Was driving to work and my 1995 Honda Civic EX (1.6 liter VTEC) died while doing 55 MPH on the highway. Towed it home and began troubleshooting.

Fuel pump appears to be fine (I can smell fuel under hood after attempting start), replaced the fuel filter, plugs (old and dirty), plug harness, distributor cap, rotor, ignition coil, ignition switch, and verified that the ignition fuse is good. It still won't start. Turns out, none of the plugs are sparking.

At this point, it is out of my scope. Any suggestions other than taking it to the shop? Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

 

Some common reasons for sudden death on the road, no sparks, but the CEL cycles and the fuel pump runs.

Stripped timing belt. I list this first since it's easiest to check. Take the oil cap off and make sure the rocker arms move when you crank.

Blown ignition coil. Test by substitution, or take distributor cap off and try to draw sparks from the coil output to a grounded test wire. Weak yellow sparks mean the coil is bad. No sparks at all could be bad coil, bad ICM, or no power to distributor. The black and yellow wire should have battery voltage both with the key on and while cranking.

Distributor rotor screw fell out. This will be apparent when you open up the distributor.

Distributor sensor problem, typically sets an ECU code. On the OBD1 system, codes are checked by installing a test jumper and counting the CEL blinks.

 

Thanks for the fast reply! I will check the timing belt, never thought to do that. If not that, I will follow on through the rest of the list (although, I already put in a new ignition coil).

Thanks!

 

"New" coil doesn't rule out defective. I had one that failed in 2 weeks, for example.