Please don't take me wrong and hate to make you feel bad, but you can get a used distributor for $20-$30 from pick a pull part place with $5-$6 core.

If you necessarily have to throw money, probably start with the cheapest option. Just my $.02

Wish I would knew it, because I was there on Saturday and have pulled one for you.

 

**UPDATE: I took my car to a THIRD mechanic and left it with them for a few days. They ran the normal diagnostics tests, checked for electrical wires grounding out, and they claimed that they couldn't pinpoint the problem, though their guess was either the ICM, or the ECM. They recommended I take it to a Honda dealership.

So I had a coworker pick me up this morning after I dropped my car off at the service center of the nearest service location, and I get a phone call from a rep telling me that they've concluded it's the alternator that's causing my car's RPMs to fall out intermittently, and causing my car to occasionally stall. They want $724 total for the fix.

This whole thing stinks of **** to me for many reasons. First, the price is outrageous, and they claim that they have warranty on their work, where if the problem persists after they replace my alternator, they will take it back in and work on it for free. This sounds like a bait and switch tactic to me. It sounds like they're trying to get me to pay for something outrageous, so that they can fix something small and claim it fixed the problem.

Also, my car is not exhibiting any of the normal signs of a faulty alternator. With the engine off, I can sit in my car and run my GPS, CD player, and charge my phone, and my battery has never had a weak charge. My car always starts up, and whenever the car DOES stall out on me, my CD player/lights/AC don't fade out on me.. Please give me some feedback, as I need this car fixed soon. I have a new job starting in a few weeks that's three states away.

**EDIT** I called back and spoke with one of the techs that actually worked with my car, and he said that whenever the RPM tachometer was going haywire that they were seeing voltage surges coming from the alternator reading 26+ volts, and whenever the tachometer returned to normal, it would resume sending a normal 12 volts. Doesn't sound normal to me.. They also said that their diagnostics tool was picking up a P1298 code dealing with the electric load distributor. I'm going to get the part for cheap on Advanced Auto, and then pay a local mechanic labor charges to put the alternator in. What do you guys think?

 

BUMP... please guys, any input really helps!

 

Only owned a honda for a few weeks, but i've replaced alternators on 96 accord. Its pretty straight foward, you could do it with minimal exp. And tools. A question posed, is voltage regulator located on alt., i think it is don't recall. At high rpm you could be getting voltage spike. Tach is sensitive and first visual sign of a problem. I would test alt. At local parts store, should be free. Some places can test volt regulator. Alternators, if i recall, are pretty expensive for this model, even rebuilt. Check installed cold, warm, or out of vehicle before bolting on new one if possible.

 

It does sound strange that the voltage from the alt is going to drive the tach crazy - usually when they over charge the lights will get much brighter but not impact the tach.....a few months back the VR in the 89 went south - lights got bright but tach acted normal.

In the audio section _ KHA has a write up on the ELD. Might want to read that.