93 CIVIC EX ABS LIGHT STAYING ON...

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It's telling you there's a wheel sensor not checking in. Clean the tone rings of grease and dirt, using a scrubber brush or a small brass toothbrush.

'Curly'

why don't you read the code?

Nah. Isn't replacing the entire system one part at a time more fun?

for him, sure, but for the rest of us, it's a waste of freakin' bandwidth.

The auto newsgroups need a FAQ like the sci.electronics.repair FAQ.

I've seen so many so amateur mechanics who are so clueless about troubleshooting procedure that it isn't funny. For example, I once had a room-mate who's car had died and he was walking to/from work for a week. He had a friend over who was in the process of ripping the dash apart and I asked him what he'd checked so far. He was starting at the ignition switch. I joked that he should check if there was air in the tires, and f*ck me drunk, he was about to follow my advice.

I took over and started right at the ignition system. Pulled a wire, had him crank the engine and there was a nice fat spark. Next: fuel system. Asked if there was gas in the car. They didn't know, the fuel guage was broken. I pulled the gas cap and rocked the car and didn't hear any splashing. The car had run out of gas right at the moment it was parked and couldn't start again.

People need to learn some trouble shooting skills before they start asking questions like "my car won't start; what part should I replace?"

I've been guilty of the same thing. I had an acura integra that wouldn't start. No spark. Checked the coil and it measured good. Replaced the ignitor. Still no spark. Was about to replace the output transister of the ECU, but was so impressed with its internal aerospace quality, that I decided to keep looking elsewhere. Put the ECU->ignitor signal on an osciloscope and saw a pulse. Replaced the coil that had measured good. Fixed the problem and only wasted $90 which was more than a mechanic would have charged to diagnose and repair it in the first place.

the ones that piss me off are the ones that /try/ to fix things, foul something up, frequently unrelated to the first, /then/ want it fixed while all the time insisting that they didn't touch anything.

moral of the story: don't trust a single word people tell you on diagnostics - always do it yourself.

any [honda] manual relying on a simple resistance test of a coil is wasting a whole bunch of peoples time and money. modern potted coils frequently pass the resistance test ok, but flash over internally and are consequently useless. the only reliable test is to manually trigger the igniter unit and see if the coil sparks a test plug.

I never thought of that. I think I was afraid of frying the ignitor with a too long pulse or too high a voltage pulse as would be the case if you touched it with a wire to 12V. Also, I didn't mention it earlier, but the ECU threw no codes. The output was clearly open loop.

i've not been able to fry an igniter testing like this. great way of testing both in fact. only if you get a "fail" do you have to differentiate between them.

Besides, if it is a part that is going to be replaced anyway, (as was the case for me), there's no harm in potentially frying it