What color relay wire has a toggle switch wired to it?

 

I believe it is yellow/green.

I checked what it did and it turned off the fuel pump. Someone added a fuel pump kill switch. What's really great is that the owner of the car doesn't believe it is there and knows that the previous owner would never have added anything like that to the car. It is definitely added, not necessarily sloppily but there is evidence that it is far from factory.

The main relay was making a horrible sickly noise but after replacing it, there is no difference... I felt it with my hand and it was vibrating along with the noise.

I have pretty much given up on this at this point and need it out of my garage.

One more thing I noticed was that the maintenance light blinks while cranking. It may have been doing this all along but it has not caught my attention until now.

The darn junkyard didn't have the distributor. It would have been pretty cool if they did because the guy was going to let me bring it back if I was wrong.

Yes, I had considered the ECU as well but I have no way to diagnose that and do not want to be responsible for additional unneeded costs to this guy's wallet.

It seems like everything is happening correctly with the engine and spark and injection and compression and fuel and timing so I am really baffled by this one. I don't like losing to car problems. I might in this case. It will be interesting to see what the dealer says if I take it there tomorrow.

 

Sorry, missed this bit. It's 1342, isn't it? That is what it is on the car and the manual if I am not mistaken. Exact same configuration that came off of the old car.

But your comment makes sense really because it seems like something is out of time. It feels like that clearly but I cannot find anything off.

 

Just took old engine apart and see nothing major wrong with it besides expected cylinder scuffing at 220k miles.

Smaller cylinder ridge than I would have expected at that mileage too. Not like the old days of V8 chevy and ford when they were a horrible internal disaster at 150k.

Second job I've done recently on owner misdiagnosis. Both cost me a lot of time and lack of income during. I will have to review my policies regarding doing jobs without diagnosing myself.

I could have told him in 3 minutes that it didn't have a broken timing belt but he stopped me from doing so. In 10-15 minutes we could have had compression readings... But the engine was already there and he wanted me to put it in. Period...

 

Problem was completely plugged cat. Owner could have saved a lot of everyone's time if he had mentioned he recently was told the cat was going bad...

For the record, I figured out what 8 Honda techs could not in about 10 days.

The other problem was that the new engine had a bad injector. Swapped it with known good part and runs fine on all 4 cylinders.

STILL, there is an intermittent problem that I do not know how to diagnose. Essentially, (I believe) the main relay (which is new) is getting turned on and off rapidly sometimes. I drove the car for about 5 miles just fine and then it started dying and coming back on quickly.

The tach would drop and then come back up. At first it happened just a bit, more like a hiccup but then, presumably as some component got warmer, I had to push the pedal down quite a bit and rev it high just to make it idle. I made a video of it that I can post on youtube if I would help.

I clearly heard the main relay making noise when this occurred. Rapid clicking almost like buzzing because something seems to be turning it on and off fast and then right back to normal.

I let the car sit and was able to drive it just fine. I do not know for sure that it is temperature related because some of the time fully warm, it ran fine.

This must be related to the erratic tach and spark which sometimes was fine.

I know it is no guarantee that it is good, but the distributor is only several months old.

What could be responsible for making the main relay turn on/off quickly like that? Arcing ignition switch?????

 

I would disconnect the battery and clean all ends of both battery cables. Also look around the engine bay for grounds that could be loose or corroded.

The main relay clicking could be due to loss of power from the ignition switch or possibly the ECU not grounding it properly. Without throwing parts at it, you may be able to back-probe the 12V going to the main relay and see if you are getting a voltage drop when the car starts acting up.

 

I did do the battery cables already actually.

In searching for loose grounds I have not come up with any.

Disassembled the ignition switch and cleaned. There was old caked grease on the terminals but the rest seemed fine. Car has been idling for an hour now with no problem whatsoever...

Are there any specific grounds that are notorious by any chance?

 

G101 grounds a lot of components. I think that is on the firewall on the the driver's side of the car close to the windshield.

 

Here's a link to the video. Just seems too evenly timed for a ground but I cannot rule it out.

VID_20120215_120337.3gp - YouTube

 

The ground for the ECU is #16 in the pic.....on the end of the TB.