Car died on me on the highway.

[ChillPhatCat]

I was just coming off of a 7 hour trip yesterday... about 3 miles from my exit the car started to sputter a little and about a mile out it just stopped keeping speed and I pulled it out of gear and the engine dropped to 0 RPM and it threw on the CEL. I pulled off to the side of the road and tried to start it again... cranked just fine, but wouldn't fire or give any sign of life.

After calling AAA and finding I hadn't renewed my card I arranged a ride from my dad... of course I tried it one more time at that point and it fired right up as if it hadn't wronged me in any way. So I cancelled the ride from my dad and drove home. I've been running this P12 ECU for about three weeks now and this is the longest trip I've taken since installing it... I can't figure it would be anything else to give these symptoms. My plan right now is to dig out the ECU and have it accessible should this reoccur and swap the ECU with the original PT3 and see if it fixes itself immediately.

Any other thoughts? I'm also thinking maybe a clogged fuel filter... but I can't see that killing the engine all of a suden and then clearing itself.

The car also has plenty of power and normally cruises very smoothly... there's no cat currently either, so it can't be a clogged cat.

[foamypirate]

Pull the CEL next time it dies. That will give you a clue. You can check it by shorting the blue connector under the passenger side kick panel with a paper clip or piece of wire, with the ignition turned to II (i.e. all the dash lights come on).

[ExplodingCake]

I suspect ignition problems..

[ErwinM619]

i've had ignition problems before it happened when i was driving on the freeway i lost power while i was driving but the car stayed on then i turned it off and it wouldn't start no more...i called AAA they tow my car back to my house then i replaced the distributor assy. and that fixed my problem

[h22sparkle]

bad distributor or bad coil no good kimosabe

[accordztech]

intermittent coil....maybe bad ignition swithc, but if it was that it wouldnt throw a cel.

check your battery terminals too for ugly corrosion just for the heck of it.

[ChillPhatCat]

It only threw the cel because the engine died (like when you stall out engaging the clutch)... after I turned off the ignition and back on it was gone but it wouldn't start for 20 min.

The car is currently running fine. The ignition coil is new within the last 20k miles... I won't discount it but am skeptical that it would be bad. We'll see if it happens again... Like I said, I did replace the ECU and prior to that it had never happened. I will have the old computer on hand to do a swap to see if it fixes the problem should it happen again and if not I'll go from there. I'll check ignition and fuel pump at that point.

[accordztech]

id check the coil with a volt meter (resistance) just to be sure, it can be defective

but you said you wernt getting spark, are you sure?

the best way to tell and the most daring is wet your hand and the coil....have someone start the car and put ur finger on the rubber part of it...u dont feel it ur not getting spark lol....

i think that way will work.

[ChillPhatCat]

id check the coil with a volt meter (resistance) just to be sure, it can be defective

but you said you wernt getting spark, are you sure?

the best way to tell and the most daring is wet your hand and the coil....have someone start the car and put ur finger on the rubber part of it...u dont feel it ur not getting spark lol....

i think that way will work.

I'm only guessing on the spark... I didn't have any tools on hand or another person to test this stuff out. I'll definitely test the coil just to make sure it's still in spec. I'm just fearing it's some anomaly that will happen every 15k miles randomly and I'll never be able to figure it out.

[foamypirate]

I'm just fearing it's some anomaly that will happen every 15k miles randomly and I'll never be able to figure it out.

This has actually happened to me now that I think about it. A few months ago, I pulled over to look at another CB7 (5 speed! Instead of my automatic). Aftewards, I went back to my car, and it started up, stuttered and died. I had to crank it for about 10 minutes before it started. It has never done it again...

[CoPilot1]

that happened to my CD5 every so often. once every 3-5 months it wouldn't start. i could crank it 30 times and nothing, but if i left it alone for half an hour or so it would run fine. you couldn't even push start it(5spd). never did figure it out....

[NAiL05]

Ignitor wouldnt be a bad thing to check. Pull your distributor and look inside it. Make usre its dry.

[HondaFan81]

If the CEL came on, pull the code. I bet you haven't even tried to. It is a starting point.

[cp[mike]]

sounds ignition related, be it coil or ignitor... only way to go about it is to pull the CEL next time... otherwise youll just be guessing randomly seeing as how it works now.

[ChillPhatCat]

Thing died on me again... 200 feet from my front door on my way home from work. It's against the rules to work on cars in the parking lot (immediate eviction) so I had it towed to a shop... I can make up exuses all day why I'm not working on it myself , but I know these guys and they're very good with Hondas and not very expensive.

Swapping the old ecu back in did nothing to help the situation. I'll post up what the cause is when I find out.