Honda Repair: dark carbon and oil on spark plugs, engine cranks, sandy sandy

Question
Hi rick, i was hoping you could help,my son recently bought a 1990 honda civic and put on tune up after driving aprox 4 miles and turned off car it would not start,so he tried to check new spark plugs and valve cover and found that plugs had dark carbon and oil on them.clean up and reinstalled the motor cranks but won't start ant idea's what could be cause. THANKS SANDY

Answer
Sandy, it could be a number of things, you'll have to see whether you're missing fuel, spark, compression. If the engine cranks faster than before it maybe a timing belt. Remove the oil cap and have someone crank it over and watch the valve springs, if they don't move the belt is likely broken. Remove a spark plug and plug it into a plug wire and ground the bottom of the plug to the engine block and crank and watch for spark. If no spark igniters are common on those cars? To check for fuel remove the fuel line from the filter and hold it in a bucket and cycle the key to see if fuel comes out,BE CAREFUL as it could splash. If there's no fuel the main relay could be the culprit, Find out whats missing and let me know, RICK