plugs soaked, 1.5 vtech won't start

I have a Japanese 1.5 vtech engine, the 50K miles ones shipped from Japan to US, put in a non-vtech car, a 1993 Honda civic LX. The engine ran fine for about 30K miles. Then the engine would bog down, quit and wouldn't start unless you let it set for a while. Sometimes you could drive 5 miles before it would quit. Replaced pugs, plug wires, fuel pump, fuel filter, and charcoal vacuum canister. No codes are shown when read. Now the car won't even start. Compression and electrical are okay. Any ideas?

Post Note: A whole new distributor was put in about six months ago.

Did you check the Coil? I had an issue where coil tested fine when the car was turned off. But it cut out under load. It was pretty similar symptom.

As noted above, in a post note, I had a whole new distributor put in. Of course that doesn't mean that it might be defictive but the readings taken on it seem to indicate that it is working fine.

As noted above, in a post note, I had a whole new distributor put in. Of course that doesn't mean that it might be defictive but the readings taken on it seem to indicate that it is working fine.

Well, if you have spark, and fuel for sure(?), then you might want to check exhaust. Do you have a block somewhere? Is your cat okay?

Also, going back to the distributor, what kinds of reading did you take? Sure way of doing it is just pulling a spark plug wire at the sparkplug and stick a screw driver near it. Have someone crank the engine and see if you have the sparks flying. Yeah sometimes you get zapped, but it sure wakes you up :grinyes:

the thread says plugs are soaked. soaked with what?

Sorry for slow reply. My DSL has been down and Verizon, formally Bell Titantic, has been very user unfriendly in getting it resolved. Thus I'm relegated to dial-up. Ugh. Anywho, I had it taken to an automotive shop where they have all the latest gadets and spark, compression, timing, and etc all check out. But the mechanic doesn't think the car should have ran in the first place after putting the Vtech engine in. It did and ran fine until lately. I also checked the exhaust and there were some rocks loosely shoved into the tail pipe, lousey punk kid neighbors, and that didn't seem to remedy it either after pulling them out. Unless they shoved a whole bunch all the way into the down into the muffler, which means I would have to cut the brand new muffler off and shake it. But the odd thing is, the car does start and run sometimes, but it doesn't run very long, maybe about 5-15 minutes. When I come to a stop and let it idle for a few minutes or even turn off then restart, that is when the bogging down starts.

Considering you don't seem to have any engine problems, I say you check the muffler for rocks again. Damn punk kids!! Depending on the type of muffler you got, there can be spaces that rocks can lodge and create a block.

Or other thing to check is your catalytic converter. Here are two ways of checking the catalytic converter. Actually, they are both checking exhaust blockage.

1. You need a vacuum gauge. Hook it up to your intake and measure vacuum at idle. And once again check it at 1500 RPM. If there is a significant drop in pressure, then there is some sort of block in your exhaust.

2. Simpler way... Disconnect the oxygen sensor at the exhaust by the cat and unscrew it. Obviously you created an exit for exhaust gas. If the engine runs better, then you have a clog.

Catalytic converters have fine metal mesh inside that creates somewhat of a filter. Metal fibers that make up the mesh can expand once heated. And if it is clogged, then it can block the passage once expand. That can explain why the car shuts off once heated. Anyways, try the above method and see if it works.