Hey guys,
Me again ! Here's my dilemma. As you all know, I have changed my engine and practically every sensor etc, under the hood. Now, the distributor that is on my car now is from a later model civic, i'm thinking, because the 3 bolt's are not lined up so I have it rigged in there. Now what I am wondering is, seeing that I have the original distributor from the first engine, do they sell the distributor internals separately, because what is happening now is, while I am driving, all of a sudden she starts to retard and sputter a bit and then she would catch herself and do it again later; between 4000 and 5000 rpm. Could this damage anything, driving it like this until I get it sorted out?

 

Here are some photos of the distributor that i have taken apart







This is it put together without the electrical stuff


and I am wondering if you can buy these things separately

 

You can buy the high voltage coil and the ICM separate, but everything else in the bottom of the dizzy is officially replaced only as a complete unit. Did you get a code for one of the 3 reluctance sensors? Check those sensors for resistance and ground faults. The wiring on them looks really bad.

Also don't run without the plastic insulator plate under the rotor, sparks can jump down from the top to the low-voltage stuff in the bottom.

The VTEC and non-VTEC distributors are identical inside but have a different mounting pattern for the 3 bolts, as you discovered. It is not terrible to just put it on with one bolt.

 

Okay, first off what is the ICM? Secondly, seeing that the guts are the same in both, can I just rip out the guts from the one that's on now and put them in the empty housing that I have posted up, as this housing is the original one that came off of it.

 

The ICM is the Ignition Control Module, or Igniter. It is the red module with push-on connectors that says NEC in your picture. It takes a properly-timed low voltage pulse from the ECU and amplifies it up to drive the coil and make a spark.

Yes you can swap the guts around. Make sure not to mix up the 3 sensors. The one with 24 teeth on its rotor is the CKP, the one with 4 teeth is TDC, and the one on the top with one tooth on the rotor is CYL.

 

thanks alot mk378. So I would have to make sure that the cam is at TDC before I remove the dizzy to swap the internals?

 

That would be best to simplify things, though it's not absoultely essential. Go ahead and set the engine to TDC1 before taking apart so you can easily check that everything is right.

Note that the driver which engages the camshaft is not symmetric, as the slot in the camshaft is not in the center. This is so it can only be put together one way (though with some force it can sometimes be put together 180 degrees off). There might be two ways to put the driver on the end of the dizzy shaft though, be sure to get it right. At TDC1, the CYL sensor is supposed to trip (the pickup coil facing the notch in the rotor). The ECU uses this signal to track which cylinder is about to fire so it can synchronize the fuel injectors to the engine.