1987 Honda Accord LXI Engine Stopping

TeGGeR's faq site will certainly help you - the section you want is

. It really sounds like the infamous "main relay" problem. See what you think. Mike

Thanks for your response and the link. I will definitely check it as it appears to address the issues I am having with the car.

After reading through the symptons below, it appears that I am better off replacing both ignition switch and igniter. I think I observed all the symptons of a failing igniter listed below with the exception of the car not restarting after the engine cuts out. My car starts immediately which is a sympton of a failing ignition switch. Is it normal for these two components to go bad at the same time?

Ignition Switch:

Worn-out ignition contacts could cause the engine to stall without warning. Although the engine will restart in most cases, a vehicle that stalls while driving increases the risk of a crash.

Igniter:

A bad igniter usually gives some lots of warning with bizarre symptoms. Most commonly, the car will buck for a split second, like the engine has just missed. At the same time, the tach will fall to zero. The tach falling to zero as the engine loses power will definitively confirm that the igniter is going south, so watch carefully if your car seems to momentarily lose power. In most cases of igniter failure, the Check Engine light does not come on with a Code 15, which is Honda's code for igniter problems.

You may eventually experience shuddering just before the car dies for good. Usually the car simply dies outright with little warning, and refuses to restart, even once it cools down. There have been reports of the car restarting once cool, so the igniter can be confused with a bad Main Relay or coil. Observing symptoms is critical to diagnosis, especially with regard to the tach.

One other thing to look at if all of the rest below fails is the fuel filter: it and the fuel pump are inside the tank (I dunno if the fuel injected version has secondary pump or filter elsewhere), and if rust and crud got into the tank from the holed filler pipe, it could be clogging the filter, which would cause an injected engine to die pretty readily. Once the engine stops and the fuel pump shuts down, of course, the crud would drop off, letting you run normally until it pulls enough crud onto the filter to kill it again.

But again, that's something to check IF the ignition switch and igniter prove not to be the problem...

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for your added advice. I will try this first as the fuel filter(s) are a lot cheaper than the igniter and ignition switch. In my earlier post, I mentioned that I added fuel injection cleaner (when the fuel gage was half full). For the next 3 days, the engine did not cutout. When I filled the tank with new fuel and did not add fuel injection cleaner, the problem was back. If the fuel filter(s) are not the issue, then I will next change the igniter and ignition switch.

Matt I> One other thing to look at if all of the rest below fails is the fuel

If the relieve valve on the cap is blocked then you might loose fuel pressure and stall. If that's the case you might see a warped gas tank.

If it's the ignition switch then your dash light will go dark when it stalls. I doub't it's the igniter. My NEC igniter is over 280k miles.