'89 Civic Won't Start After Sitting

Chris F. · 2009-06-14T23:12:34+00:00

After nearly 9 months of laboring on this restoration, the time finally came to see if the engine would still start. The car still isn't driveable yet - it's still sitting on blocks and the suspension isn't all together yet, but I thought hearing the engine roar to life again would give me a bit of much-needed inspiration to finish the remaining work. Wishful thinking. I turned the key and the engine cranked, but nothing else. I thought I heard it the engine kick over once but I'm not sure. The ECU was blinking an error code, so I consulted the service manual and it's troubleshooting flowcharts, which soon led me to the fuel injectors. The error code indicated an injector problem (code 16), so I checked both with an ohmeter and sure enough, one appears to be bad (measuring 8.3 instead of 1.5-2.5 as specified). But before I head to the local junkyard in search of a replacement, there are a couple things I'm curious to know. First of all, shouldn't the engine still start if at least one injector is working (especially with a 2-injector TBI system)? And second, is it possible for the injector to fail after sitting for a long period of time? I should note that before I began restoring this vehicle it was very hard to start, but I assumed that was caused by fuel pressure being lost via holes rusted through the lines. The lines are now repaired and fuel pressure is normal. I didn't try swapping the two injectors, I think I'll just replace the bad one first and see what happens. But I'd still like to have some answers to those other questions. Thanks for any advice.

Jun 14, 2009 41 Replies

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Tegger 17 years ago

"Chris F." wrote in news:4a528364$0$23748$ snipped-for-privacy@news.aliant.net:

Or you could have simply Googled "Honda main relay" or "Honda pgm-fi relay" and got lots and lots of information.

My own site has extensive information about this extremely common Honda problem.

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Chris F. 17 years ago

Yeah, seems like I always do everything the hard way. At least I know what to do if I encounter this problem again.

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