omehegan

I have a 98 GS-R with 112k miles on it. Yesterday just as I got to work, the check engine light came on. I pulled the code from it, and it was 72 - random misfire in cyl 2. Not having any tools with me to look at anything closely, I drove home after work with no issues. I planned to check a few things this morning before work, but I overslept and ended up just heading in. Luckily I didn't get far from home before the CEL started flashing at me. I've seen that before, and I know it means the engine is misfiring badly. I was very near to the Honda dealership that has done some work for me in the past, so I limped it down there and left it for them to look at. I'll update later when I hear from them.

What's interesting is, at 101k miles I had this exact same problem, but the misfiring was much worse. The engine was idling VERY roughly, and there was a strong smell of gas in the exhaust. I had the car towed to a shop back then, and the problem turned out to be two chipped exhaust valves. I have no idea how that happened, because I never drive this car hard - it sees 6k rpm at most once or twice a month. As a result of that lovely experience, I got all the exhaust valves replaced, new head gasket, new plugs, and since they were in there and it was getting near time anyway, a new timing belt and water pump. The distributor cap and rotor were replaced at 88k miles. The plug wires were done at 75k. Since that valve work was done I've driven the car across the country and put 10k more miles on it, and had no problems until today.

I know misfiring can be caused by a bunch of things, but with fairly new plugs, wires, rotor, cap, exhaust valves, head gasket, and timing belt... what else could this be? It seems like electrical and timing are both fairly unlikely.

More details as I have them.

iheartDc2

yeah, my check engine light came on too, it sucks

98IntegraLSNonVtec

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iheartDc2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yeah, my check engine light came on too, it sucks</TD></TR></TABLE>

how old are you?? Realllllyyy.

crx_88_si

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by omehegan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have a 98 GS-R with 112k miles on it. The distributor cap and rotor were replaced at 88k miles. The plug wires were done at 75k. Since that valve work was done I've driven the car across the country and put 10k more miles on it, and had no problems until today.

I know misfiring can be caused by a bunch of things, but with fairly new plugs, wires, rotor, cap, exhaust valves, head gasket, and timing belt... what else could this be? It seems like electrical and timing are both fairly unlikely.

More details as I have them.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I wouldnt exactly call wires w/ nearly 50k fairly new check the ohm's on the wires, check cap and rotor for wear.

DeDonDeRosa

iTrader: (1)

that happened to me a while back i pulled out my wires to find that all the wire ends that go to the cap had a ton of corrosion on them and so did the cap. did the wires plugs cap and rotor and she runs like a champ

omehegan

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crx_88_si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldnt exactly call wires w/ nearly 50k fairly new check the ohm's on the wires, check cap and rotor for wear.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No? I confess that I don't know what the expected life for wires, cap and rotor are. It's at the shop now, I'll just let them deal with it, but I'm going to be annoyed if that's all it was :-) I can change out **** like that myself.

SlamminS85

you could have a problem with your injectors... maybe one is putting up too much resistance and the other one isnt sprayign correctly

omehegan

The shop called me back. They found the compression to be a little low in one cylinder, so they're going to do a valve adjustment and see what that gets us. If there's no change, they're going to do a leakdown test and see what that turns up.

I'm a little suspicious that the valves would need adjustment after half of them having been replaced 10k miles ago. I wonder if the other shop that did that work didn't adjust the intake valves while they were in there. That would seem stupid...

DA jeshy

let us know what was wrong

omehegan

The shop just called me back. The valve adjustment didn't do anything, so they did a leakdown test. They found 17% leakage in cyl 1, 80% leakage in #2, 18% in #3, 17% in #4. So they think it has a valve problem, and they want $1100 to take the head off and continue diagnosing it. That's not including any repair costs if I decide to fix it. I told them not to do anything yet, I need to think about this.

If I just had all my exhaust valves and the timing belt replaced 10k miles ago, how the hell could I have valve problems again?? I'm going to call the shop where that work was done and see what they think about it.

omehegan

The shop in Boston that did the last valve job said that they can't imagine how a valve could have failed within 10k miles just on its own. They said that the "most common" cause is over-revving the engine. I'm the only one who ever drives this car, so basically I can say categorically that that's not what happened. They also told me that their warranty only covers me if they do the repair work this time as well. That's a little hard since I now live in San Francisco.

tegG2

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iheartDc2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yeah, my check engine light came on too, it sucks</TD></TR></TABLE>
Are you kidding me?!

Well it seems your best bet is to have it taken to the place that it is coverd at. Will they make all repaires free? If so it may be cheaper to have it taken there and fixed.

.xcalibur.

$1100? dont do it. You can buy another head with stronger internals for less than that. Build it up and save some money.

omehegan

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tegG2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are you kidding me?!

Well it seems your best bet is to have it taken to the place that it is coverd at. Will they make all repaires free? If so it may be cheaper to have it taken there and fixed.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Problem with that course of action is, that work was done when I lived in Boston, and now I live in San Francisco... it's a little far to go for repairs.

omehegan

Maybe I'll buy a used Type R head... anyone know a good place in SF that imports JDM stuff? Preferrably with a web site :-)

omehegan

Or I might just put a whole new motor in it... if I can find a place around San Francisco to do it cheaply enough :-)

92integraVTECgsr

sounds like a bad luck motor. sorry to hear all that..

I got a b17 gsr motor with 243,090 miles on it and it runs amazing.

*knock on wood*

It sucks that you live in SF now and the shop cant cover you in Boston.

I would either look into a shop to rebuild your entire motor, or like you said, swap in a JDM motor (either gsr or type R).

good luck..

** i would say the shop in Boston F***ed things up..

so hard to find a mechanic you can trust.

omehegan

I'd love to put in a Type R motor, but I totally can't afford that right now. It looks like I can get a used JDM GSR motor for about $2k, plus install labor. I pitched that idea to the shop the car's at now, and I'm waiting to hear back what they think about it. I wish I knew someone around here who could help me do the swap myself on the cheap.

SlamminS85

post the name of the boston shop that screwed up your work