I posted the following over onthe autocross-roadrace site in a thread about Honda distributors packing up. Got no answers, guess I'm either too old or too un-cool!

Thanks!!


We had what sounds like the same problem with '86 Civic ITC car at NHMS this past weekend. Tach jumping, mis-fire, quit making noise! We were running enduro and when it started, Steph thought it was running out of gas and came in, making it to 15 pit spots away, we pushed it to our spot, refueled, I got in, started it up and went back out. The tach was jumping but it ran ok, then was overheating 240 instead of the usual 200, I backed off and cooled it back down to 200 and was just cruising for a finish when it started mis-firing etc and then quit again and I parked it trackside, was towed to a safe spot and flat towed to the paddock after the race, at which point it started and was loaded on the trailer. I understand all the symptoms could be associated with the igniter, but could the over heating?? Will a bad igniter cause ignition advance which I know will cause over heating? Or do I need to be looking for a second problem, like a blown head gasket?

Local import parts guys said basically all Hondas from 1985 to 1990 had the same ignitors. True?