Mike please change out that ignitor… Problem with your instance is that neither the coil nor the ignitor nor anything inside that distributor owe you anything by 190K… Ive seen them fail at 80K at 125K…and at 225K…you never know. This is why I carry a full known working distributor in my kit…
Most of my buddies would have swapped in a new distributor…and Id say that works 8-10 times…by doing this…you get a new ignitor, cap, rotor, hall sensors etc all in one $100 shot and the results are usually a running vehicle afterward.
But could it be the coil…sure…but those are pretty rock solid…but like anything, they fail too just not so often. The fact that you have the tell tale orange spark tells me the coil is trying… Makes me say IGNITOR because that is what the output of the coil will look like prior to being amplified by said Ignitor. The ignitor is like a Tazer…it amplifies the input of the coil…producing much higher volts and subsequently…that loud snap of a Blue White spark. Dont let it shock you when working properly! Its an electrifying experience I can assure you.
Ignitor is like 25 bucks and two phillips screws away my man. Might have trouble finding it on it own…most just opt for the new distributor at around $100 bucks… that eliminates a lot of things…leaving the coil as the remainder… Easy Peasy Japanesey…
I agree it’s the ignitor.
Way back when I had to replace the distributor in my '88 Accord LXi at ~170k mi.
Engine started to stumble occasionally.
I suspect the Honda ignitor uses 2 or more transistor switches in parallel to drive the coil.
When one of those fails open the remaining still work and make a spark, but increased resistance reduces current through the coil and makes the spark weak.
Got my HEI spark plug tester in. I do think Blackbird is probably right, and I should get an igniter, but let me just run this one result by you guys.
Putting the spark tester on one distributor terminal: 1 orange spark and that’s it. Car keeps cranking, but no more spark comes out.
Putting it on a second distributor terminal, I get regularly repeated orange spark as the car cranks.
I’ve been following this guy’s diagnositc tutorial. But he only lists diagnosis of results of spark or no spark. What I’m getting is 1 spark and then no spark. My inclination would be to just treat that as a no spark result. Thoughts?
At McParts the entire distributor is <$240 and includes the cap. rotor, crank sensor , ignitor and coil totalling $360. The ignitor alone is $130. Replacing the entire distributor always seemed worthwhiile .
Here is one example of how this system is put together. In my experience any spark at all orange or otherwise and the coil is good… when the igniter fails the spark is weak and orange…when its good…stand back.
a replacement distributor on ebay can be found as low as 60 bucks… Igniters by themselves around 25-30 bucks.
If I were you I would replace the entire distributor…You get everything you need except the coil including cap and rotor. I have probably only replaced a handful of coils per 100 vehicles…and each of those times there was no spark at all.
If the spark is orange i lean heavily toward ignitor…if it is intermittent…it can be the cap…or you are out of mechanical timing via t belt.
So much easier to help when onsite… Bet a new distributor does the trick… Good luck.
After checking and rechecking, I consistently get rapid blue-white spark on points 1 & 2 of the distributor, but very little or nothing on points 3 & 4. Trying to understand why this would be.
This is the first we have heard this…Prior to this it was a weak orange spark. Replace cap and rotor at that point…if you have strong blue spark…
The other item is the mechanical timing…the coil will not be told to fire at the correct times if this is out…you could be one or two teeth off in timing…
Yeah, after doing some more reading, it seems possible for individual distributor towers (what I called “points” above) to go bad. So that + oil leak…found a Misubishi (OEM) distributor on ebay for $80. Hopefully that’s my ticket to a working car!
Do you know how to check the engines mechanical timing ?
But hell you could do a lot worse than buying a replacement distributor… If you have blue strong spark on any wire…that is good… its the cap and rotor that must “distribute” this spark…so after you have the spark energy…it falls to the cap n rotor to get it to the wires n plugs
With the replacement distributor…you are getting everything except the coil in one shot… Hence why Honda people have one and a PGM/Fi relay in their road trip kit. The ones who dont get stranded do anyway.
For giggles take off the distributor cap…turn it upside down…look at the metal contacts where each wire comes out…from the inside of the cap. Clean off the crud and burnt metal coating on those contacts…do the same to the tip of the rotor…and then see whatchagots
I don’t know how to check timing without the engine running :D. I do know how to check for timing belt slip, and already have checked that.
I suspect now that it’s a bad distributor cap, but because of the oil leak, I won’t bother just switching out the cap.
I wonder if this has been the problem from the very beginning? I guess we’ll find out. Once I get a new distributor on there, I’ll see if the car runs fine with the old ECU installed.
Hey look at the bright side kiddo… You are learning valuable information that applies to many different vehicles. You arent at some shop being told we think its this…and then we think its that…or we thunk it was those… and are receiving a $1200 bill.
When in the end you very may have no issues after spending 80 bucks. Trust me when this runs properly you will do an Irish Jig and feel very empowered.
