Signs of it failing include:
The igniter is in the distributor. Many people confuse the coil for the the igniter. The coil is large and is near the top of the distributor, held in by 4 phillips screws. The igniter is at the bottom of the distributor, held in by combo bolts/screws (hint: use a socket to avoid strippage). You have to pull it out and examine it.
The bad igniter will be black in color, and say "OKI" on it.
The good igniter is brown, and says "NEC" on it.
Many dealers punch a small hole above the VIN (above the 2nd letter, H, in both my CRXs) when the recall was performed.
For clarification, the igniter and the ignitor are the same thing, just different spellings.
On the CRX, there was a recall for a failing igniter. The igniter helps control when the sparks ignite and also gives tachometer output.
1. You drive for a while, and once the car warms up and the igniter gets hot, it fails and the car dies. Sometimes it'll start back up and it'll do the same thing, sometimes the car has to sit and cool then you can proceed to have the same thing happen.
2. Flakey tach output
3. Anything else? Email me with your igniter story.
