It's rare for a Honda Civic fuel injector to go bad, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The cool thing is that a fried fuel injector can be easily tested with a simple multimeter resistance test, and this article will show you how.
Contents of this tutorial:
RELATED WIRING DIAGRAMS:
- 1996-1998 Fuel Injector Circuit Diagram (1.6L Honda Civic).
- PGM-FI Main Relay Circuit Diagram (1996-1998 1.6L Honda Civic).
This ‘Honda Civic fuel injector resistance’ test guide covers all of the different models of the 1.6L Honda Civic and Civic del Sol 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Tools You'll Need:
- Multimeter
- Pen and Paper
You can find this tutorial in Spanish here: Cómo Probar Los Inyectores (1.6L Honda Civic) (at: autotecnico-online.com).
Symptoms Of A Bad Fuel Injector
As you're probably already aware, each of your Honda engine's 4 cylinders need 3 things to produce power: fuel, spark, and air (compression).
So, when a fuel injector stops injecting fuel, whichever cylinder that fuel injector belongs to will go ‘dead‘. A ‘dead’ cylinder will cause a misfire and you'll see one or more of the following:
- Rough idle condition.
- Misfire (hesitation) under load (which means: when you step on the accelerator pedal).
- Lack of power when accelerating your Honda.
- Bad gas mileage.
- Misfire codes (P0300, P0301, P0302, P0303, P0304) lighting up the check engine light (CEL).
So, what causes a fuel injector to go bad? It's usually just old age, although not always. Here are the most common types of fuel injector failures:
- Fuel injector has fried internally and has stopped injecting fuel.
- Fuel injector is clogged.
- Fuel injector stuck On all of the time (as soon as the key is turned On). This is usually due to a bad fuel injection computer.
- Fuel injector is not receiving power or its activation signal.
With the help of this in-depth tutorial, you should be able to diagnose a bad fuel injector.
START HERE: Troubleshooting A Bad Fuel Injector
There are three separate tests in this tutorial and I've designed them with the DIY'er (Do It Yourself'er) in mind.
This means that you'll be able to troubleshoot the problem without the use of expensive diagnostic equipment.
Here's a brief intro of all 3 tests:
- Identify the ‘dead’ cylinder first.
- This involves doing a manual cylinder balance test and which is explained in a step-by-step manner.
- TEST 1: Find the Dead Cylinder First.
- Resistance test the fuel injectors.
- After finding the ‘dead’ cylinder, the next step is to measure the resistance of the fuel injectors with a multimeter and then interpreting the test results.
- TEST 2: Measuring The Fuel Injector's Resistance.
- Swap the fuel injector with another on the fuel rail (if applicable).
- Depending on the test result you get in TEST 2, you'll swap out the fuel injector, of the dead cylinder, with its neighbor on the fuel injector rail.
- TEST 3: Swapping The Fuel Injector.
NOTE: You modify the above tests to suit your particular diagnostic needs. If you don't have much troubleshooting experience, then I recommend starting from TEST 1.
