Sporadic problems are the worst. Welcome fellow Houstonian.

 

OK, drove the car around the neighborhood and replicated the problem. Got it back to the house and repeated over and over. It will idle indefinatly but after bumping up the RPMs to 2500 it will run for about 20 seconds then studder and die. It will then restart and continue the same process. I'm thinking it must be fuel related. Will an OBD2 scanner tell me what the fuel mixture is rich/lean so i can see if the engine is going lean before it dies??

 

Still no CEL?

Start here:
1) Check the ignition timing with a timing gun. Has the timing belt been replaced?



2) Measure the fuel pressure. Has the fuel filter been replaced?



3) Replace the spark plugs and possibly the plug wires and also inspect the distributor cap and rotor for wear and corrosion.

 

Nope, no CEL. I figured after it started and died a dozen times it would have some sort of code, but nothing. I did verify the CEL works when the key is initially turned on.

1. Timing is perfect. Verified with timing light per your procedure.

2. Guess i will order a banjo bolt with 1/8 npt port and attach a fuel pressure gauge (available from summit racing) that will permantly reside on the fuel filter. I'll hook it up where the above mentioned test guage goes. Probably easier than finding the test gauge.

3. Cap, rotor, plugs, wires, coil, are all recently (within last 2 months) replaced when the coil went out.

 

Thought i would let anyone reading this what solved my problem. Turns out my brand new less than a month old "re-manufactured" distributor/coil set-up was the problem. I returned it under the lifetime warranty, got another one, installed it, and the problem was fixed. Further proving that you get what you pay for. Thanks again for everyones help.

 

Hmm what year and model is your car?


I can honestly say if your car is shuting down on you while your cruising down the street or highway it has to be without question your distributor (not distributor cap). I had what appears to be the same problem you are experiencing with, i changed the spark plugs, and fuel filter, ignition coil and nothing. It's a piece that's inside the distributor that causes this i forgot what it's called but the price of that piece alone is only a couple of bucks cheaper than just getting the entire distributor all together than saving money so it's best to just get the distributor and be done with it.

Does your car sometimes give you trouble when you try to start it after it shuts down on you. If it does it's the distributor. This is a common problem with Accords and Civics and i've had personally had this problem with 2 of my Accords. If this is the case get it fixed ASAP because it will only get worse. It will get to the point where you car gives up and will never ever turn on again till you swap distributors. Mine first started where it would start right away. a couple of days later it took like 15 mins, after that a few days went day it became 30 mins, after that it became a hour, all of this while i'm waiting in the street for all this time i might add, finallly one day i'm driving down the street and it shuts off only to never turn back on again. I left it in a corner in a residental area over night, came back the next morning hoping the distributor had cooled down so much that it had to turn on and it didn't, i ended up having to call a tow truck. Bought a distributor from Advance Auto Parts the same day, put it in the next day, car turned on never to shut off on me like that ever again.


Just so you guys know if you didn't already know. What the distributor does is simply distribute power to get the engine going, it's like a power supply and if it over powers it starts heating up, well the distributor automatically shuts off when it overheats to protect the engine thereby shutting your car off. When the distributor cools back down it will work again temporary till it heats up again and shutting your car off again. As the days go by the distributor gets worse and worse till it finally goes dead and never works again like in my case.



Get it fixed ASAP!!!!!

 

LOL just noticed you got the problem fixed and it turns out i was right like i knew i was. Oh well now i can honestly say i'm an expert with Honda and diagnosing common problems :P

 

Yep, you were right on. Just as a heads up, my faulty "new" distributor was also from Advance Autoparts. I originally had a faulty coil and decided to change the entire distributor assembly because it was cheap from Advance. It worked for about a month then I started having issues with it. Took back the distributor and exhanged it, and it fixed the problem. Figured it was a good place to start after i had verified timing, fuel pressure, spark, etc etc etc..... So if you start having the issue again, I'd take it back and get another. Lifetime warranty......

 

Yeah i did take it back once. My 94 Accord wouldn't turn on so we thought the distributor had gone again so we took it back to Advance Auto Parts and got another one because of the Lifetime Warranty. That didn't fix it so we figured it was the starter because my 95 Camry had a dead starter, went back and bought the starter, put it on the accord and the car turned on. At least i have a much newer refurbished distributor in the car.
hehe

But i'm selling the Accord cus i got myself a 2001 Civic, 2 weeks ago.