Greyout

Hello everyone,

So I finally picked up an '01 with around 120,000 miles on it. Car is completely stock. I am very excited about this car, the plan is to daily my TSX and have this as a toy.

Getting the car home involved a 1100 mile drive home from Orlando to Austin. A few hours out of Orlando, the car just dies on the highway. I was cruising along at 80mph, and it was like the fuel pump turned off. Still had accessory power, but absolutely no combustion.

Coasted to a stop on the side of the highway. Car would not restart. Cranked fine, but not even a cough. I could hear the fuel pump priming, so I was getting fuel...

Took advantage of free roadside, they get me to a mom-and-pop place, where once the car is off the truck, it fires right up and idles fine for 30 minutes. We poke around for a while, and discover the ground on the back of the head is hanging on by a thread. we re-secure that, and off I go.

5-6 hours later, I pull over for a pit stop. This is after several other uneventful pit stops, thanks to my need for redbull and the cars tiny fuel tank. When I restart the car, it idles for maybe 1.5 seconds, then sputters and dies like I stalled it. Will not restart. My first thought was fuel... but now I am in a place that is too loud to hear the pump prime. I let car sit 30 minutes, and it fires right up and off I go again.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, with several uneventful stops of various lengths along the way.

In the home stretch, the car dies on highway again in the same manner, just west of Houston. Just like the fuel pump turned off. Granted that may not be the case, but that is the best way to describe it. Everything is great one second, and then coasting to a stop the next.

I let it sit 20-30 minutes, it fires right up, and I head to a dealership a few miles away.

This time, fortunately, the car will not start for the dealer, and I am feeling optimistic about the odds of them diagnosing it. First, they tell me it is the fuel pump relay, but they don't have one in stock, and neither does anyone else. While I am sitting around trying to figure out what I am going to do, they come back and say that they inspected the ground on the back of the head that I mentioned in my story to them, discovered the previous shop did a shitty job fixing it... so they do a better job and it fires right up.

But, also, the car has been sitting off for a while when this happens, so it may have just been the usual 'dead for no reason, let it sulk, then you're fine.'

I am also doubting the 'bad ground' theory, because a loose ground, in my opinion, would cause the car to intermittently and frequently shut off for moments at a time, as the ground lost contact. And grounds don't re-ground over time.

however, I am optimistic that everything is fine now, until I make one more pit stop before home, and the car won't start. This time, its very quiet, and I can easily hear the pump prime, and then hear the pump turn on when I start cranking. But won't start.

Let it sit for :30, and then away I go.

I am very excited to be a part of the S2000 club, and can't wait to get the car headed the direction I want to (SCCA STU). But in the mean time, I'd like to enjoy it on the street for a while, but am afraid to go anywhere until I can get this resolved.

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance. My next plan is to replace the main relay, and fuel pump relay.

tozerman

It could be a faulty alarm/immobiliser, worth getting an auto electrician to have a look at it before throwing parts at it.

Greyout

Hmmmm. ya I could see that. Its odd though that would resolve itself after a short wait.

s2000maniac

Hook a scanner and see if any codes pop up. Do you see the check engine light turn on and off when you put the key in ON position. Also the green key light does come on and go off? Or does start blinking?

Greyout

The CEL is functional - it comes on briefly when I turn the key to on. But there is no CEL when the problem happens, and there is no CEL now. There are no error codes stored.

I have seen the green key, but haven't paid attention to when its on or not on.

Greyout

It finally threw a code - 0-6, air pump. I do not think that is related.

Iniamyen

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I remember a similar problem on my wife's old 2001 Accord. In that case, there was an electrical solder joint, I believe it was on the fuel pump relay but I'm not 100% sure, that would become intermittent when the cabin of the car got hot.

This would manifest itself as a car that would not start when left in the sun all day with the windows closed, but it ran fine otherwise. I wonder if there is a similar connection somewhere on your car that becomes intermittent but only after driving (maybe somewhere near the engine that gets warmed up from driving the car.)

Car Analogy

+1 for the something electrical gets hot theory. Its intersting that most of your issues were after stopping for several minutes. When you do that, engine is just as hot as it was a moment ago, except now there is no coolant nor air flowing. So things under the hood get even hotter than they were as the engine sheds its heat into its surroundings.

That one time on the highway, was it especially hot out, or did you get stuck in traffic for some time prior?

Lets see if we can rule out something hot in the cabin. Those stops, was it real hot outside, so you were running the A/C, so cabin was cool, but once you stopped, it quickly got hot inside the car? Maybe that time it died on the highway, you didn't have the A/C on yet? Or maybe you were trying out top down for a while before it got too hot and you went top up with A/C?

Just trying to figure out which part of the car was getting hot. Can you make a correlation to what wohld have been getting hot each time failure occurred?

Once you narrow it down, next time problem occurs, take a can of that spray air duster stuff, and holding can upside down for max cold (wear gloves!), spray in the areas where electrical stuff is located, try to start car. Seems like you got a good 15 min window to try this out, before enough time goes by that you can't sure if it just sat long enough, or if you really did make a difference.

Once you know what area made cooler resolves the issue, you can narrow down what it is that is causing the issue.

Greyout

That's good about the temps. Here are the conditions:

random death on highway #1 - 80mph, 80F outside, top down, no climate control on. Been on the road for a couple of hours. Followed by an inability to start for at least an hour, but I stopped trying after 30 minutes.

inability to start #1 - pulled off the highway for 5 minutes, but slightly cooler out. I'd say 55-60F, but probably makes no difference under the hood. I had been driving for a couple of hours straight when this happened. Took roughly 30 minutes to start.

random death on the highway #2 - 80mph, 85F outside, top down, may have had the A/C on in 'convertable' mode. Took 20 minutes to be able to restart.

inability to start #2 - after 5 minutes, after sunset, probably 55F outside. Again, not long enough for temps to drop under hood.

I wish I had been able to hear if the fuel pump was priming at the second highway failure, but it was just too loud.

Am I correct that the main relay is the only fuel pump relay? Or is there a second fuel pump relay somewhere?

I'm starting to lean toward an ignition issue. The fact that I get power to the car (at least the dash) when the key is in the 'on' position, tells me (I think) that the problem is down stream of the main relay, in which case I feel like that's WIRING -> ECU -> WIRING -> IGNITION COILS -> BLOCK GROUNDING.

The dealer that messed with the car still didn't like the ground wire when I left with it, so I guess I need to start there.

I will rule out ignition coils, as all 4 aren't going to fail at the same time.

So beyond the grounding of the engine, wiring between main relay and ECU, and wiring between ECU and ignition coils could be a possibility. I don't feel like that's likely either.

I keep coming back to the stupid ground wire, but the way it fails doesn't fit what I know about how a loose connection behaves.

cosmomiller

Lots of good suggestions. I have seen the temperature affect wiring before especially on older equipment. If you think you have narrowed it down to the full pump I would check further than just the connection although that is low hanging fruit. Check the continuity of the entire run, see if someplace else the circuit isn't compromised. I would pull and reinstall the fuses, maybe replace even if it looks fine. Metal corrodes and oxidizes over time. Fuses can approach the melting point a number of times (without failing as designed) but that stresses the metal and can cause a circuit break down the line in time. Add some heat (contraction/expansion) and many contact points can intermittently fail.