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No check engine light.
I found my parasitic draw – I had placed a fuse into the wrong place, where no fuse was supposed to be. F
Put the jumper cables back on, got a good charge on the battery…strong crank, but no start. After trying a number of times, I tried clear flood. Nothing.
The battery never completely drained down this time. I did unhook the neg battery cable, but probably for less than 15 min. I can try unhooking the battery for longer to completely reset everything and see if she’ll start up after that. I expect she will, but then she’ll shut off and go back to no start as before.
I’ll test it out and report back.
You know, I thought about pulling the O2 sensor, and just didn’t thinking it wouldn’t be it…Well, thank you for the suggestion! Just pulled it out and bam!, car started right up and idles fine.
Ok, I have a new CC just haven’t installed it yet. Current one is welded one. Might look into cutting it out and putting new one on with clamps.
Here’s the (hopefully) last question on this:
I’ve done some internet research, and a plugged up converter does fit all my problems. (Btw, yesterday while I had everything out I went ahead and checked the timing belt to see if it had slipped. It’s good.) There are numerous posts out there with people reporting a plugged up cat causing intermittent stalling to stalling so much it’s almost a no-start condition. That’s pretty much my situation.
So, two options. I’m not going to pay $700 for a genuine Honda cat for this car. I can pull one from a junkyard, or I can buy a walker/magnaflow/flowmaster converter for $60-$150. I believe the current cat is welded on, so buying a universal fit model is not a problem. I’m leaning towards just buying a new aftermarket cat. In fact, I’m leaning towards this Walker for $62. (It’s legal in my state.) What do y’all think?
A bad cat is sounding plausible. I should mention if I haven’t already that I had the cat-back replaced some years ago on this car (which, I now know, was probably unnecessary, and part of the reason I’m so opposed to just throwing parts at problems nowadays). The cat is from a cheap muffler shop, so I believe it could fail. I’ll see if I can test it next.
OK, so it’s been a few days but I’ve just now had time to mess with the car again. And I have interesting data!
Removed the upstream O2 sensor. Started the car, it ran fine! Shifted into gear, drove it back and forth a bit, it was smooth. Let it idle for 35 min before shutting it off…longest it’s gone since it broke down.
Hooked my vacuum gauge up to the O2 port. The gauge has a 0-10 psi scale. At idle, barely any pressure, less than .5psi. Same at 2000RPM. At 4000RPM…well, the car wouldn’t hold at 4000RPM. It behaved erratically again, revving and dying. Pressure bounced wildly from 0-5psi, and a few times up past 10psi.
Unhooked the vacuum gauge, left the O2 port open, and revved the engine again. Revving was smooth, and it held 4000RPM easily.
This seems like important data. But I don’t know what it means.
Quick update: Ran the timing light on the broken 99 Honda again. I’d checked cyl #1 and #2 before, this time I did all 4. #1-3 were absolutely fine; on #4 I saw 3 times just the briefest of interruptions over about about a 1 min period, but so brief I’m not sure. I watched another minute and everything was normal.
So last night was either an aberration with the gun, possibly i didn’t connect it securely to the battery, OR perhaps the engine was more clogged up…I put some gumout in the cylinders today.
Thanks again for the reply cap…I’ll get on those ignition tests soon.
Ok, lots of things to check there, and I’ll get to it and report back as soon as I can!
In the meantime, 2 things: (1) I tested the timing light on another car, and the timing flashes were always consistent. So the timing light appears to me to be a good indication that the spark is randomly not firing. (2) Here’s the vacuum tests:
Edit: Forgot I meant to add that the spark plug wires are NGK and less than a year old. I’ll check them, but they should be fine.
Ok, I’ve done some more work, nothing conclusive yet, but:
1. I disconnected the O2 sensor, no change.
2. I hooked up a vacuum gauge. Idle readings are fine, 22in Hg. When I rev the engine, one of 2 things happens. Either the pressure remains constant but the engine sounds clunky, OR the pressure rapidly changes up and down. I did the vacuum rev test 4 times, had 2 results either way. I took a video, which I’ll upload to youtube.
3. Since I borrowed some tools and now have a compression tester, I did a wet/dry compression test. All readings are fine there. 180-190 dry on all 4 cyl, and 185-210 wet.
4. I unplugged the MAP sensor, no change there except for a very low idle, ~300rpm. There was some hesitation when I moved the car a bit in gear, but the persisted after i plugged the MAP sensor back in.
5. I found a hole on top of my throttle body, the IACV?, put tape on it, no change.
6. I cannot find that service jumper ANYWHERE. I’ve watched Eric’s videos, looked under my dash, torn the carpet back, exposed the ECU…do not see it.
7. One of the best results I achieved was by spraying carburateur cleaner down my spark plug holes, directly on the pistons. After that, the car not only idled find, but actually shifted into gear without a hitch! It’s been a long time since that happened!
