Automotive Forums

i have a problem with my 95 accord we know what the problem is but we just can locate where the interior fuel pump is.. does any one know? It acts like its not getting any gas when i know there is gas in there..  

the cheap after market intakes sold on ebay are easy to install and do work but make sure to buy a better air filter. the ones they come with sorta suck and get dirty very quickly takes like 15min tops to install and thats if u dont know what ur doing  

New to the site --

Obviously I have a Honda Accord (91) that is having starting problems.  But mine are a little different.

I'd like to think the main relay is the problem after reading everyone's posts giving praise to a new relay.  But could it be the problem in cold weather?  Because this is when my problems are occuring.  When it is reallly cold - like it is in Pittsburgh right now where I live.  

The car will start and run and sound fine for like 10 seconds or so.  The fast idle engages and it starts idling around almost 2000 rpm's.  But just as quickly as it started, it stalls abruptly.  

Even if I keep my foot on the gas making it idle around 2500 rpms, it still just cuts out like it suddenly loses all spark -

(one note****** the tachometer drops to zero before the engine actually has totally stopped) - its subtle, but I notice it to be true.  



If anyone can provide any assistance it would be GREATLY appreciated.  I might take a look at changing this main relay this weekend, but if it is the wrong choice, please let me know!  


Thank you much in advance for any assistance!  

If the tach is definitely dropping just before the engine stops running then it's almost certainly the igniter within the distributor. Now, this normally means that it's overheating due to old age and a weak transistor/thryristor not switching cleaning. If it doesn't switch cleanly then it's partial resistance will use a noticeable portion of the coil energy instead of directing it all through the coil and plugs. It's also possible a bad upper bearing dried out of grease is overheating the heatsink which the igniter is mounted on. I would unbolt the distributor and then turn the base of the shaft by hand. It should be a smooth motion with absolutely no snagging or rough spots when you spin it. There should also be no noise like squealing or grating. If the bearing seems fine then just swap out the igniter with a new part. You can find on ebay for $35 all in. It just screws in the heatsink with 4 electrical spade connectors on top. 10 minute job! Good Luck/  

have you looked at the alternator?

Glenn Kawwesch  

I have a problem similar to many described here.

The car will start.
The car will continue to run for any random amount of time.
It randomly dies, temperature does not seem to affect it.
Sometimes it will die, and before the RPMs have spun to 0 it will start itself again although this is a more rare occourence
Sometimes it will start immediatly after dying while coasting in neutral.
Sometimes it takes many starting attempts after it dies.
Sometimes it refuses to start, however after turning key to off position, it will start immediatly after.
The care NEVER shows a check engine light or throws any DTCs

I have replaced the fuel filter, PGM-FI (MAIN) Relay.  

It is all very random and annoying.

I just read about the ignitor and will try that.  Any other ideas?  

I just picked up my son after his 90 Honda Accord will not start. He had it running an hour ago warming up then turned it off. Now it acts like it's firing and ready to run but then promptly dies. It's cold here so I'm hoping it's the relay? Since he warmed it up before, the relay sounds like a possibility. I'll let it cool down overnight and see if it will start.  

Ok.  First I'd like to say thanks to everyone here that had a piece of advice to offer.  Second, I'd like to say this might be a lenghty post.  Third, I had nearly every problem here with my 1996 Honda Accord, but my story ends with a fix.

The problem was fixed on or about December 1st 2006, by me, and the problems started on or about April 1st 2006.  So, just like all of you, it was a long drawn out battle with the now famous Honda Accord No-Start, Sputter, Stall, Choke and Die symptoms.  Now for my story.

April - After a very long drive, I choose to do some maintence.
Oil, filter, air filter, fluids, and distributor cap.

Shortly after, I noticed a bit of a hesitation.  The small amount of sputtering occured when the engine was under load (i.e. going up hill) and when it was around 2000 - 3000 rpms.  I blamed the very old spark plug wires.

May time frame - Spark plug wires and rotor inside distributor replaced.

