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Hi guys,

Recently bought a Civic VTI 2003. It had been giving starting problems 3-4 days after I bought it. Description of the problem is that when turning on the ignition, the motor cranked but did not start up. Initially tried to replace the plugs but no change.

Took it to an old mechanic I know. He said the self-start is the culprit, opened it and replaced the bushes and cleaned it before fitting it back. Worked fine for about 3 hours when the engine stalled while driving and I had to connect another battery to crank the motor.

This started it but on the way back home the engine started to emit some sort of metallic noises at about 2.5k RPM before it stalled again, I had to start it on the fly again.

Also before this whole mess started, was a petrol pump for gas, what happened is that the temperature gauge shot up beyond "H" randomly and there was a hissing sound from the engine. Thought that the engine heated up, but checked and the temperature was normal.

Looking at forums online, people have mentioned 3-4 workarounds:

Checking Distributor or the Ignition Coil
Weak Fuel Pump (although this seems to be not a problem as the car was having good acceleration for the 2-3 days I drove it around)
Replacing Main Relay
Checking ECU codes through a computer

Let me know your suggestions before i go on a part purchasing spree... cheers!