's not going to in the same postion at was in when you put it back on. I guess If you draw a line on the top leg of the dist, that continues onto the head, and you make sure that this line lines up when you put the dist. back on you should have no problems, other wise just slapping it back on without checking the timming might cause problems for you unless your one of those lucky people. If I were you I'd definatly check the timming (it's easy to do). Being too advanced can cause detonation, and to retarded will give poor performance.

 

Roatating the dist towards the front of the car advances it, towards the back retards it...