I hate to admit this, but I don't think in the two years or so that I've had this car that I've ever checked the timing.
I was looking at the procedure and saw that you have to jump a connection to check timing. I have no idea where this connector is located.

I plan on checking it this weekend. And I will replace the cap, rotor and wires, just because they are old.
The vacume lines look good, with no obvious defects, I will double check them also.
My chilton's gives no direction on where to check the vacume or what the values should be, I have a vacume guageand would like to see what is happening there.

Just thought of something else. In feb. the muffler fell off from just behind the catalitic converter. Midas welded a new pipe onto the converter, and fabricated everything back.
It was after this that the car started to run bad.
This is my wife's car and I seldom drive it, so I have no idea how soon after the new muffler and pipe it started to act up.
Because it was intermittent at first, and I did find some water in the gas I had not considered this. The converter looks to be original. and I could see how it would be possible to get a blockage there, I will check exhaust outflow and see if it changes in fail mode.

only other majorwork done on the car was an alternator
replacement over a year ago. I let the shop do this because it was winter, with no garage, and the hold down bolts were impossible to loosen. I'll put it on ramps and check theback side of the engine

I also plan on cleaning all the electrical connectors, and grounds in the engine compartment.

And I will post what I find when we get an answer.
I have read countless post that looked promising,
only to find that the poster never tells what the cure was.

 

So I cleaned a bunch of connections, and ran some more sea foam through it. I was waiting for a buddy to bring his timing light by, and the car was running real good.
So I thought I would take it for a test. It ran good, and I needed a pack of cigs, so I took it to the corner store. Shut it off, then restarted, no problem. On the way home it just died at 40 mph, no restart this time, no running at idle, just dead.

Had it towed home, again, Pull a plug and check for spark,
great spark. Check the valve train, through the oil cap, everything moving.
I would check the timing, but now the engine will not run.
I sprayed ether in the intake, not even a burp. Check the fuel pressure and reads in the lower 40's when the ignition is turned on.

This is odd, shooting ether into the engine, with spark, should give at least a combustion event now and then.

unless I stripped a timing belt, bent the valves, andjust getting the random spark. Been there done that.

well tomorrow is a new day.

 

Yeah, definitely check for a slipped timing belt. If the belt is fine, check compression in the cylinders.

 

Checked the timing belt, looks new, no oil, no crud.
The timing marks all line up, and it sparks.
So I have spark, and fuel. Cleaned all the grounds that I could find. Tried a shot of ether, again. not even a sputter.

I am lost on this one.

 

Compression test the cylinders:

https://www.hondacivicforum.com/m_386770/tm.htm

 

This started as a stalling problem, but is now a no start also.
I have fuel, and spark, The only thing not known is air.
So I pulled the air chamber off the top of the throttle body, put my hand over it and crank the engine. good suction through the engine. so the exhaust is not blocked. While doing this I noticed that when the engine is cranking the secondary injector,is shooting a lot of fuel into the engine.

So I go to off, turn the car to on, the fuel pump runs for two seconds, in these seconds the primary is shooting fuel into the intake. makes sense, this is the starting fuel. What happens next? To me, logic would say that the fuel pump,having delivered a starting charge of fuel, would stay off until the car started, and went to the run position. And if not the fuel pump, at least the signal to the injectors. We have our starting fuel, we don't need more.

When I go to start, and crank the engine, fuel is pouring out of both the primary and secondary injectors. The plugs are dripping with fuel. Something is telling the engine that it needs a lot of fuel, when it does not. The fuel pressure regulatorseems to check out.

Has anyone seen an ECU failure, or another componentthat resulted in a severly rich condition?

I am still not positive about how clear the exhaust is. It has 195,000 on the original catalitic converter, and I have heard that they will clog up. may try to blow air down the exhaust,just tosee. But both injectors blasting fuel into the engine while cranking seemsodd.

 

If the engine oil smells of gasoline, then the oil may be so thin that the cylinders can't achieve high enough compression. If you suspect this is a problem, then drain the oil and replace it.

Also, how did you check for spark? Have you checked for spark at all four plugs?

 

At this point I would agree with you RonJ,pull the oil plug, and the spark plugs, then squirt oil down the cylinders to get the oil back on the cylinder walls, to get compression back up.

But what strikes me as odd, is that the secondary injector is spraying fuel onto the secondary butterfly, while in the closed position. The secondary injector only sprays fuel when it is told that the engine needsmore fuel. On top of that, the primary is also spraying a lot of fuel when trying to start.

Something is telling this engine that it is running full bore, and needs all the gas it canget, when it is really just trying to start, and does not need that much gas.

 

With all that gas, you likely have a compression problem (flooded) - change the oil. But are you sure you have spark at all four plugs?

 

Besides the priming interval, the fuel pump runs whenever the engine is rotating. The ECU shuts off all drive to the injectors when no fuel is required (such as coasting down a hill in gear).

Unplug the injectors and look to confirm that NO fuel goes in while cranking. If it does the injector is stuck open. If fuel is only injected with the injectors connected, it could be your MAP sensor telling a lie to the ECU, causing it to inject too much fuel.

When flooded with gas like that, even ether won't burn.