Thanks for all the tips. As it turns out it was a bad ignition switch.
I took it apart and the contacts were all burned up inside. I scraped
all of them clean with a knife, put the whole thing back together and
it now starts and runs as fine as ever. Thanks for the pointers from
you guys at least I new where to start looking. Now I just hope the
part store will take the new main relay and ignition switch back!

On Wed, 09 Jul 2003 14:51:20 -0400, TurboJeepR
<turboJpr@intherough.net> wrote:

>I have an '88 Civic DX and it developed a starting problem. It cranks
>and fires up fine but immediately dies. This is intermittent (for
>now). After several tries or some wait it would start and run just
>fine.
>
>I've read about the main relay issue and pulled the relay but at first
>glance all solderings seem fine.
>
>Also when this happens when you turn the key to the ignition position
>(one before the crank position) there are no lights on the instrument
>panel. When everything is normal those check lights would stay on as
>they should with the key in this position.
>
>This makes me think that maybe it has a bad ignition switch ?!? Could
>this be the case or this could still be the Main Relay? How could I
>test and tell for sure?
>
>Thanks!