1993 DelSol S, has issues trying to start...the symptoms are as follows:

Day 1: Car's starter turns engine , but engine doesn't fire. Hear fuel pump whirring when key is moved to first position.

day 2: car's starter turns engine, hear fuel pump whirring and engine starts fine.

day 3: car's starter turns engine, hear fuel pump whirring and engine DOES NOT start

day 4: car's starter turns engine, hear fuel pump whirring and engine starts fine.

day 5: car's starter turns engine, hear fuel pump whirring and engine DOES NOT start. Keep turning the engine over and over and over and finally after several attempts with engine sputtering, it fires, and starts fine after that.


Every time I have a friend nearby to start the engine while I have the spark tester on, it starts up fine.

I disconnected the fuel line from the fuel filter to fuel rail and turned ignition to first position to see if there was fuel being pumped and there was.

I'm at a lost now.

A year or two ago, we had to replaced the whole distributor, because the mechanic was too lazy to swap out just the internals.

So my thoughts are we either have a bad coil, bad control module in distributor, bad rotor in distributor, bad fuel pump, or bad fuel pressure regulator valve. I hate to replace each and every part to eventually find out it was the past part replaced that was the problem.


Any clues?

 

i have a del sol s too.......but when my rotor went it wouldn't start at all ...i would say jus start with the least expensive part and keep going till u find the part. go buy a coil if it does the same things jus put it back in the box and return it. are u getting spark or no

 

Absolute, when it starts I have spark. When it doesn't start I don't have a friend nearby to turn the car over while I have my spark tester connected...so not sure if I have spark or not.

These parts are SO much more expensive than my 69 Mach1....

a coil for 50-75 dollars...you have to be kidding me.

 

do the usual tune up stuff first or at least a tune up check. Starting off with fuel filter. Clean spark plugs, throttle body, and MAF(if equiped). If you do have a MAF, use CRC electrics parts cleaner spray. Don't use any brushes, just spray and let it do its job. Let drip dry. Remove all plugs and inspect. If they look good clean, regap, and reinstall. If it has been a while since they were replaced do so now. Although a fuel pump is intermittent when going bad, I would try everything else first. As far as spark goes, I would expect to get random missfires or a CEL light first, however not all the time. Try all that and see how it goes.

 

ok bought a new coil, tried it and it started and ran fine for the first day.

Today, tried it and it won't start, and has no spark at all.

I have never seen a rotor go bad, but hey you never know...I'll pick one up tonight on the way home.

I've ordered the ignitor online, would be nice if the rotor is the issue though.


Testing the original coil for correct OHMS as per manual I found it to be indeed off.

Testing voltage coming into the ignitor proved sucessful. No easy way to test that the ignitor is pulsing a voltage when trying to start the engine (distributor back to gether).

I will let you know the results of the rotor change.


Note: several early morning (prior to 7:am) tries before the coil replacement led to 4 minutes of turning the engine over before starting. Yet after getting started it started fine, but ran wierd, rpms would fluctuate up and down a bit, engine even conked out at traffic lights. After the coil replacement the surging was gone, and didn't conk out...but it ran like that for one day only.

man o man do I hate Honda engineering sometimes...if only classic cars got better gas mileage. :-)

 

haha your joking right?

 

Joking? not really. Every stinking part on these cars are more expensive than anything around save for maybe a Lamborghini.

A coil for 39.00 up to over 100.00?

Ignitor from 89 to over 150.00?

A remanf distributor from 156.00 to over 350.00 ?

A compressor for 340+

Oxygen Sensor over 100.00


Thankfuly these cars last and last...I sold one with 294K and am driving one with 240K, the car in question is young with 80K.

My 1969 Mach1, has over 100K too, is cheap to fix, but gets 10-12 mpg. :-(

 

im thinking its a cap and rotor.

 

Ok bought a new rotor.

BUT before I installed I tried starting the car....PERFECT.

so I didn't install the new rotor.


Tried starting it this morning, same damn thing, turns over with no spark.

What is it? Is there some kind of clock embeded that tells the engine to not start in the AM? IS there some kind of light sensing diode, telling the engine to not start when the sun is below the horizon?

I know this is silly, but that is how it is acting.

 

Ok it is now 1:00pm on Saturday, tried starting the Del-Sol just now....and guess what? It freaking starts just fine.

Comon folks what does this sound like? Doesn't start in Am, but starts in PM? Mind you this is southern florida...it is NOT COLD in the AM right now.


Help!!!!!!