Hi,
I'm having trouble starting up my 93 civic and don't want to have to pay a mechanic just to diagnose the problem, so I would really appreciate it if someone could help me figure this out.
So here's what happens. I turn the key and I hear it "turn over" but the engine doesnt fire up. When I have at least half a tank full of gas, it will start up and idle, but if not it will either fire up and suddenly die or just not start at all. The battery seems to be fine, and I just replaced the spark plug wires, distributor rotor, and distributor cap which temporarorly helped. Also I put "seafoam" in my gas tank in order to clean out the engine, but this didnt help either. What are the chances I should be buying new spark plug wires? My car is now at 90,000 miles. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jesse

hmmmmmmmmmm. Just to make sure that ur sprak plugs are getting spark, go out to autozone and pick up an inductive timing light. start the car and the light up to each plug wire one at a time to see if u are getting spark. u can return the timing light after u do this if u dont want to keep it. OR if u dont want to buy a timing light, u can just pull out one spark plug wire at a time and put the end of it close to a metal screw/bolt in the engine bay and crank the car. if u dont see any spark then u have a bad distributor/bad coil.
if u are getting spark, maybe u dont have compression in ur car. once again go down to autozone and pick up a engine compression tester. check the compression for each cylinder to make sure there all within specs of each other.
if that works out fine, then ur probably not getting enough fuel. this means that
1)fuel pump is not working properly
2)fuel filter is probably clogged up which results in u not getting fuel to the engine
i would change the fuel filter 1st and see what happens from there

thanks a lot I'll try these out and see if they fix my problem.

>>...don't want to have to pay a mechanic just to diagnose the problem

AutoZone will gladly do a free diagnostic test for you. I don't know where you live, but at least it's free here in Sacramento.