Lisa Rosestars

Hi everyone . I just found this website. Glad to know you. I have a problem I hope you can help me solve. I have started looking for a used car since my car recently overheated and broke down. I tried to fix it paid a lot of money but it still has problems. I really think if the engine had been made of iron it would have survived the overheating better so I want my next car to have an iron engine. I do not own a Honda currently but I know it is one of the best cars around and would like one.

How far back in time in the Honda (and Acura ) lineup do I have to go to get a car with an iron engine?

And also what kind of car is the least likely to ever overheat or suffer permanent damage from overheating?

F22Master

The only hondas I would steer clear of are 01-05 civics with a D17 engine, and the 03-07 accord with a V6 automatic. Other than those, most hondas are very reliable and not prone to overheating, when stock and in good running condition. Even an iron block engine can be damaged by overheating, and I cant remember any honda that ever used an iron block...

scmil95eg

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scmil95eg

I couldn't think of any either, but for Honda trivia I'm now genuinely curious of they ever used an iron block in anything ever. Google is failing to produce. Anyone?

edit:
The Honda A series inline-four-four-cylinder engine is used in 1980s Honda Accord and Prelude models. Introduced in 1982 with the second-generation Honda Prelude. Available in three displacement sizes: 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 liters. It features cast iron block and aluminum SOHC head design with three valves per cylinder for a total of 12 valves. It was available in carbureted and fuel-injected configurations.

v4lu3s

A series accords are iron block and when they overheat the head usually warps since it is aluminum and people drove along thinking that overheated is no big deal. I know of no honda engines that are "prone" to overheating, none of them are bad in that sense, it is almost always the owner/driver that was bad.


the best way to avoid overheating is maintaining the car. in most cases neglect is the cause of overheating. If you overheat an engine so badly that replacing the head gasket and resurfacing the head doesnt fix it, it usually means you ran it way into the red for a long time and destroyed it. don't do that.

make sure you have topped off coolant, inspect it at least monthly. Inspect all rubber hoses, replace the thermostat and fuel pump on schedule. Watch your gauge cluster, sometimes stuff happens and if you never look at your gauges you will never notice til you have killed an engine.

m4xwellmurd3r

Honestly, hondas cooling systems are pretty stout. Ive seen no glaring issues in how the coolant flows that would create localized boiling like i used to see on my old inline 6 datsun. On those engines the water in the back of the head would get pretty stagnant and could boil in that area.

Lisa Rosestars

Thank you for the advice I will keep it in mind when choosing a used car. I was hoping that some of the older Hondas had iron engines. I recently went to a place in Daytona Beach where car enthusiasts met for Thanksgiving and showed off their vintage cars but I do not remember seeing any old Hondas. Do you think they will start showing up in the coming years alongside the old Chevrolets,and Fords ? In fact I do not recall seeing any old Japanese cars there at all .

Is it true though that an iron block engine is better at not being damaged by overheating?

Lisa Rosestars

It is true I did overheat my car badly . I did not mean to . I was on the highway and it took me 7-10 miles to realize the burning rubber smell was my own car,I got off the highway as fast as I could just in time for my car to die in a haze of smoke. I worry I have damaged it so badly it will never be the same again even after fixing the block. How do you know if in a situation like this the car is worth fixing?

Lisa Rosestars

Is it important to have both the head and block made of iron to best prevent overheating? Is it true what they say that engines with both iron blocks and heads are able to come through overheating better then aluminum? I mean if you could design the strongest most reliable engine that was least likely to be damaged by overheating what would it be made of how would it be designed, and do you know of any car that has an engine like that ?

Lisa Rosestars

Well Honda must be doing something right because there are so many older Hondas still on the road today. Still I wonder if car manufacturers should have made the switch to aluminum engines so completely? Don't car manufacturers still use iron engines on luxury car models?Did Honda ever use iron engines for their Acuras?

m4xwellmurd3r

I don't think anyone really uses an iron engine block except for diesels. Pretty much everyone has switched to an aluminum head/block. Aluminum disapates heat better and is lighter.

