'93 Civic VTEC-E skipping

[tim3058]

Well after many weeks of late nights in the garage the Civic has returned to normal service! My cousin and I spent an all-nighter in the garage Friday night (with mountain dew and pizza) trying to find electrical issues that would cause a skip. Earlier in the week we found a couple bare/melted/burnt wires in the distributor so I replaced the guts with a junkyard distributor, but no change in the skip. Friday we went through the ecm pins and wiring and replaced a few butt-splices, but didn't really find anything wrong except some contact pins in the harness plugs. Been running like a top since, something must have had a weak connection. Getting 45mpg with new snow tires all around and 20* weather... can't wait for spring. Thanks again for the help everyone. Thanks to TomO for the timing specs too.

[TomO]

Glad I could help out a bit.

[mpgfan]

I know this post is old but I just read through it and was wondering if you've had any problems with it skipping since the all nighter? Sounds like a lot of money to put down up front, but Im sure you'll save more over time. Good luck!

[tim3058]

Not one hint of skipping since, mpgfan. Car has been running great.

After the initial fix-up bill (I knew the car would need a little invested, then got the idea to shave the head and redo the other stuff as long as it was apart), the car has been pretty reliable.

Driving the Civic instead of my truck will save me a fortune in gas. And most of the parts will go on the next Civic when this one dies anyways, so it's more a long-term "investment". Just would have been nice to have had a Civic expert with me when I looked at it before buying it.

[Dave's Civic Duty]

Great news Tim, glad it's all working out for you!