The car ran better.  But only when I was not in the rpm range of 2000 - 3000 and under a load.  I did some research, namely here, and started hunting down the other pieces of the puzzle.  People blamed the ICM (or ignitor, as honda calls it), I replaced it, but it made no difference.  I purchased a new coil and a new wire from the coil to distributor (it was missing from my new plug wire kit), niether fixed the problem.  I removed the EGR valve and EGR plate thing (you know what I mean if you took it off), cleaned everything and reinstalled, no fix.  I did the Main Relay fix that seems to be very popular on the internet, (although I knew I had good fuel pressure from using a pressure gauge, which also means I had a good fuel filter, which also meant I had a good pressure regulator, which also meant I had a good fuel pump), still no fix.  I was lead to believe that it could be bad injectors, that they could have been clogged.  Almost impossible I say.  The hole where the fuel comes out is much larger than you would think, and the injectors have thier little filter built into them.  Upon inspection, I couldn't tell if the little filters were clogged, or nearing a clogged state, so I just removed them.  I know removing a filter is not the best idea, so I'm not telling anyone to do this, but those filters are something to look at.  Reinstalled injectors, still no difference.  Now, through all of this, there was some problem with a sputter at a particular speed and rpm, but the check engine light never came on.  I was very frustrated to say the least.  While the problem was getting worse and worse, I was suprised when I went out one day and it just wouldn't start.  It would get fuel, but no spark.  When I pulled the plugs to let them dry off a bit, I noticed the plug was loose in it self.  That is, the white part of the plug could spin in the metal body of the plug.  I went out and purchased a new set of plugs.  Installed and cranked untill it started to sputter to life.  With use of the gas pedal and heavy, prolonged cranking, it started.  I made a round trip to town, where it was parked and turned off for an hour, and then restarted and drove home.  I thought I had the problem sloved, just really bad plugs.  The next day, no start.  It sat dead, for days.  I linked the fault to the TDC/CKP/CYP Sensor.  For those of you that don't know that that is, it's an all in one sensor located inside the distributor.  You can not purchase this thing ANYWHERE by it self.  The only way I found to get my hands on one was to purchase a new distributor.  Although I have already purchased a new rotor, cap and ICM, I was willing to buy a whole new distributor if it fixed the problem.  Ordered, got it in the mail, installed, NO START!  I read that a coolant sensor could be control the timing and retarding it to the point of a no start.  I went all over town to find all four, yup there is four.  Got four, installed four, NO START!  Again, even after all of this, there was no check engine light.  If I unplugged a sensor, MAP, O2 or anything else, it would throw the light and I double checked all the codes on the SCC (or SCS).  So, where was I?  A car that did not work, but the computer said everything was ok.  I have what I consider to be the best Honda Accord maunal and if you were to read really deep in the the few written words about the ECM (or brain, or computer) you would see that that tried to say that if nothing works and the computer says everything is fine, that it's probably the computer.  I didn't believe it.  The ground connection, this is crazy, for the ECM is located on the INTAKE MANIFOLD, on the drivers side next to some vaccuum lines.  I checked for continuity between the ECM and the ground point, it was good.  Check for continuity between Negetive battery terminal and ground point, it was good. ***  The last check was for less than 1.0v on one wire going to the ECM.  I found the wire and found nearly 2.0v.  The maunal said 1.0v was on the extreme high end, and if over, to replace the ECM.  I found a good deal on ebay and I had a used ECM on my doorstep in three days.  Reluctanly, I unplugged my old ECM and installed the new/used ECM and with just a half a crank the engine started!!!!!  

Well, that was over a month ago and there are no signs of that problem that was traced to the ECM.  I've read that a faulty voltage regulator could let a spike fry the computer, and then I've read that nothing in the ECM is so sensitive that a spike could damage it.  Anyways, I hope this was helpful to some of you.  Of course there was alot more that I did, and checked and searched and double checked, but this was pretty much the story.  Good luck with your Accords!  

I'm having trouble with my '92 Accord not wanting to start when it's cold. I had it into my mechanic for another problem and he had trouble with it too, and said that it was most likely the fuel injector sensor. Looking in the repair manual I could find nothing called "fuel injector sensor" but I'm wondering if he meant the "fuel injector resistor". If you have any ideas on this, I'd be interested to hear them.  

Hey Jim i had this problem all ready. Your right there is no fuel injector sensor but there is a fule injector resistor and to rule it out get a volt meter and unplug the resistor theres 5 pins total the top row has 3 the bottom row has 2. the offset pin on the top row is your power in and the other 4 pins are your resisted power out hook one end of your ohm meter to to the offset power in pin and test the other 4 pins to see if there all pushing out 6.0 ohms  6.0 is perfect but there can be a range between 5.0 and 7.0 as long as there in that range than your resistor is perfect. other options are to replace your o2' sensor on your exaust manifold, or getting a heated blanket to lay on the motor over night. hope this helps  

OK. Now on to my problem... I have  91 honda accord. Was running despite the water in the cylenders My head gasket was blown so I had to replace it. Once replaced and I put the motor back together the motor wouldnt start ( go figure ) The fuel pump is not kicking on at all. The injectors refuse to open when I turn the key and the coil gives me a spark once per crank no matter how long i hold on the key I only get that one spark. Unless I let off it and crank it again then I get the one spark The first thing brought to my attention was the main relay by my father. I checked the  main relay by the book "Working On The Bench" (Haynes repair Manual) I used a old battery for the tests. The test includes checking the 3 different relays within the main relay. All 3 "clicked" and switched each connection that they were supposed to. Oddly enough not in the car though.

