My daughter's accord just died as she was going down the road. The battery is fine as the starter will crank the engine over easily. I can hear the fuel pump relay under the dash and the faint hum of the fuel pump. I took a spark plug wire off a plug and put it on an extra one and grounded it and there is no spark. I know there are some issues with the ignition switch and with the spark system itself on the '93 Accords. which is more likely and how can I test to see which one it is. By the way all the dash lights work fine, and the cel comes on for a few seconds and then goes off like it is supposed to. I'm hoping to get it fixed today.

 

I suspect it's the main relay, which is under the driver's side dash. It's $55 at Autozone and you can replace it yourself (there are youtube videos for specifics). I have had the same problem intermittently over the past couple of years. I replaced everything: ignition, distributor, battery, fuel pump/wires/filter, tune-up - you name it.

Most recently Pep Boys told me it was the fuel pump and it would cost $600. I took my car back, ordered a $30 main relay from eBay (which did not work). I then soldered my own old relay and my car works perfect now.

 

The tricky thing about the fuel pump hum is that it could be intermittent in other words when you hear it, it's irrelevant because the relay is working. It's when you're having the problem that you need to check for hum and even then the problem might have disappeared until next time.

You mentioned no spark and I don't think that has anything to do with fuel which to me rules out the main relay. Sudden car shutting off sounds more like the distributor or the ignitor inside of it. I had to deal with this on a '95 and it was a nerve-wracking issue when my car shut off in the middle of the street.

For me the issue was hard to reproduce until it actually happened. You can either test the distributor and its internal ignitor now or you could tell your daughter that when she's driving next time and this happens, carefully note the symptoms and compare it to the link below. For example: When the car shuts off is the check engine light on? Is the dashboard lit up or does the whole dashboard go out? Can she crank the engine but it won't start? Does it start later when it "cools off"?

Alternatively a CEL may have come on during the first incident and the code will have been stored even though CEL is no longer on. Find the service connector, jump it and see if any codes pop up. In my case we had code 15 which was ignition output signal.

READ: Igniter failures
To pull codes:

 

The car sat overnight in about 30 degree temps, still no start. I checked at the coil and no spark there. I did the blinking test light test before the coil and it didn't blink, so I'm leaning toward the ignitor. I think I will check for blink at the fuel injectors for one more piece of info. Thanks for the responses.

 

Pull the codes if you haven't already. It's dead easy, free and points you in a direction at least. You don't even need a tool, just bend an unpainted paper clip and put that in to jump the two contacts on the connector.

 

if no spark at coil, check for voltage at coil. If voltage present check impedance of coil. If no voltage to the coil is present, check ignition circuit.
Before tearing apart your distributor check for voltage to the distributor, if absent with key on 2, check ignition circiut. If present, crank car with the dizzy cap off with a screwdriver where a point would be and look for arc. If no arc and coil tested good, your problem is the ignitor.