End of the road for my Civic HX? (Update, HX fixed!)

[brucepick]

Well I started the test - that is, I pulled the valve cover, put two ounces of 5W-20 in each spark plug hole, and cranked it over several times by hand (17 mm. socket on main crank bolt). So far, no differences between cylinders when checking with skinny wood dipstick into spark plug hole.

I'll check again after an hour or so and then later, to see how they drain down. If they don't drain ( !!!! ) I can always suck or siphon out most of the oil.

You definitely hear oil popping as the valves do their job. I'm concerned about oil getting pushed out into the combination exhaust manifold+cat converter. All cylinders went down about 3/16 inch from the first couple hand-cranked engine revolutions. Hopefully that stuff will burn off promptly without wrecking the converter.

So - for anyone contemplating trying this, I recommend:

0) Hand-crank slowly. Oil spurted out the spark plug tube more than once and landed on the manifold.
1) Add only 1 or 1.5 oz. per cylinder.
2) Raise the car's nose ahead of time, sufficiently to have the top surface of cylinder head level in the fore-aft direction in additional to the left-right leveling. (Use a small level.) One reason I put in a whole 2 oz was that I wasn't able to lift the nose enough. I wanted oil contacting the whole ring circle, not just on the downhill end. Apparently the Civic block is canted in the engine bay.
3) Use thinner oil. 0W-20 would not be too thick. The 5W-20 has gone down only 5/16 inch in about 1.5 hours with intermittent hand cranking of engine.

[NHRABill]

Like I said I am not a Honda Guy and never rebuilt one but on a standard Chevy you have 3 ring grooves and there is a slight chamfered gap between rings installing them staggered is the proper method if rings are installed in a stacked position with each gap in alignment it will have less PSI when testing oil in your test will drain quicker.

Below is a link to the proper installation of SBC rings the more you understand how they work the better informed you will be to diagnose a potential problem maybe lookup a Honda version. Good luck, but I still think ya have bad valve seals or possible bent valve or bad spring. Not sure if it is the same but a spring tester is a must when I rebuild engines to make sure it can handle a cams lift, sometimes straight from factory I find a problem in the spring rate.

http://www.team-integra.net/sections...62a7dcde87.jpg

[brucepick]

It took nearly a week for all the oil to drain out of the cylinders.

My friend got the head off and I got it back from the machine shop today. It needed 4 exhaust valves and 8 valve guides. And um, a bunch of money. One valve was visibly burned; I don't know yet why the other three were rejected. Maybe my mechanic friend will see what's wrong with them.

I cleaned a good 1/16" inch or more of baked-on carbon from two piston tops. The other two pistons will have to wait for the weekend. No cleaners I tried did much good but a Dremel rotating bristle brush thing was good. Keep a vacuum hose end right there to grab all flying dust, and suck it out of the gap between piston and cylinder wall often too.

There's a crack in the exhaust manifold that my friend plans to weld up. I pay him for his time on weekends or evenings.

[Wonderboy]

The poor darling... You've gone this far already, sounds like she'll be saved! I was going to offer to trade you my EX straight up for it: working EX for borked HX... that's fair right? Good luck!

[bockwho]

im a lurker but...

the special parts of this car is the head, intake, computer and higher geared trans.

I think...

I'm considering finding a suitable body for my motor trans with 265k.

i figured anything with a d16y block would be a head.

[brucepick]

Wonderboy - thanks! EX is still humming, eh?

Update:
Lean Burn Civic rides again! My mechanic friend got the head back on today and it runs like a top. So far I only have about 30 miles on the rebuilt head but I do believe I have a good-running fuel sipper on my hands.

One valve was burned, giving 65 psi compression in that cylinder. The shop replaced four valves and eight valve guides, and all new valve seals. Plus the usual cleaning, pressure testing, milling it flat, yada yada.

[brucepick]

You have a working motor that needs a body??

Originally Posted by bockwho

im a lurker but...

the special parts of this car is the head, intake, computer and higher geared trans...

And the wideband oxy sensor. Not sure there's anything special about the intake, unless you count my warm air intake mod. Dremel cut holes in the air filter housing to pull in air heated by radiator, that's all it is.

Yes the tranny is geared tall but I think the DX and maybe some others had the same ratios. I think you can find that info per each "trim level" model on autos.com under "research" if you want to chase it down.

[NHRABill]

good to see you have it back running again. It should be running a lot better than before and you can see better mileage

[bockwho]

Yes I have a 260k motor with a Broken body interior windows I'm a mechanic and honestly I'd rather change the eng and trans rather that fixing everything that's wrong with the inside.

[MetroMPG]

Glad you got it fixed up, Bruce.

Also - wow, nice fuel log since the repair! 1997 Honda Civic HX Gas Mileage (Lean Burn Civic) - EcoModder.com

2 fill-ups since the work and you're 10+ MPG / 35% higher than your previous 2 fill-ups.