So the relay checking out fine i thought fuel pump (before I knew about the injectors and coil not working). So i did what any other honda tech would *** I riped out the whole back seat to get to 2 wires By the way personal note the book tells you to rip out the back seat to get to the fuel pump access hole. BUT you can get to it through the trunk! (hope this helps some...) So now I have my wires exposed and the first thing I do is hook a hot wire off the battery to the solid yellow wire to the fuel pump.

It (the fuel pump) kicked right on. So the next step was to ensure a good ground to the fuel pump. Well I only hooked up a hot wire and it worked.... You do the math. So with ground working and pump working what next...


 Back to the fuse panel all fuses under the hood were good and same with the ones under the dash on the drivers side.
All grounds under the hood were tight. Using a set of jumper cables I grounded several different spots with the same results....

Then I thought ECU. But how could the ECU be fried when I removed the battery before even atempting any work at the start. Now I have the most advanced trouble shooting dash known to man I have a 12v light wired to the fuel pump that turns on and off with the fuel pump. im tracing the wires now for the planed 4 injector lights, the coil light the o2 sensor lights, etc...

Needless to say once the problem is solved I will not go wandering again if anything should happen in the future.

  All of that to say this. Im still where I started. No fuel pump power. No injector power. No coil power. But the fuel pump works when linked straight to the battery. Same with the coil/distributer/plug system and injectors work. by the way personal note again testing the coil with a ohm meter ... good idiea .... doing it with a 12 volt test battery ..... bad idiea. OUCH!!!!! Next time I will use a ohm meter to test it too lol!

Any idieas would be GREAT!!!  

Thanks for your help, w!  

Hi,

Yes, my honda accord 91 used to not start intermittently.  That was the relay that goes under the driver's steering wheel.  Once I did that it started without any problems from then on.

One thing I've had problems since about 1 month ago is that it gets hot.
I checked the fans and they're working.  I had the thermostat changed.  Also most of the hoses have been changed.

Don't know if my posting helps but I was also wondering if anybody knows and can share with me what else I could check on my car?
Thanks.

JP  

rick6483:
I have a 94 honda accord with the same problem of car not starting, though no one has described it in this particular way.  The car when turned to the on position none of the dashlights some on not even the clock, though there is power to the radio.  When you turn it over to crank it cranks just fine, with the all the lights in the dash lit up, and sounds like if you release the key it will be running, but it imediatly stops when key is released still no dash lights on.  If I pump the gas while cranking the RPM's go up, so I know its getting fuel and spark, which points me away from main relay and distributor.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Trying to fix this myself, cause mechanics are espensive, and daycare is even more expensive.

Well I figured it out and got it fixed.  It was the ignition switch, a little plastic part that fits in behind the key and that the wire harness conects to.  I would suggest getting a haynes manuel for directions on changing it, though I found that instead of drilling or chiseling out the headless screws use a dremmel to cut slots for a flathead screwdriver, and lube up the screws so they turn out easily, don't want to mess those up, then you can reuse them.  

Hi Folks.  First time poster here after google searching for help with 90 Accord EX Man Transmission.

My problem is nearly identical to many earlier posts.  Car started briefly last Tuesday...then died.  Won't do anything but crank.

It appears that gas is not the problem.  I can hear the pump initiate, the check engine lite comes on, then off.  And I can smell gas under the hood.

I pulled out the plugs, and they look normal.  

Pulled off the distributor cap, and it looks okay.  

The rotor is one that was replaced about 15K miles ago - it's the kind that looks like a flying saucer, instead of a traditional rotor.  I pulled it off...and it looks okay (just a few scorch marks on the tip).

I followed the Haynes procedure for checking the coil...and resistance values were on the money.

So now it looks like the ignitor.  I get battery voltage from the first check (center terminal), but not the second (right terminal).  I do get correct resistance from right terminal to offset terminal.  But that bugger looks like it will be a chore to pull and replace...with two small set screws on the underside.

Anybody have a tip or trick to doing the procedure?

Thanks - Bill in Milton, FL