long story short my 93 Civic has been suffering from low idle and occasional stalling due to low idle. As a stop gap measure I adjusted the idle speed screw to bump up the idle. I recently adjusted the valves so I know this is not the problem. After I adjusted the valves there was no difference in idle.

Anyhow . . . the car died in traffic while my wife was going to work. Car had to towed back to my place. This is what I have so far. The timing belt is good I can see the cam turning while it is cranking over through the oil fill. I pulled the intake tube and airbox just a bit of carbon build in the throttle body valve edge, however nothing I can attribute to running down the road fine one second then dies in traffic. Check engine light comes on briefly after I advance the ignition then goes out. Which I believe is normal.

I'm beginning to think it may be ignition related. I'm over due for replacing the distributor cap & rotor however wouldn't this degrade to the point of not running? It ran fine before with the idle speed adjusted? Still I'm leaning towards an ignition issue.

Any thoughts?

 

I had a 92 honda civic that the fuel pump went bad, after you turn the key to the on position do you hear the fuel pump prime the fuel line? there is also a relay that controlls the power to the fuel pump.

 

The first thing I would check is to see if you have spark. Honda dist. are infamous for taking a crap. the bearings always go bad

 

Did you try to start it with the throttle open?

 

All the normal sounds re: fuel pump etc sounds the same. I'm very attentive and would normally notice if something didn't sound right. With the air box off there is a faint fuel smell after trying to start it. Nothing heavy very faint. I will also check for spark in the a.m. I was driven off by a nasty hail storm and had to quit. Is there a better distributor than OEM? If I DO need to replace it I'd rather go with a better unit.

And yes I tried 1/4 throttle, 1/2 throttle, 3/4 and full throttle to start.

 

Igniter Coil is prob shot. Id bet on it.

 

I agree on the coil!!!!

 

- OK this is what I tested:

- each spark plug wire test in the correct resistance range

- Rotor appeared the be heavily eroded so I'm suspect of it however I don't think it caused the car to stop running one second then the next it won't start.

- I have the (Haynes Manual 92-95) and I've run resistance and voltage tests on both the coil and the ICM (ignition control module) and they all check out except for the continuity between white/blue & the Blue wire on the offset terminal. page 5-5 (Haynes Manual 92-95) manual item 7 illustration 8.7 Still with the ignition ON I don't have resistance but voltage across this wire set of 9.6 volts ( yes battery is fully charged at just over 12 volts however when I turn the ignition OFF resistance is close to 35,000 ohm's. For whatever reason the Honda service manual is silent on this part of the test?

I admit I'm pretty rusty on this stuff but I think I will buy a new rotor and cap and I will share my info with the parts guy at Honda. Typically they are fairly knowledgeable and will run my result by them. I'm thinking the ICM has gone bad?

Any Thoughts?

 

You generally do not want to run resistance tests while the component is connected since resistance tests are unreliable. The ICM turns to coil on and off and the only real way to test it is to use a scope since the ICM will turn the coil on and off several hundred times a second. I would check the resistance of the coild with it disconnected from the circuit. If the coil has to proper resistance and you still don't have spark then i would look at the ICM. If your rotor/cam is corroded then change it b/c it can't be helping.

 

Agent of Darkness,

Been reading some other posts after pulling a search. I'm still leaning towards a bad Igniter unit (ICM) at this point. However after reading this post I'm wondering about the PICK UP COIL . . .?

"NO SPARK" https://www.hondacivicforum.com/m_244982/tm.htm

This Civic does have 239,000 miles on it so nothing would surprise me.