I am new to the site and glad to be here. I will try to keep this short. I have had this 89 civic for many years. My brother drove it and had the head gasket replaced. After this it always smoked alot.This was about 5 years ago so it has been sitting. I found a 90 model donor car with a bad tranny and decided to buy it and use the engine for the 89 to drive back and forth to work. Ok enough of the history.
I swapped the engines( both 1.5L's) while I was at it I replaced the timing belt, clutch, and fuel pump (because the gas was very old). I have worked on these mant times so I am confident the belt is times correctly. Checked it twice to make sure. Went to start the car and it would not start. Would try to but never would. By the way my brother said it did this after he tried to get it running a year or so after he parked it. Checked the basics for fuel and fire. These were Ok but could not see alot of fuel from the injectors. Pulled the ecu and it was flashing code 16. Ran thru diagnostics and determined it was a bad ECU. Replaced the ecu with a known good one from the donor car still having the same problem. Everytime I run thru the trouble tree it leads me back to the same place. But I know the ecu from the donor is good since I drove the car home. I also tried to check for an injector pulse on both injectors and the noid light does not light. Will these light a noid light? I am used to domestic cars. Pinned out the EFi relay and it passed. Sorry for such a long post but I want to include as much info as possible. I am at my wits end with it. I do not have much money in it so I could give up but, I cant let it win. Any suggestions or help from anyone would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Jay

 

Check your main relay. These break commonly in Civics and if so you can just solder it yourself. Heres nice link for you. Has info about some common electrical problems. I think the fourth post down has some stuff about the main relay. It won't hurt to glance through the page though. Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the info. Unfortunatly I have checked the main relay and also replaced with a known good one from the donor car. Any other ideas?

 

had one like that - but it was a hyundia.
couple of points - sometimes these small engines lose their compression and will not start, you need to put some oil down into each cylinder and put the plugs back in and then try to start it.

2nd point - like i said (had one like that). if it was smoking, you may have bad valves. my 1.5 is torn apart right now with bad valves. you may have a cylinder with no compression. need to do a compression check. that was the case with the hydundia that i had. would not start for anything. finally sold it for fifty bucks.

 

I will try the oil down the cylinders. This is a different engine from what was originally in it that was smoking. I drove the 90 model donor home and in two days had the engine in the 89. Now never has started.

 

ah. i see.
only thing to suggest: is that i do not put the timing belt on with the crank at top dead center. i just put it on the "before top dead center" mark and the camshaft on it's marking. make sure that you got the cam on where there is the "UP" word at the 12 oclock position. as far as mine goes, that little red mark that is at the 3 oclock position is hardly visible (but the mark is well shown). i have found that these small engines are sensitive as far as being a little off in timing - and they do not start.

 

thanxs for the post and especially the link.
have from time to time have the following happen to me:
a cut copy and paste from the link:

"Another smoking gun for this one is found when the car starts fine if you let it sit for ten minutes or so, which allows the relay to cool off. Confusingly, a bad igniter can give the same symptom!

Once the car does start and run, the relay seems to be able to maintain the connection even with cracked solder, and keep the car running. I'm not sure why."

always thought it was the fuel injector - but it never stranded me, so got too lazy to try to fix. will look at that main relay first, then the injector (s) - has throttle body.

(had a problem with firing - replaced distributor (so i am sure that the igniter is not the problem).

 

a easy one is the firing order. it will crank and crank but never start if the order is 1 off. it took me 3 days to figure it out

 

I really appreciate everyones comments. I went home at luch to get a fresh look at it. I put a noid light on the injectors and it did not flash. Does anyone know if the wiring for the distributor is the same on a 90 wagon versus a 89 hatchback?

 

that is a tough one (without the interchange manual). i just bought my first distributor, so i know a little about what is going on.
distributor, at least on hondas, go by the OEM number that is somewhere on the distributor. cant remember where i saw it, but you will need to have the same number on both to have a match. this is my guess. because autozon lists the oem number.
if you have TD-01U on the hatchback, then it will match with the wagon. it does not give the oem in the listing for the wagon. but the hatchback may also have a TD-02U, and my guess is that they will not match.
HI_lo also needed to use that OEM number when i bought from them.

hope this helps,
fred