Ok so hopefully this doesn't get too lengthy, but I just finished working on my friend's civic. He has a hatch with an H22 swap that was just done with a wire tuck. Anyways when you would punch it to accelerate fast, it would sputter as it was picking up speed. He just got the car so we went by autozone and got some stuff that just needed to be done and while we were there I asked the guy about it sputtering and he said check the cap and rotor. So I changed the cap and rotor and also changed the plugs. I couldn't get to the screw on the rotor without pulling the whole distributor so I did that and put the distributor back on with a new rotor and cap and plug all the wires back in to the corresponding plugs and go to start it and nothing. The starter does try and turn it over, but it doesn't turn over. It sputters some like it is trying to start but nothing. I checked the spark on each of the boots and all four were sparking fine. Then we checked the fuse box and one of the diodes was blown but the fusebox legend said it corresponded to accessory so I figured that wasn't causing the problem. What seemed like a simple few minute job turned into all night of us plugging away at it with nothing. Anyways any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Well for one you can get the rotor screw outand swap that there should be an indented side where you can fit a screw driver but you might have to turn the motor till it gets there. the sputtering does sound like an ignition problem but any more info on that could help how was the idle? any check engine light ? You did plug the distributor back up to the ecu right? How about the timing? Fix the fuse problem as well.

 

Is it possible to install the distributor 180-degrees out of phase?

Another possibility is that you reinstalled the plug wires in the wrong order on the distributor cap and/or plugs.

Do you hear the fuel pump priming for a few seconds when you turn the ignition key to ON (II)?