There's really no reason to try and make a preference to an iron block vs aluminum.

Iron, aluminum, it doesn't matter. None will prevent overheating any better than the other. The best thing to do is just avoid ever overheating by making sure the coolant system is up to standards.

If you overheated the engine that bad, you probably blew the headgasket, maybe some other things. The only way to know if it's worth it to repair is to see what got damaged and how much it would cost to repair.

Btw, I had a 78 280z that I thought had a busted temp gauge. Dunno how many miles I put on it before I realized, no, it's not busted, yes, i am pegging the temp gauge every time I drive it.

Maybe a few hundred miles worth over the span of a month or so. The head was warped and had to be decked, but besides that the engine suffered no long term damage (I drove it for like, 3 years as my daily after I got the head rebuilt, putting something like 50k miles on the engine)

Iron doesn't warp as easily as aluminum. That's it. It doesn't mean you wont damage OTHER things by overheating, it just means you have to really kill it to warp it. From the sound of how badly you overheated your car, even an iron head would end up warping.

anyways, don't choose a car based off the material of the block and head. choose a car based on the models history for reliability, and the service records of the particular car you're looking at.

v4lu3s

even without warping anything the rings lose tension and no longer seal necessitating a rebuild or at least re-ring, plus the head gasket will still fail. that happens on ANY engine.
your best bet is find a single owner used honda with complete service history.

and maxwell is dead on NO ONE uses iron except for diesel engines now, its heavy, expensive, and does not better a job than aluminum does, and with weight savings being tied to fuel economy you wont see iron coming back. Good example is my full size tundra is all aluminum, and the Lexus with a very similar engine is all aluminum, even a Mercedes AMG S63 with 577 hp, and costing $143k to own has an all aluminum engine....

v4lu3s

also a i recommend making a scan of your gauges a normal part of your driving to avoid this happening again. If I did not I would have killed my engine 2 summers ago...got lucky and saw the temp gauge climbing and was able to save it in time.

Lisa Rosestars

I was wondering if any of you have read anything about the new cgi iron ( compacted graphite iron) ? They say it is lighter and stronger than traditional cast iron. I think it is currently being used on diesel engines but it was recently used in new Ford pickup truck . Maybe it will help iron engines make a come back? Here is are some links to some info on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compacted_graphite_iron

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...-2-piece-block

v4lu3s

the engine you referred to is a turbo engine, and they are using the iron only around the sleeves, this is because it produces 2000psi of pressure under boost, while diesel engines usually see 2600. They also have an inline 3 ecoboost engine that has the iron aorund the cylinders. every other non diesel engine ford makes is aluminum block (with iron cylinder sleeves, just like everyone else just about).

CGI has been around for 60+ years (ifrst patented n 1949)and is currently only used in racing engines, exotics, and limited parts of 2 ford engines that are likely low volume production. Could it come around to more common use? Maybe, but it has NO properties that make it more resistant to overheating, it is harder and more rigid than aluminum which allows it to compete very well in block weight...in other words they are making it thinner and thinner....and less material usually means LESS resistant to overheating.

What it comes down to is keep your cooling system healthy and coolant full. Those things are even MORE important with the high cylinder pressure turbo engines and highly strung performance engines that CGI is used on.

Lisa Rosestars

That is interesting, so many variables go into creating a perfect engine or maybe there is no perfect engine after all?

I guess I need to know if I should just sell my car and not go any further with fixing it? I have replaced many things and the car still has problems.I do not know if they are major or minor at this point but I do know I will always wonder if the car will never be as strong as it once was. I have so far replaced the head gasket and had it shaved, luckily it was not warped, the thermostat and upper and lower radiator hoses, the timing belt, and( I think it was called ) a camshaft sensor or was it crankshaft? , plus normal things like oil filter and oil change. The car is still not driveable, the struts and shocks appear to be damaged the brakes are very slow to respond, and so is the gas,and it bounces around like a horse and buggy, the front end was noticeably lower than it was before I had it worked on when I went to get it back. I do not know if the mechanics did that on purpose or by mistake but it was not like that before. It also stalls out literally every 10 seconds at every stop light and stop sign and it never used to stall in any way before . I do not know what to do next but I do know I do not have an unlimited supply of money to continue to pour into fixing it. I wonder if the car is just one or two more simple repairs away from being back to normal or if this is a car that has just suffered too much damage from overheating?

