My girlfriend has a 97 civic ex with the d16y8 vtec motor, she was driving to work about a week ago when it just died on her at a stop light, I checked and was getting no spark on the plugs at all, so I replaced the whole distributor which includes the ignition control module and the coil correct? and the crankshaft sensor, I've still got no spark and all the fuses look good please help! P.S. I did hook up a scanner just a cheap one I use at work and it just keeps saying link error maybe pcm? I'm just done throwing money at it, I need direction!

 

Sudden death on the road can be from a stripped timing belt. Make sure the camshaft rotates.

Does the check engine light come on and then go out when you turn the key on but don't crank? That would show that the ECU (PCM) is powering up and working to some degree.

 

Cam works checked the belt when I was doing the crank sensor, I replaced the belt, water pump, plugs, and wires 5k miles ago! As to the check engine light when I turn the ignition on the light comes on but doesn't go off, and all I get is link error on the code reader! The car tries to crank just no fire!

 

It is sounding more and more like a bad ECU then.

Check the ECU ground wires on the thermostat housing, if they are loose or broken the ECU can't work. To really rule everything else out, pull a diagram and confirm that all the power pins on the ECU are powered and all the ground pins are grounded.

 

I will check into that thanks!

 

Okay so I found the FI E/M fuse was blown, check engine light went off, and pulled out the code reader, it pulled no codes but did read, so in the consideration I have replaced the distributor, the crank sensor, and the blown fuse, I'm getting power to the distributor, I took my multimeter and tested all the wires on the plug I'm getting power to the main wire and I'm reading 12v on like 4 other wires when cranking, I took the cap off and tested after the coil and I'm getting nothing, tested before the coil and got lit up like a Christmas tree 0_0 lol, if the main relay was bad could that cause this?

 

Do you still have the old distributor? If you're getting pulses into the coil but no sparks at the output the coil may be bad.

Never let the coil fire into an open circuit. When testing with the cap off hold a grounded test wire near the output spring and see if sparks jump to it.

Main relay feeds the fuel pump and injectors, it doesn't have anything to do with ignition IIRC. Problems with the main relay are very rare on 1996 and later models. It was the 1988 to 1995 ones that had the lemon relays.

 

Ok so ummm I feel stupid after looking at multiple diagrams, when I purchased the new distributor, I had purchased the main body including the coil and ignition control module and the cap, which is everything I was told I needed at the parts store, ( they failed to mention I would need a new rotor!!) Soooooo I will update later with current running condition!