Hello and thank you to everyone who reads this post. I'm a newb, yes, but I will get straight to the point. I have an old 88 Civic Hatchback that I did a complete restoration on returning it to stock condition at my high school. It left the garage last year and has been running perfectly ever since.

A couple of nights ago I was going to a friend's house with the car and as I was heading down the street, stepping on it a little more than I should have been for the speed zone, engine heading up to the 5000 rpm mark on the tachometer in second gear, all of a sudden... "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep", the car was beeping at me and the engine light came on and didn't go off. The tach read 0 rpm and the car was no longer running.

I'm an extreme do-it-yourselfer and don't like the idea of paying someone to do dirty work for me when I usually like the work, meaning working on cars. When i got the car home after it had stopped, I was just down the street and it was no problem for me to just get out and push it back to the driveway. I have the resources to fix cars myself but I'm a little in the dark about this problem. I went through the routine checking to make sure the engine was getting air, fuel, and spark noticing that the car wasn't getting spark. I cleaned the plugs, checked the wires, did a voltage test at the leads when cranking, nothing happening, leaving my only thought of a problem to stand at the distributor. I haven't checked it at the moment but I was wondering if this was a common problem and how it can be fixed or if it really needs to be replaced if it is the problem. Usually the ECU has a red light on it and it will throw trouble codes at you if something is going wrong but it's not. The ECU isn't detecting anything wrong, nothing appears physically wrong under the hood, but a thing I took note of was a smell that occured at the time of the problem. It smelled like burning wires and gasoline mixed together from under the hood when I first opened it. I checked the wiring harness and nothing was wrong with it. The timing belt is ok as well which would deliver a same no-spark effect but that isn't whats wrong. I have absolutley no idea what is happening and eventually I'm going to start ripping things out to find the problem. If anyone has any info as to this problem I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

wow, that has to suck...well, i dont really know much abut the older ones, but if you smelled burning wires and gas...i would assume a short some where in the fule system? is it mechanical or electric pump? fuel injection or carb? if its carb/manule pump. i would guess that the gas smell was from you "pushing" it. and leaving unbernt fuel in the system..or if you flooded it seeing if it was still running... the smell of wires could be a short in the ignition system..

im sure you have already checked these variables, but i just figured i would throw them out there because i really dont know what the problem is, but hopefully i have pointed you in the right direction.

 

Thanks. Yea, ive looked over as many variables as i could to try and find out why the car wont start. I remember during the rebuild i had trouble attaching the single green wire to the fuel pump positive terminal and i think i just ended up putting silicone around it hoping that it would stay put. I will check this, thanks for making me think of it again only trouble is that it is freezing outside right now and to get to the fuel pump would mean dropping the tank from the car.

I know there is a peep hole from under the rear seat is you remove the rear seat cushion and I will try all of these things. I should really check the fuel pump itself. Its electric and i think im gonna disconnect the main fuel line and turn the key to see if anything comes out. If not, that could be a problem too but the car is also not getting any spark. The spark problem is irritating me because ive gone over any situation ive ever encountered with engines having faulty spark and this is a case that is confusing me. I really should check the distributor and any bad signs for a faulty distributor you can give me would be of great help.

By the way, the engine light stays on solid all the time so i know the computer knows something is up but its not giving me a trouble code so yea, ive got some work ahead of me. Thanks alot guys.