Engine dies while running...

[HondaFan81]

I have a friend with a 91 Accord LX, 5 speed. He has like 254K miles on it.

He claims the car will start fine, but the problem lies when he's driving and the car suddenly putters than just dies. It actually dies only when the car is being driven.

He had it sitting in his driveway for long time because of this prob. He had battery disconnecting all this time. We put the battery back in & I let him use my spare PT3 ECU for another LX. He was thinking it might be the ECU, this is why.

Anyhow, it would not start...battery went dead from sitting, so we used mine and it took a good 4 times before it started over. It ran fine after it started, but he's going to run it for a week to see if prob persists. Then, we'll know it's not ECU if it happens again...it might be ignition system related because he IS getting fuel, and when it took 4 tries to start...it'd crank over real nice but the engine would not take over after that.

what u all think?

[HondaFan81]

anyone have any suggestion at what may cause this?

[cokinut]

same thing happened to me, man. On 4 separate occassions, my cb7 died while running. I was driving normally (25% throttle, around 3K rpm shifts) and the car would just die. I believe my electronics still worked (radio, lights, clock, interior lights, etc.). Got it towed all 4 times. On the 4th time (3 times of failure), my uncle figured out it was a fried starter. We replaced the distributor, starter, and all of those "starting" components and my car has started fine ever since and has not died on me yet. (knock on wood).

[HondaFan81]

how would the starter affect a "running" engine? It's used only on start-up...

also, what in the distributor system did you replace exactly? (ie. dist cap & rotor, ignition coil, etc)

[theone]

check out the haynes manual troubleshooting section, might have one of the reasons in there.

[h22sparkle]

check for fuel and spark. Like the sparkplugs, fuelpump main relay. little stuff liek that . Some say it can be the alternator, battery,or worse that damn ignitor in the distributor

[HenRoc]

My suggestion is you check that little ECU on the left fender of the car in the engine bay because thats what runs the motor I've had that happen to me but thats because the clip that holds it in place broke. so every time it comes loose the car dies and basically it takes awhile to start to car back up because the motor gets choked..so try and replace that i just hope it works. good luck man