Car died and won't start

[Jay eS Iye]

so I was driving in uniform to go to a saber arch wedding proposal that I was part of, came to a stop sign, and my car died. I looked at the gas gauge and it was pretty damn low so i figured i ran out of gas. so i pushed my car to a little clearing (in uniform none the less) and ran to the proposal. came back, it got towed, so i went, got a gas can and went to the lot it was towed to. i fill it up with a gallon of fuel, and tried starting it. well i had left my lights on so the battery died. hooked up some jump cables and it was getting plenty of juice, but it wouldn't fire. sometimes it would crank quickly and i would hear some popping come from the exhaust, not a whole lot but it would happen every couple seconds or so. so now i'm confused.

i think my main relay has been going bad b/c every once in a while it won't start and i'll have to turn the key and let it crank for a while, stop, and repeat until it starts. could the relay just totally give out and cause the car to die or what? any help would be great as i need my car alot this week

[Cjz89civic]

I had this same problem check your timing belt. Mine slipped and I got the same result. If you see that you get spark, hear the fuel pump, its going to probably your timing belt slipped.

[amy@af]

it could possibly be your main relay or your timing belt.

you need to figure out: do it have spark? is it getting fuel? and of course air, lol.

turn the car on and listen for the fuel pump. next check the timing belt. to check for spark you pull a spark plug and ground it to something (like valve cover) and have somebody crank the car, look for spark. now when i last did that & i got no spark, we replaced the coil and ignitor and it was good to go. the ignitor was bad. the same thing you describe happened to our friend the other night. he was driving fine and dandy and the car cut out on him. we found no spark but it wasn't his coil or ignitor. he's going after the main relay now.

have you checked your ecu for error codes?

[Jay eS Iye]

no i'm gonna go back out to that tow lot later today or tomorrow and check the belt, spark, and the ecu for codes... anything else?

oh and i believe i heard the fuel pump when i turned the key to on

[JimCRX]

Its not good to run outta gas cause theres probly some shit gunk the you might have suck threw the fuel pump possibly. Disconnect the fuel line i think it is that is running from your fuel pump and have put the end in a cup and have someone crank the car. Gas should flow out of it. Also, how old is the cap? Most of the time its the Dizzy. If you had it on there for a long time I'd go eBay and buy a new one for $200. Besides that if none of that worked, then I would deff. check the timing belt and everything. Check the Alternator too, compress start it if you can. Have someone push it down a hill and put it in 2nd gear and pop the clutch and then give it gas if it starts. It should start, but if not then I'd go with the dizzy. You can also check the alt with a multimeter.

[JimCRX]

*Disconnect the fuel line comming from your fuel rail i think it is......

[91civichatch2571]

Take off your distributor cap. You may have blown the ignitor. Its happened to me 3 times. Another possibility is that your rotor came loose and wrecked the cap. So just take it off and see if anything looks abnormal internally. That and your timing belt seem like the most likely causes.

[Hilikus Funkin]

im having this problem in hot weather after my car has been closed up all day. Its happened the past 2 days after school when i go out and try to start my car. Embarrassing as shit. It takes like 10 minutes every day before itll start while me and my friend bang around under the hood trying to find the problem, and then it all of a sudden turns on at random. The guy at honda said its just the main relay is bad and it getting hot is making it worse bc the soder expands. Im prolly gonna go get a relay saturday or tomorrow if i can.

[Jay eS Iye]

found the problem... twice

went out, checked the timing belt, it was good. took off the distributor cap and a screw fell out. turned out its the rotor scrwe, don't know how or why it came off tho. so i put it back on, turned out it was 180 degrees off, so instead of dealin with turnin the engine over enough to get it right, i just turned the wires around, works like a breeze.

went well for a couple days, then the car died again. took off the cap again, no screw at all, dunno where it was, i'm guessing it fell out when i took the cap off. so i went, got another rotor and screw and added a bit of lock-tight. so i'm hopin its gonna be good from now on.

[amy@af]

well i'm glad to hear it wasn't some major! good luck with the new rotor and lock-tite