My neighbors civic went down again and they couldn't tell me what happened before it didn't start. The car had no codes and strong crank. The first thing I did was test spark since I told them a couple months ago when i fixed it the first time the distributor was not going to last long. So of course it had no spark so I had them just buy a new one since the one they had it was in such bad shape. Got it in yesterday and installed still nothing but I noticed the shaft was bent on it so instead of them sending it back for a new one I just removed everything and transferred it into the old distributor body.

I installed it again and got spark all the way through but no start. Now I'm like what the heck. This is were I could of benefited from someone telling me what happened because now I'm stumped. I did know the engine was redone some time ago so maybe the timing jumped. So I turned the crank and sure enough the cam was off. The belt was not tight at all. So I slid the belt off the cam sprocket and put it were it should be, put the belt back on and adjusted the tension.

Three hrs of my like I won't get back. The car had to be running bad before it had a no start issue. This was the first time I diagnosed a no spark and jumped time for one problem.

 

Now you have me wondering if that could be the issue with my son's 98 Civic.Although the new belt doesn't have a lot of run time on it.

 

Could be. It only takes a few minutes to check it

 

Pulled the plugs yesterday, and ALL of them are black with carbon/fuel mix (like it was running rich). He's gonna get some today, and see if it makes a difference.

 

Ok. I would like to know what gets it started

 

So would we. Replaced the plugs, and no go. Checked the timing, and it's dead on. We will be double checking for spark, as I want to make sure we have some. Put a fuel pressure gauge on it, and we're at the low end of the specs (38 psi).
I think he's getting frustrated (pissed off with it) enough to get started on his K20 6 speed swap (at least start buying stuff for it instead). The way he was talking last night, he's going to push it out of my garage, so he can do some sand blasting, then roll it back in, and finishing his rust repair, so he can put that part of it back together, then set it aside, as he's got other projects he wants to do this year before fall classes start again and limit his free time. With almost all of the car shows and parades canceled this year, he thinks he'll get more stuff done rather than doing other stuff just to attend them.