driving, car died, now won't start...

DC_T · Post by **DC_T** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 5:09 pm

Hey guys. My brother has a 99 civic si w/ the stock b16. he was driving home the other night from work in traffic, going about 25mph and put the car in neutral, and it died. he coasted over to the shoulder and tried to start it back up, and now it wont start. it cranks, but it won't fire.

we thought at first, spark or fuel. so we first checked to make sure the fuel pump sounded like it was coming on, which it does when the key is turned. so we replaced the fuel filter, and while we had the line off went ahead and turned the key onto to acc, and fuel shot out. so it seems like the pump is working fine and fuel is at least making it to the filter. we also tried just spraying some carb cleaner into the intake manifold, figuring that if we were getting spark and for some reason no fuel, that would at least ignite and run for a second, but nothing. after that, we switched out his distributor w/ the one from my car (ls/vtec, b16 head), still nothing.

so now we are kinda stuck. anybody had a problem like this before? main relay the next thing to check? i'm searching all over the web, just thought maybe one of you guys may have had a similair problem and could offer some suggestions.

thanks

Spork · Post by **Spork** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 5:18 pm

main relay is easy... i would have checked that first.
does the relay click? once, or several times?

DC_T · Post by **DC_T** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 5:26 pm

Spork;120749 wrote:main relay is easy... i would have checked that first.
does the relay click? once, or several times?

i'm not sure i know exactly what the main relay sounds like. is that the "click" after the fuel pump primes? if it is, then yeah, it clicks once, not several times.

he was also telling me his timing belt seemed loose to him. i'm going to look at that tonight, maybe it jumped a tooth or something.

Spork · Post by **Spork** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 5:27 pm

yeah... that would do it too

halogen_17 · Post by **halogen_17** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:37 pm

would one tooth make it not start though?(good english i know) wouldnt it at least stumble and run erratic?

HardCore97 · Post by **HardCore97** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:00 pm

maybe not. when my timing had to be fixed when i first got my engine it didnt have enough compression to let it run. mine was off more than just one tooth though

Gunmetal Si · Post by **Gunmetal Si** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:10 pm

call me

Phate · Post by **Phate** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:18 pm

Same thing happened to me, but my timing belt straight up snapped. Did you look at that yet?

DC_T · Post by **DC_T** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:57 am

thanks guys. the timing belt didn't snap. and yeah, i had problems with my friends si, we changed the timing belt, and thought we checked the timing, but it was off one and was just cranking and wouldn't fire.

didn't have a chance to mess with it tonight, but hopefully tomorrow or this weekend we'll get to it.

going to check to make sure spark is there (plug to ground), then onto the timing belt and main relay i guess.

SnailFed · Post by **SnailFed** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:12 am

I had the same problem with my car before. I tried everything that you have already and finally figured out that my spark plug wires went bad. I bought a new set and it fired up and has worked ever since... weird shit!