Last Saturday my 95 Civic DX failed to start. I had a friend who is experienced with cars, and he came to a conclusion that it is the distributor (or one of the distributor components, such as coil or ICM or ignitor). According to him, the distributor did not produce a spark. We opened up the distributor, and I was cranking the engine, while he held a screw driver next to the rotor, and there was no spart between the screw driver and the rotor.

So I bought a whole new distributor, that is a complete assembly, and installed it, yet the car still does not start. I was replacing it by myself, so I was unable to test whether there is spart or there isnt; however the symptoms are the same as with the old distributor - the engine cranks, but wont start.

I've checked the ECU fuse, it's fine. Just in case i took off the distributor and rotate the spindle 180 degrees, and reinstalled it - still wouldnt start, but the crank sounds differently, sounds like its cranking faster. So at this point, I am not even sure whether or not the distributor is mounted correctly or 180 degree reverse, but from what i understand, even if it was 180 degree reversed, the engine would still start, but would hesitate a lot.

So my questions are, what else could it be besides the distributor? what is a sure way to find out whether or not the distributor rotor is in correct position or 180 degree reversed? Am i testing for spark the correct way by holding screw driver to the rotor while cranking the engine? What if there is still no spark, could it be anything else besides the distributor?

Another thing that comes to mind is that when i last fueled up, i added a bottle of injector cleaner into the tank of gas, but I've already traveled on that gas for 110 miles before the car died, and have started it multiple times. There's about 5/8 tank still remaining.