89 civic hatchback dx - cuts out while driving

hi. i was wondering if aynone had any ideas about this.. my car cuts out
(doesn't respond to pedal, doesnt accelerate, check engine light comes on)
while accelerating after slowing down (stop lights, turns). if i do nothing
it does, but if i keep on the gas it jerks back to accelerating after a
second.. this was last night, and now it won't even turn over, just makes
the noise like it's trying to but doesn't. anyone ever have similiar
problem?

it just had an ignition switch changed because it would die after starting.
before that, it wouldnt start at all, so the old alarm that was in it (i'm
not the original owner) was taken out.

thanks for any help.. i really want to fix this, i love this car..

joe

 

This I saw last year with my 91 Civic. The car would re-start after an hour or
so. It was a bad distributor coil. I understand when coils are failing, their
response becomes somewhat temperature dependent. When warmed up, coils that are
nearly "dead" don't work well.

I didn't try this last year.

I'd be barking up the engine-electrical tree for this one.

Of course, it could be other things. Just noting that the distributor on c. 1990
Civics is their Achilles heel.