I had a valve job done and after replacing the head the car won'tstart. Engine rotates, have spark and fuel, but won't start. I'm going to check the coil tomorrow and have already checked the distributor sensors. I replaced the wires, plugs (old ones were Bosch), cap, and rotor. Car did run before tearing it apart so I think I missed something stupid; any ideas?

 

Firing order?
Distributor timing? It is possible to force the distributor in when it's turned180 degrees out.

 

Considered that and even tried to put it in wrong. 99.999% sure that mechanical timing is correct other than distributor fine adjustment (didn't mark before removal). I would think that it should at least start anyway, I've tried at full advance, retard, and points in between.

 

As long as it's not 180 degrees out, it should at least start.

How do you know you have fuel? If you can hear the fuel pump run, that stilldoesn't provethe injectors are firing...

( I guess I'm prodding you to go back & take nothing for granted...)

 

Are there any codes stored on the ECU? Maybe something was left unplugged when doing the valve job.

If you have a timing light, you can hook that up to the car and see if the coil is putting enough current out to work the timing light.

 

Prod away! Plugs are covered with gas if I remove them after trying to start. I don't know about sufficient fuel so I'm probably going to change the fuel filter at some point. Still, I think it should start with even a small amount of gas. I didn't do anything with the fuel lines and it ran prior to changing the head. I'm looking for ANY reasons why the car would not start when I have gas, spark, and timing correct. I really hope it does not turn out to be a compression issue.

 

A compression test would eliminate a bad cylinder. Short the service connector (http://www.dhost.info/accordinfo/howto/cel.html) to see if there are any codes stored.

It sounds like you are getting gas in the cylinders, but a fuel pressure gauge would eliminate fuel as a problem.

Sounds like a spark problem. You can ground one of your old spark plugs and plug it into a wire and ground the plug to the engine block. Make sure that those gas fumes are gone when you are doing this. If the spark is bright white, then the coil should be putting out enough current to initiate spark.

 

You can measure compression if you're worried about that. Absolute numbers will be a little bogus since it's not warmed up, but you'll get a good idea.

Too much gas?? Take the vacuum line off the FPR & look for gas in there. A ruptured diaphragm in in FPR will send way too much gas thru that vacuum line (should only be air in there).

Have you had timing or firing order problems causing you to try for a while without starting? I once had plugs get fouled from flooding, and even after I dried them out it wouldn't start. For awhile I was too stubborn to put new plugs in because these looked good. New plugs & it started right up.

 

After jumpering the service connector the CEL stays on; I take it this means no codes?

 

How did you determine your firing order? You can still get spark with improperly hooked up wires but it won't start....

Is the check engine light on solid?