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So I have a kind of odd issue I thought someone here might be able to assist me with.

I have a 2001 Honda Civic LX. And it runs ok, lately its been getting pretty poor gas mileage, and I noticed it struggling to get up to speed, also I noticed a rotten egg smell. I got a failed o2 sensor code, swapped out the bad o2 sensor, and the car still ran poorly. So as far as I could tell I needed a new catalytic converter. It kind of made sense, my car has 220,000 + on it and I don't think that cat was ever changed before.

Order the new one from Rockauto, make sure it's not pre clogged by blowing some air through it with my mouth, and wrestle the old cat out. We ended up cutting the bottom bolts loose with a grinder because they were too far gone, but it only took a moment and there wasn't anything damaged by this as far as I could tell.

Now to work on the car and get underneath, we drove it up on a set of ramps. The car had no trouble (other than the usual poor gas mileage and shitty smell) driving to my dad's house, and it's given me no starting issues at all up until this point. Get the cat installed, start the car to back it off the ramps, car starts runs for a second, I instinctively turned on the headlights because it had gotten dark at this point, and then the car stalls. Try to start the car again, won't turn over. We push it off the ramps, let it sit for a few mins, and try again. Won't turn over. It's acting like it can't get any gas.

I can hear the gas pump prime when I turn the key. The car has juice with the battery, we even gave it a jump to be on the safe side. There is gas in the tank, although I will admit it's not a lot, maybe less than a quarter of a tank. The only thing we changed on the vehicle was the catalytic converter, and the only thing electrical that was changed was the oz sensors being unplugged to get out of the way and plugged back in. After an hour of fiddling with it I got the ting towed back to my apartment complex and now I need to figure out how to fix it or have a local mechanic come pick it up.

I'd prefer to try to at least troubleshoot it myself though since I feel like it's something dumb I'm just missing. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what this could be? Note I don't have a lot of tools at my disposal, so no voltmeter, or code reader or compression tester handy. :-/

 
Rep Power: 518

Unbolt the new cat, disconnect both O2 sensors, see if it will run?


Timing belt jumped time? Jumped one tooth might explain running poor and code for running rich, then if it jumps another tooth the computer may keep it from running. Just a thought.

If it's been running rich, it could have fouled the plugs. And wet plugs won't fire at all.
If it's been flooded it may lose compression and need the cylinders to be oiled manually.

 
Rep Power: 150

Since you say it won't turn over, take the cables loose from the battery, reconnect and then try jumping. Maybe it getting good enough connection for pump but not full amps for starter.

 
Rep Power: 0

Same thing happened to me what did it take to fix it