Thread: HELP! Car died while driving, crank crank but won't start :(

Here's what had happened; after driving the vehicle for approx. 5 minutes last night I felt my rev's start to drop and the car kinda sputter, switched into the right lane, rev's dropped completely, felt something was obviously wrong so turned the hazards on and pulled over, then the car stalled, oil light had come on for a brief moment then off. Waited for about 30 seconds, tried to start but just engine just cranked without starting up, cranks appears to be normal. Waited for about another 5-10 minutes, tried again, nothing, just crank crank crank crank. BAH! Used BCAA to tow the car home for free.

It's a '95 SE-R with approx. 280k km, basically stock under the hood, DD to and from work, regular maintenance every 5,000km. Had a friend over tonight who is much smarter when it comes to cars than me and we spent a few hours trying to figure this thing out. What we've tried and partially diagnosed so far is:

- there is spark, we pulled a plug and cranked the engine and spark emitted from the tip of the plug (unsure of how strong a spark though)
- with key ON fuel pump primes like normal, can smell gas under the hood, spark plugs are wet with fuel so appears to be reaching the injectors and such fine (were not able to test actual fuel pressure)
- tried replacing the distributor cap and rotor and spark plugs but no change
- NO check engine light on
- attempted to jump (bypass) the coolant temp sensor into thinking it's NOT cold out and prevent from dumping too much fuel
- removed the fuel pump fuse under the dash and attempted to start by spraying carb cleaner through air intake into throttle body
- every like maybe 8 cranks it seems like the car is trying to start
- did a search on this forum for similar problems but unable to find something that proves to work

Could it be the actual distributor itself or one of the components in it (i.e. ignition coil)? A quick check of prices online and they're not cheap like $250+ so I hope not. I could not get my hands on a set of ignition wires today so those were not changed. Could it be flooded somehow due to the cold weather and something dumping too much fuel? Is it possible that the timing chain has gone or slipped or something?

Any help would be much appreciated!! Please help me try to figure out this issue. Thank you

I would check the oil level and coolant level, do a compression test and work from there. There are two ground wires on the top of your intake manifold, if those fell off the car wont start.

I really doubt your ignition system suddently took a 100% dump on you. Check all of your fuses, relays and fusable links. Also go around and just unplug all the plugs in the bay you see and replug them in. even though the car will start with most sensors unplugged its worth a shot.

Your car is obd2 so you could also get the codes read incase its a sensor or something odd like that, even though i doubt thats your issue due to no check engine light.

was the car overheating at all?

There will be a big difference in sound if you lost compression completely, so how does it sound when you are attempting to crank it? Like it normally does? First thing I would do is check the compression just to rule that out since you say you've ruled out spark and fuel.... Try every spark plug wire to see if its firing.. Check your fuel pressure also...

Oil level is normal, coolant lvl okay normal as well. I looked under the vehicle but saw no signs of a fluid leak. A compression test I'm assuming will need a special tool, hopefully I can rent or borrow from someone, thanks.

With the check engine light not on, I'm still able to scan for a stored code? The car was not overheating at the time of the incident, no smoke or steam noticed from under the hood

To me the car cranking over sounds normal. Maybe a bit on the weak side... ? In a case where lets say 1 plug for some reason wasn't firing, wouldn't the car still start but just run really rough, like on a 3 cylinder type of thing?

Yeah, however if you only checked 1 and the other 3 don't work it won't run..

Here is my 2 cents....

-Pull the valve cover and visually inspect the timing chain, tension and gears, while you have it off, take a gander at the cams for anything unusual.
-At first I thought your alternator took a shit until I kept reading...I am assuming the car has no problem cranking under it's own power.
-Was it raining? Sometimes when ignition wires get wet it will cause problems.
-When was the last time you filled up? What was the gas gauge reading? Possibly bad gas....you know sometimes you fill up somewhere and end up with the crud at the bottom of the tank...

The more info you can provide the harder we work to try and help...good luck

Oh and another thing.....shoot Andreas Miko a PM here on the forum....no one knows SR20's better than him. He is a very very helpful source of information...

Did your battery light ever came on? I had something similar happen to me, but it turned out to be alternator went bye bye. The car would try to crank but nothing.

Thanks for the reply. It wasn't raining out, just cold maybe 2 degrees celcius or so (frost), I had filled up about 3 days ago, gauge still reading 3/4 full and mileage accumulated about 180km's. I tried adding a few litres of gas just for the hell of it, but no change.

I'll add the visual inspection under the valve cover to my list of diagnostics to get done the next couple days. There's no battery light on and it never came on and the vehicle cranks normal under just battery power (read 12.2 V or there abouts)