Hondarinos,

It seems to me that there has been a fair amount electrical-system related
discussions which got me thinking about the coil packs and distributorless
iginition system in my 02 Civic Si. It has about 87k trouble free miles so
far, a warrantied catalyst replacement was the only time it saw a shop. I'm
familiar enough with the Honda way of standard distributor based ignitions,
so about now I'd be replacing plugs, wires, maybe the cap and rotor for
grins. I'm going to replace the "Iridium" plugs at 90k, pulled them a
couple times and they still look fine. Any other reasonable maintenance
procs to be done in this area? Why did Honda adopt it? Is it a superior
system?

 

Just an amateur here who was curious about these new
systems, starting last year. A shadetree mechanic with a
fair amount of
experience I knew thought all cars likely would be
distributorless in the near future. IIRC, and as you
probably have imagined, he felt the maintenance would be
less, but parts might be more expensive, overall.

This makes sense, since there are no rotating parts, for
one, with
which to contend. Getting the electronics further away from
the heat of the engine (also therefore being better
ventilated) and the vibrations of the camshaft would seem
advantageous, too. I would expect no-start conditions to
occur less often. Then too no oil leaking down the camshaft
into the housing; no distributor housing bearing failures;
no doggone rotor set screw stripping and requiring a whole
new housing or a jury rig; etc.

I see the four coils for an 02 Civic go for about $40 each,
for a total of about $160. I guess one could say that in
some ways, they see only about 1/4 the duty that the single
coil (selling for about half that or $80) on my 91 Civic
sees. So they should last longer.

I see the plugs go for $14 each. But with others, you say
they last way longer.

How the voltage to the coil is controlled on the 02 Civic
isn't clear to me. There are four relay assemblies under
"Control Unit (engine room)" that might be involved. They go
for about $15 each, which altogether is way less than my
Civic's igniter. (Though at this time I don't want to imply
the igniter and these relays are analogous.) See
www.slhonda.com 's parts for this car.

I don't know exactly why Honda adopted it, but I thought
many car manufacturers had indeed chosen this route.

Larry Carley is a well-known (by hands-on folks in the
industry with time to spare) automotive writer. Here's his
latest take (dated 2005) on these systems, with some hints
on maintenance:

http://hostingprod.com/@aa1car.com/library/dis.htm

He has some more "general overview" articles on the subject.
Google for {distributorless ignition carley}.

So far, queries on Honda DISs are rare here, as you probably
have seen.

"MAT" <marcoat*RM_@SPAM_*hotmail.com> wrote
> Hondarinos,
>
> It seems to me that there has been a fair amount
electrical-system related
> discussions which got me thinking about the coil packs and
distributorless
> iginition system in my 02 Civic Si. It has about 87k
trouble free miles so
> far, a warrantied catalyst replacement was the only time
it saw a shop. I'm
> familiar enough with the Honda way of standard distributor
based ignitions,
> so about now I'd be replacing plugs, wires, maybe the cap
and rotor for
> grins. I'm going to replace the "Iridium" plugs at 90k,
pulled them a
> couple times and they still look fine. Any other
reasonable maintenance > procs to be done in this area? Why
did Honda adopt it? Is it a superior
> system?