Thanks for the various replies and comments about the troubles with my
poor little Honda. I've really hated driving around in a Triumph Spitfire
the last couple of months during an unusually dry and warm autumn. Now
that it is getting cold and snowy here in Utah, though, a car with a mostly
non-leaking roof would be nice.
Here's the current situation. I was at Pep Boys getting something else for
the van, and asked about an ignitor for the Honda. They had one on the shelf
at half the dealer price, I bought and installed it. So the car now sports
brand new:
Ignitor
Crank TDC sensor
Crank cylinder sensor
Ignition Coil
Fuel filter
Spark plug wires
The spark plugs themselves were brand new back in January when I had the
head redone. I pulled the valve cover off and checked, at top dead center
the distributor rotor is point to #1 cylinder, and the valves on #1 are
closed, the valves on #4 are "on the rock" as they say. The plug wires are
in the proper order. When cranking or sort of trying to start, a timing
light shows the ignition timing to be spot on. The fuel pump is delivering
the proper flow at the proper pressure, and with the stethescope one can
hear the injectors clicking.
Here's what happens now:
Try to start the car, it coughs and sputters and attempts to run at about
200 - 300 rpm according to the tach, will do so as long as you keep the
starter spinning. When the starter is turned off, what happens next depends
on the the throttle pedal. If my foot is off the gas pedal, the car will
wheeze once or twice and die. If the pedal is held to the floor when the
starter is disengaged, the car will wheeze along for about a dozen or so
puffs before dying. So the next step is to figure out why the difference
in behavior related to the gas pedal. This little car only has 140,000
miles on it, it is just getting broken in!
mjb.
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