'94 Accord LX engine stall

This happened now second time this year that during low load or idling the engine would just stop and would not restart unless I fully depress the gas pedal during ignition. After that the engine runs like nothing happened before. What could cause this?

Reply to
cameo
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It happened again yesterday, but this time the starter could not get the engine going no matter how I tried. So I had to get it towed to the nearby Honda dealer who can only start diagnosing it on Monday. I am already dreading what they will find and how much it will cost. I wonder if any of you had similar symptoms and what the diagnosis was.

Reply to
cameo

Well, even if nobody else responds to my thread here, I feel it's only fair that I also report the conclusion of my problem. The distributor and igniter was the cause of my problem according to the Honda diagnosis and the replacement costed me quite a bundle. I just don't understand why the stalls happened only when the car came to a virtual idle situation (no engine load.) In any case, at least it runs fine now.

Reply to
cameo

Hello cameo,

Glad to hear you got it fixed. Also, thanks for following up. At least I was reading it and wondering what was happening.

I had the infamous bad ignition switch problem. I'd be driving down the road and my engine would die. After a large amount of study on the internet I finally found that this was a known problem at 100,000 miles. I ordered the fixed switch and had it replaced by my mechanic. Of course he could not diagnose it himself because every time I brought it to him it was running. If you were trying to diagnose that problem it would be easy if you were suspecting the ignition switch. There are actually two switches there that turn on your Honda. The one with the ignition also does some other electrical stuff. You would notice that some of your electrical still worked. Easy, only if you knew what you were looking for.

Tom

Reply to
Tom

I had that problem before, too. I also had the other known problem, the main relay problem. Fortunately the ignition switch was replaced free of charge by Honda and I was able to replace the main relay myself. The car has now almost 300,030 miles, and this is the third distributor in it. Maybe because the second was an after-market model and did not last as long as the OEM model.

Reply to
cameo

I am wondering if I should try to find the main relay and replace myself before it gives me trouble.

Reply to
Tom

It depends of the model year, too. Fortunately the main relay also gives some early warning signs and you can wait for that.

Reply to
cameo

Thank you

Reply to
Tom

I forgot to mention that a frequent cause of ignition switch failure is that drivers have all their house keys attached to the ignition key and the weight of all those keys eventually causes misalignment of the switch contacts, especially if most of the driving is bumpy. So dont't attach other keys to your ignition key.

Reply to
cameo

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