Let's start here - I was leaving work friday and all was great. I was friday! I start the 89 civic LX and it starts great and I leave. Running great. Get to my wifes work and go in to pick her up. Come out, start said car, starts great, get to the end of the lot, idle, idle, idle. wait my turn to go, press the gas and it just stalls, turns over but won't start for anything. Check main relay - good. All 3 clicks. Gas spurts out of all the right places and I had spark but it was weak. I do all of the tests on tegger for distributor. Everything checks out so I assume it is the igniter. Tonight I changed it out for a new one and I got one good spark with the plug in the plug-wire trick and that was it. Did I screw more up that was already screwed? How important are the rubber boots that slide over the female connectors on the ignitor? I really screwed those up when I removed the connectors. Did I purchase a bad igniter? I am stressing out big time over this. I have only had the car two weeks and I way over payed because I am an ***. Any ideas. I really don't want to bring it to the shop unless I have to. I'm too poor. I know that there are millions of threads that state the same types of things but I am at a loss. Anyone in Minneapolis bored and want to come over and fix it for me?? JK. Please help!

 

Check the cam timing. When first taking off from a stop is a good time to strip the timing belt.

 

I agree with mk. If spark and fuel are fine, the next item on your list should be to inspect the timing belt, which may have skipped some teeth. You need to remove the valve cover and then the upper timing belt cover to inspect. Check whether the cam pulley/gear no longer aligns to TDC1 when the crank pulley does.

 

I will check the cam timing. Anyone know if those rubber boots that I was talking about in the distributer being all ripped up would cause arcing and rob spark?

Thanks for the responses.

 

No it's a low voltage there so it should not be a problem. You can put electric tape on them if you want.

Make sure to put the plastic divider plate back into the distributor under the rotor. Not having it can allow sparks to jump from the high voltage area back to the low voltage parts and burn things out.

 

There wasn't a cover. As I said, I just bought the car so whoever worked on it last I guess "lost it"?? Maybe that's part of the problem. Anyone know if this a part that I can purchase without purchasing the whole distributor?

 

Not sure. Look here:

http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/

 

So, I pulled the valve cover and top timing cover off and checked the valve timing and all looks good. I pulled the the new Ignitor out that wasn't working and put the old one in and I do have spark again. I just don't really know how to tell if it is good spark. It is blue/white but I wouldn't say it is "big spark". So, fuel, spark, compression = running vehicle right? Not so. I really, really don't have the money to bring this in but I don't know where to go now. The fuse panel in the eng. compartment smells like fried electronics but there are no blown fuses. Seems like it is more like the said smell is around the weird torx screw thing that has the "C" sticker on it. What is this? Anybody? I'm pulling at straws now. Please help.

 

Well, I did some more tests and found out that there wasn't any contenuity in the crank angle sensor wiring. I must have overlooked the procedure for checking this when I was doing the other testing. Only fix was to replace the whole distributor. Hurt the pocket book a little but it is running better than ever now. Wish I wouldn't have bought that dang ignitor now. Pep Boys has a no return policy on this type of purchase. Oh well. At least it is running now. Guess I'll have it in case the new one ever goes.

Thanks for all of you help. I'm sure I'll be back.