my friend has a 1997 accord 2.2, he recently got into an accident where the front tire smashed into his front passenger side door, pretty hefty damage, door wont even open, aside that, he tries to start it but it wont turn over. engine cranks, belts move, it doesnt sound hesitant, but again doesnt turn over. Googled a lot trying to find answers and apparently they say honda has a thing where when a car gets into an accident it cuts off fuel to prevent fires and what not.

where do i begin??

 

Well, as you describe the engine turns over it is just not starting. Did the air bags deploy during the accident? You can loosen the service bolt on the fuel rail and crank it over and see if there is fuel, or simply turn the key to the on position and listen for a slight hum or buzz sound coming from the trunk area. It only lasts for 2 seconds and then shuts off. If you don't hear it the first time turn the key off and then back to the on position and listen again. If you hear it then the fuel pump is engaging. Note - don't start the car when doing this, just turn it to the on position so all the lights come on. Assuming it is not fuel related the next thing you have to do is figure out if there is spark, and if so is it a weak spark. Note that the interior fuse and relay panel is on the drivers side so it may be that a relay or fuse was damaged during the accident.

 

it did not deploy thanks for the quick response, ill try your troubleshoot thanks turtlehead. Odd if the fuse or relay could be damaged if the impact was from the passenger and not driver if the panel is on the driver though.

 

Sorry, miss read your post regarding the impact side. Either way the way to start diagnosing the problem is still the same. Keep us posted as we are all hear to help. Welcome to the HAF site!

 

Thanks again! There's definitely fuel so pump is engaging, just no spark, the fuses and relay should be good, meter says there's power, looks like the issue lies somewhere between the distributor and the igniter

 

You can test the tach signal to see if the ignitor is bad, or if you have access to another car you can swap the ignitor from inside its distributor to yours and see if it starts. The ignitor ranks up there as the culprit, but you should figure it out before throwing parts at it.

 

Thanks a bunch, we tested igniter and it works, so what ever is after the distributor is not working. We decided to go ahead and try out the new distributor, but still same issue.

 

How did you test the ignitor?

If you took out the ignitor & had it tested (by itself), then you didn't rule out a problem "upstream" of there. Like the signal wire from the ECU that tells the ignitor to fire the coil.