8. I also tried a timing light late last night. I know where to look, but I couldnt’ figure out the timing marks (couldn’t see them), and, it was late so I didn’t get anywhere with that. BUT. I did notice the timing flashes were NOT consistent. I would get long periods of consistent flashes and then randomly there’d be a very short period of no flashes. I tested a couple different cylinders, same thing. Long periods of consistent flashing, with random, short periods of no flashing. I’m using an Actron timing light, and I know that’s a cheaper model, and I’ve never done a timing test before. So I can’t say for certain whether I’m witnessing a timing malfunction or a timing light malfunction.Yep, I did Eric’s quick fuel test. I definitely have plenty of volume of fuel coming into the engine.
Ok. I guess I’m leaning towards it being the ECU.
First, I double-checked that i have spark at all 4 cylinders. It’s there, and it’s strong.
Second, I tried to test the fuel pressure. Turns out this is annoyingly hard to do. My standard fuel pressure gauge doesn’t have the right adapter. NO ONE SELLS the adapter. I tried Autozone, Advancced Auto, and Napa. Doesn’t exist, neither for Hondas or Toyotas. You can buy the super-master fuel pressure kit, but that costs more than a new fuel pump.
Anyway, when I start the car, it runs for a split second and then dies, it dies while I can still hear the fuel pump doing it’s initial priming; the initial “whirrr”.
Here was the process today:
1. I have the new O2 sensor in; cleaned the spark plugs once more just to make sure it’s all clean.
2. Crank the engine till it starts.
3. Runs for 15-20 minutes in Park, absolutely fine. The only thing out of the ordinary is a slight puttering from the tail pipe.
4. Eventually dies; I figure with the new O2 sensor, I should reset the ECU. So I unplug the Neg battery cable and wait 5 minutes.
5. Restart the car, takes 20 or so tries. Let it run for 5+ minutes. It’s running a little rougher, a louder puttering from the tail pipe. Turn the car off.
6. Restart the car, as always takes a number of tries. The car spits a bunch of gunk and smoke out of the tailpipe, but runs.
7. Decide to try putting in gear. Try R, the revs drop and it almost dies; but I move the car a bit, try D, same thing; shuddering, drop in revs, car starts to die..I move it FWD a bit and it dies.For a minute, I thought I had the problem fixed.
I decided to check out the spark plugs, and took one out. I’m using genuine Honda plugs in this car, installed early last October. I inspected them, and they are covered in a black sooty build-up. I still have the old ones sitting in my tool box (Don’t ask me why. I’m just lazy and hadn’t thrown them out.) They’re NGK iridiums i think. Even though they’d been in the car for 5+ years, they looked a lot better than the new plugs, so I put one in. And…for a few minutes the car ran fine. I even successfully put it into R and D! But then it died. Started it up again and it didn’t last quite as long, and died. So I decided if 1 was good, 4 would be better, and put all 4 old plugs back in. No results. Car is back to starting and dying immediately.
FWIW, I CAN keep the car alive by revving it. Once the revs go down the engine slows and sounds/feels like its choking, so I rev it up, sometimes I have to floor it, and can keep it alive a little while longer.
Update again:
Looks like that one start was an aberration; the car won’t stay running for more than a second or split second now.
I double checked with the dealership about what their diagnosis consisted of, and was told they checked the mechanical timing at crank and cam, and the ignition system.
When I do get the car started, there’s a bit of black smoke coming out the tail pipe.
Thanks for the videos! I should clarify that I can get this car to start. It takes a lot of tries, but it will start, but it won’t stay running for more than a few seconds.
I’m watching some videos on using a timing light now…wish I could try that, but don’t think I can keep the car running long enough to do it!
I should also mention that the front O2 sensor that the dealer wanted to replace DOES need replaced…it has a lot of carbon build up. Symptom of the bad timing, apparently.
UPDATE: I noticed what Eric said in one (or more) of those videos about using a jumper on the little blue-wire connector under the passenger-side dash to take the ECU out of the equation while adjusting timing. I decided to try that, thinking that if I am having computer-related timing issues, then maybe taking the computer out would help. FWIW, I did get the car to run for several minutes, in Park. There were periods of smooth running and periods of “hiccups”, until finally it hiccuped and stalled out and died again.
Thanks for the video! I used it to find my main relay, which looks to be in fine condition. No burning around the soldered terminals like the car in the video.
Before the car had died and was just intermittently stalling, I had tested the injectors by unplugging them one by one and monitoring the engine. They all appeared to be in working order.
I have also taken off the EGR valve and cleaned it (a bit dirty, but not plugged up), and tested it with a 12V battery (it works).
I haven’t actually tested the fuel pump, but, I undid the fuel line at one point and can say there’s plenty of fuel coming from there.
The long and short of it is I’m back to being stuck and don’t know what to look for next!