1989 Civic Si 135k. Suddenly the engine does not pickup ignition. The start motor runs fine. There is some burning activity in the cylinder. I hear 'puffing' noise instead of crispy firing inside the cylinder. Took the car to firestone. They said a time-belt lost a few teeth and lags by ~ 3 timing. Replaced a timing belt. Didn't solve the problem. Now they say the distributor is the problem.

When they diagnosed the time-belt fault, they quoted $100 for diagnosis and $350 for replacing the belt. I asked for waiving $100. They said 'we spent 1.5hr to find the problem - cannot waive'. They said 95% change the new belt will fix the problem. With 5% chance, the valve on the cylinder can be an issue.

Question 1. If the timing belt has some lapse, but if the distributor is fine, do you expect sparks? I want to find out if Firestone's diagnosis was wrong and wrongly let me replace the timebelt.

 

When was the last time you had the belt replaced?

 

Checking if the belt has skipped or stripped is rather simple, take the top timing cover off and check the timing marks.

Now that there is a new belt on, a compression test will tell if there is valve damage. Really any time it's a bad timing belt you should do a leakdown test (a sort of compression test using compressed air so you don't have to crank the engine) to see if the valves are OK or if you're wasting your time replacing the belt.

Cranking the engine with the spark wires disconnected (for example, with the plugs removed for a compression test) is prone to blow the coil in the distributor. The primary power wire (2 wire plug to the distributor) should be disconnected first to prevent firing into an open circuit.

If the distributor rotates at all, it should fire sparks. If the engine is out of time though it will not start. The main relay is a problem part on these. If it's bad sparks will fire but there is no fuel so it won't start.

 

Bummmmmmmmp