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The other day I was sitting at a stop light, and when the light turned green, I was about to engage the clutch and the engine just died. I thought I had stalled the engine. Tried starting it, cranked fine, but engine just would not get going.
I bought this car in 2001 and have put over 235K miles on it myself. In that time this is only the 2nd time ever that the car has died out on the road and I had to get it towed. First time was in 2006 and it was the ignition harness that had fried.
I have checked just about all I can think of. Fuel pump works. Fuel is getting into all cylinders. All plug wires have spark as of today. I did have 1 dead plug wire after I got the car home Sunday, which I replaced today. So all plug wires have spark. Spark plugs look normal with 13K miles on them. Ignition coil has spark, strong spark. Have run through all the tests of all the sensors in the distributor, the ignition harness, the coil, the igniter, everything checks out. Timing belt is fully intact and engine remains in perfect time. Compression tests are good at 180-190 PSI across the board (not bad for 324K mile engine!).
There are no trouble codes stored in the ECU. Another odd thing is the battery, which is 4 1/2 years old. It will no longer crank the car unless I have jumper cables going over to my wife’s car with the engine running, yet the battery still reads 12.0 volts. However it was cranking the car Sunday evening, but the engine still wouldn’t start. Could there be some issue with the battery?
At this point the only thing left I can think of is fuel pressure and the ECU itself. All cylinders are getting some amount of fuel (all spark plugs smelled of fuel after several times cranking), but I don’t know yet whether proper fuel pressure is getting to the fuel rail.
I have owned this car nearly 12 years and have performed 100% of all mechanic work on it myself with my trusty Helms factory repair manual. I have to figure this out!
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Glad to hear it! Its a bummer that the factory distributors arent available for those anymore but oh well. banana:
Yeah well, I don’t think I would have been able to afford an OEM Honda brand new distributor anyway.
Honestly I think the only reason that happened was because you had an aftermarket distributor in there originally OR it was not the distributor but rather a coil or igniter issue. I have yet to see a Honda distributor quit that way but I’ve seen plenty of shops shotgun a distributor at a Honda because it wouldn’t start. Also, if memory serves you had spark which is why I didn’t go there. In fact it’s more likely you had a coil or igniter failure in the original distributor. I’d subscribe to this theory even more if it were an OE distributor. I’ve done a video on the test for a no spark for Honda’s that can tell you if you have a no start caused by a coil or igniter problem and which one it is.
I’ve seen my fair share of Honda’s and I can say without a doubt they don’t like aftermarket ignition parts. I see more burned up coils and igniters when aftermarket wires or plugs are used. In fact if you have OE wires don’t ever change them unless they get damaged in some way as they last just about forever. Use only NGK or Nippon Denso Plugs.
Thanks for keeping us up to date and for using the ETCG forum.
I have always used NGK copper core plugs and NGK blue wires nearly as long as I’ve owned the car, over 11 years and 240K miles. The old distributor was definitely the original OEM Honda. Could it not have also been the failure of one of the sensors inside the distributor, which I understand is not serviceable?
Thanks again for everyone’s help and suggestions. The new distributor came with a lifetime warranty, so if anything happens to it I’ll deal with it then.
I don’t think it takes copper core plugs, I’m not sure if I’m honest. If I remember correctly they should be zfr5f11’s. Check the under hood sticker to be sure. That said without looking at it for myself it’s hard to say. It’s not common for Honda distributors to fail but I do see failures of the igniters and coils from time to time. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it could fail, it’s just not a common failure. I do see the electrical portions of the ignition switches going bad all the time though.
OEM spec is NGK platinum plugs, at a cost of nearly $15 per plug. No thank you. I run copper-core plugs, as I have been for nearly 12 years, and change them out every 10K-15K miles. $8 for a set of four and I swap them out in 5 minutes flat.
I hold the opinion that super-long-lasting platinum and iridium plugs are great for cars with very limited/difficult access, such as FWD V6 cars where the intake manifold has to come out to access the rear 3 plugs. But on a Honda B or D-series engine with excellent access, it just makes better sense to me to run the copper core plugs (copper conducts current better than other metals), and change them out more often.
Just for the sake of argument if you replace the plugs twice at a 30K interval you’ve spent $16. Platinum plugs get replaced at 100K. So in short what you’re saying is 6 of 1, half dozen of the other but you’ve spent a dollar more and did twice the work. 🙂
That said I think you’re right anyway because I don’t think that engine calls for platinum plugs now that I think about it. I think they are the zfr5f-11’s which are just regular plugs.
Non VTEC engines take the ZFR5F-11 while the VTEC engine takes PFR6G-13. The two are not compatible as the non VTEC plugs are longer. But I still like and will continue to use copper-core BKR6E-11 plugs. 🙂
I’ve ways heard 60K for platinum plugs and 100K for iridium plugs. The GSR platinum plugs cost $12-$15 locally, EACH! The copper plugs are $2 and I change them 4 times in 60K. Still cheaper than the platinums along with the piece of mind of better spark conductivity.
Just as a quick update since I haven’t been here in awhile: sure enough that Cardone Select distributor took a dump on me last year, just over 3.5 years after installing it originally. It actually exhibited drivability issues in the weeks before, such as bucking that I thought was the clutch slipping. But it turned out to be the distributor.
Finally one day (coincidentally) the little plastic pad on the clutch pedal that presses the clutch interlock switch broke apart, so I had to reach under the dash and push the switch to start the car. Then I was driving up a hill, tried opening the throttle more, and the engine hesitated and bucked more and more until it died, while in the middle of a 2 lane road on a hill. And I had to reach under the dash and find that switch to start it again. I managed to get it started and limped home. I messed with the distributor, cap and wires a bit, and then it wouldn’t start at all, so I figured that was the problem. Got it replaced under warranty and all was good once again.
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