OK, so my del Sol ('93 Si) is giving me grief. This all started last summer- on really hot days it wouldn't start, but once it cooled off it would start like a champ. This spring, it just stopped starting altogether. I did my homework and found that a common problem on hondas is that the solder in the main relay starts to go bad, and on hot days when the cabin gets hot enough, the main relay connections come apart just enough to make the car not start. (And eventually the car won't start at all). So a few weeks ago I swung by my local honda dealer and bought a new main relay ($90). Threw that puppy in and ... it sounded different but still wouldn't start.
Before it was the brrrit-dit-dit-dit-dit but no turn over. Now it was more of an electrical rrrnn-rrnn-rrnnn noise. We (hubby Paul/schwanginpt and I) bought a can of carburator cleaner and tried spraying it in and cranking on it - still nothing. So we determined we now were not getting any spark. I did some more homework and found a site where someone said that the coil going bad has similar symptoms to the bad main relay. After talking to my brother who has owned and worked on many a honda, he said "just get a new dizzy, the coil is a bitch to get to". So I got a new dizzy. We slapped that on yesterday, and it did start... once... after we gave the car a hot-shot since it had been sitting a while and the battery had weakened. We let it idle for a few minutes to help charge the battery back up. I went to get in it to take it to the gas station and fill it up (it was close to E) and the car started sputtering a little and then stalled. We thought it had just run out of gas, so we put what we had in the gas can in it... still wouldn't start. Sprayed the carb. cleaner in and it started again, so I tried just driving it around the court where we live.
It drove very roughly, but i thought it was just because it was burning up the remaining carb cleaner (tach bouncing all over the place, car was kind of "bucking" as the tach would jump up to around 5k for a second, then go back down to around 2-3k). Paul thought maybe we put the spark plug wires on the dizzy in the wrong order. Then the car stalled out on me again. We tried pop-starting it but that didn't work, so we had to push it back to our house. The gas gauge went up to around 1/4 tank so we don't think it's out of gas.
So we think we're back to it being a fuel issue, since spraying the carb cleaner got it to start. No CEL, but I do remember on my CRX once it was throwing a code but the CEL wasn't on... so I am gonna find something for a jump wire and see if I am getting anything. We were in a rush yesterday to get some time-sensitive things done, so we couldn't spend a lot of time on the Sol.
Some things we are thinking about: fuel filter, fuel pressure regulator, fuel pump, maybe spark plugs & wires, more so because we have no idea how old they are... and it probably wouldn't hurt to replace them. I've been on tegger.com a lot, and it's been really helpful, but i thought maybe another del Sol owner has had a similar problem? Paul thinks that I had multiple things fail on me at once and that's why we're having such a hard time getting back to normal again. Any insight is very much appreciated!
. new fuel pump costs that much.gl
started right up once i swapped them, drove it around the court and it felt fine. finally i can drive it again, and focus on the goodies i have for it! 
That's awesome! At least it was an easy fix.
