Hi Im new to this forum. This is for my friends 89 honda civic 1.5L.

She was having issues with the car not starting or it would start and stall so I replaced the coil and ignition module and that seemed to solve the problem. Tonight I went back and put new connectors on since hers were destroyed I had to lengthen the wire a little to make them fit since there was a lack of wire. The car made it to my place with no problem fixed the wires fired right up.

I had her let the car idle for 20 minutes and we came out to move it put it in gear and it shuddered and shaked and the SES light came on. I let the car cool down and was able to drive it for 5 minutes and it acted up again. I pulled the front carpet and got 4 fast blinks from the CEL Light. That comes back to a Crankshaft Position Sensor. Now do any of the wires from the module go to the Crankshaft Position Sensor? I looked at a wiring diagram and it does not appear that they do. Any ideas on where I should be looking? I would like to get her car running tomorrow since she starts a new job monday and has to take her baby to appointments.

I am used to american cars I dont normally work on imports to often.

 

The CKP sensor is inside the distributor. It's one of 3 reluctance sensors in the bottom half. Make sure the wiring is good and properly wired. The sensor wires are also twisted and/or shielded in the harness.

Also after working inside the distributor the plastic insulator plate under the rotor needs to be replaced (it may have been removed and lost by a previous mechanic). This plate keeps sparks from jumping from the high voltage stuff in the cap down to the low voltage parts in the other half. As you might imagine, such sparking will cause all kinds of havoc.

You can do simple ohm tests on the sensor coils. All 3 coils should have the same resistance between the 2 wires and no continuity to ground. Officially, the sensors are not sold separately. If one is bad, typically the entire distributor is replaced.

Edit: The DPFI system may only have 2 sensors in the distributor not 3. The third one detects cylinder 1 which is used to synchronize the fuel injectors in an MPFI setup.

 

Wires look good I think the distributor destroyed it self since all the parts we have replaced so far were bad. I will take one last look though.

 

Also if you buy a rebuilt distributor, DO NOT trade in your "bad" one until the new one is on the car and working. This goes for pretty much any rebuilt part with a core value.