a sensible answer or a hammer

[C_a_R_f_R_e_A_k]

I have a 1985 honda prelude, I rebuilt the carbs when I got it and it ran great other then the fact that the choke doesn't work below +5 degrees, the problem I'm having is that all of a sudden the car had no go under load, I was lucky to hit 30km in 10 min, after some quick testing I discovered the ignitor was bad, it had a tec on it and the ignitor was only $75 but I discovered that the magnet was cracked and I went on the hunt for a distributor now the only one I found was a hitachi distributor and picked it up for cheap just to discover that the module/pick-up was in it but no tower or magnet, and then I found another one without the module/pick-up so I swapped the module/pick-up and low and behold it doesn't start, now if I advance the distributor past the factory slides it starts but its almost pointing to number 3, so i advanced the wires one spot and even tried backing them on slot basicaly the engines firing order is 1-3-4-2 and what i did was use the #3 tower as #1 and tried using #2 as #1 in another test and it just acts like its out of time, now I checked everything and all the timing marks are dead on and the distributor is pointing to number one, the fuel pump has good flow and 3 psi pressure and theres spark and there is fuel getting to the engine, anyone have any other ideas????

[Greenblurr93]

did the timing belt jump teeth?

[450HP]

Are you sure that you don't have the dizzy 180* out?

Scott

[C_a_R_f_R_e_A_k]

the distributor only goes in one way and the timing belt has not jumped, I put the bottom end at complete TDC and the cam is dead on also the distributor points straight at number 1, there is 135psi compression straight across all 4 cylinders, I also checked to see if the cam slipped inside the gear and it hasn't

[slideways...]

135 seems low to me. but i could be wrong. anyways what is your manifold vacuum? and are you sure its an engine issue? if so, read your plugs.

wait a sec, you said you had a tec dizzy originally and put in a hitachi unit after? are you sure they have the same orientation? seems like maybe thats your problem...

[C_a_R_f_R_e_A_k]

The tec distributor and the hitatchi both have the same orientation, honda used either or in that year, 135 compression is remarkable to have in a car with 340000 kms on it and I can't read the intake vacum because its not running and I can't any vacum leaks, it tries to start but thats where it stops

[C_a_R_f_R_e_A_k]

I finaly fixed it, I found another hitatchi distributor out of an 85 accord. After I got it going I blew a fuse and the charge light never came on to tell me that the battery was dieing so there wasn't enough juice to crank the engine over and I ran over my foot when push starting it

[Greenblurr93]

glad you fixed it.