TomCat39

The kind of over heating you did would kill any metal engine, even titanium.

Also typically it's the head that warps first with an over heat. But the length of time you were overheating and didn't notice the gauge, even with an iron block the tops of the cylinders would be severely out of round. Maybe an over bore could have fixed it but quite likely not. You are lucky it didn't go oblong enough to seize the piston(s) at the top of the cylinder.

This fixation on old iron engines isn't going to save you if you overheat to the extreme you did. And really, iron will overheat faster in a bad condition than an aluminum engine because it retains more heat generally and is harder to cool.

The aluminum actually dissipates heat faster and more efficiently making it a much easier car to manage heat wise. The cons to aluminum is it expands more with heat over iron but heat iron up enough it bends and warps just as easily as aluminum.

The best advise is to monitor your gauges more often instead of waiting to see and smell smoke.

raverx3m

iTrader: (1)

perfect engine exists when car company is owned by government
or during war times.
when engine has to work as long as it can. and in fact there are few legendary motors that pulled cars through WW2 in that time


any corporate owned company will NEVER make a perfect engine because that means dealership will make ZERO dollars fixing it.

raverx3m

iTrader: (1)

look for a Honda with dual core radiator it will keep your temps more stable

I was driving around town with a quad core full size radiator it was 2/3 empty before I realized it.
car never overheated.
I saw steam from one of the pin hole leaks in radiator hose.
but car overheated quickly with stock single core radiator.

bigger radiator = more coolant to circulate through as a buffer before car completely overheats.

v4lu3s

lol you really think the government will or an build a perfect engine? You can see what all it does and NOTHING I can see approaches that level of competence...

raverx3m

iTrader: (1)

do you think nasa builds their spacecraft to fail after 5000 miles like commercial manufacturers do?
nasa be like . bruh. your spaceship needs to pull in to a space service station in 5000 miles. to replace your headlight bulbs made by Cadillac...


its simple business. if you take all the motors now. every motor has a faulty part. but that same part is not faulty on other motor.

like oil pan gasket on b series. other brand don't have a problem with oil pan gasket they have a problem with clogged oil passage when other company doesn't but they have a problem with timing chain or belt.

the wear of each part is tested before the motor is released and each motor is almost guaranteed known what part is gonna fail after how many miles in normal conditions.

they build electronics same way so people have to continue buying new sht.

its a consumer society. if consumers don't buy the system collapses as we are seeing now.

weapons are built to last. we managed to figure out to make a great weapon because its life or death matter.


blue8g lol you realize you are in Honda forum talking about proper maintenance.

scmil95eg

Back in the day (mid 90's) a friend a mine blew a head gasket and taco'd his radiator at school. He replaced the head gasket in the school parking lot but none of us had a spare radiator to bring him. He used a piece of PVC pipe to make a union for the radiator hoses and drove from Eastern Michigan University to Clawson, MI without overheating. ~50 miles, 1 hour drive, D15 in a Civic wagon.

v4lu3s

raverx3m apparently you have never worked for the government. A lot of things will run with lots of broken parts.

raverx3m

iTrader: (1)

actually I did...

TomCat39

Actually, I'm pretty sure many things on the space shuttle are replaced after every trip into space.

Just like professional race cars, the engines are rebuilt completely every how many laps?

It's not just the forced obsolescence you speak about, it's constant maintenance which the general public does not do. It's also why most earlier hondas last so long. Japanese engineers knew the public skips maintenance so they over engineered almost everything. Doesn't mean **** still doesn't wear out. If you have mechanical parts, you will have wear. Electronics you can make last significantly longer than they do but there is no moving parts, it's always the mechanical stuff that you can only retard the wear so much before you impact performance.