Jumping tach, dies at random.....please help

[93exsedan]

Okay, before you say to search, I already did. Kept leading me to a dead end though without the answer I was looking for.....lol....with that being said, here is what is going on....... Just recently, the car will take a long time to start the first time during the day, then randomly die driving down the road and I noticed that the tach is jumping around too. Engine rpms don't change, just the gauge acting weird. Now I've been searching and seeing people saying that the ignitor goes out and causes both of these issues. Am I on the right track? Can you even buy just the ignitor or do you have to buy a whole distributor? Seems like nobody carries just the ignitor. OR, could this be an ignition coil problem....btw, the car is a 92, so it's external coil. Help me out guys, I know that someone on here knows what its doing.......thanks in advance guys. Oh yeah, and after it dies while driving down the road, it will take 4 or 5 times turning it over to get it to start back up....pretty dangerous (and embarassing).

[F22HB]

Search re soldering the main relay. Do that.
Also, you can buy a brand new ignitor from napa, or online at majestic honda.

[93exsedan]

Search re soldering the main relay. Do that.
Also, you can buy a brand new ignitor from napa, or online at majestic honda.

Okay, I'll check the main relay and if thats good then I'll go get a new ignitor from napa. I was wondering who carried it....I called around a little today and nobody could even order it. I'll probably go to the junkyard sunday and just get a main relay and ignitor for like 10 bucks. See if that fixes it.

[Mitch]

I would get both of those new but thats just me.

[93exsedan]

Just got the icm and tried to put it in and unfortunately all the philips head screws inside my distributor are stripped. Vice Grips?

[HondaFan81]

Could be the igniter unit or ignition coil. More often I have found the problem the ignition coil. Yes, they do sell both parts separately at any Murray's or Advance Auto. I would try the ignition coil first, if that doesn't fix, clean it up and return. Tell them you didn't need it and need the igniter unit instead.

[HondaFan81]

If you come down to replacing your igniter unit, make sure to bring the OLD one with you to the store. There are 2 different types, diff screw hole patterns.

[chessboxer]

If it ends up not being the igniter, it could be one of your trigger/crank sensors going bad.

WHen one goes bad and gives and inconsistent reading, the engine does not know exactly where it is in its cycle, rpm's will jump, and since the engine does not know where it actually is in the cycle, will lose ignition as well as fuel output.

It might just be the igniter however, and you would need to scope the output of your ckp sensor to see if that was the culprit.

[Racer_XXX]

i had the same problem with my ride. turned out to be the icm

[djtomy]

same problem too My tach sticks when it's down at 0. I just smack the side of the cluster and it pops back up!

[JONESER]

My 91 wagon did the same thing... It was the main relay.

[93exsedan]

Just got the icm and tried to put it in and unfortunately all the philips head screws inside my distributor are stripped. Vice Grips? New Distributor?

[d112crzy]

small set of vise grips will do the trick. Needle nose ones.

[93exsedan]

small set of vise grips will do the trick. Needle nose ones.

Thanks man. Gonna try that.