steveeb

I've used answers on the forum to help me thru the process of fixing my son's 1999 Civic SI. Here's the short version:

A few months ago, the car must have overheated at least once. I noticed steam billowing from the exhaust while I followed my son one night after "un-stranding" him from a dead battery. For a few weeks, I watched as the antifreeze would disappear after driving it.

Finally I had a friend, who is a professional mechanic with shop, replace the head gasket. He told me the head didn't need milling and was straight.

After which, I continued to notice steadily dropping coolant levels (about 4-5 cups per 1000 miles). One (rainy) night my son called me to tell me that the bypass hose had broken and the car overheated and died. He managed to replace the hose that night, but was unable to start it so we had it towed home (45+ miles )

It was apparent that the head gasket was no longer sealing. I did a rudimentary leak down test and had major (and I mean major) air leak into the coolant, some coming from the exhaust, and some from the crank case.

So I decided to do the head gasket again, this time getting the head machined. Although, I'm not even CLOSE to being a mechanic, I did the majority of the work myself, with only a little help with the tough bolts from my mechanic friend with a compressor.

I took the head to the machine shop, he flattened it and did a valve job as the exhaust valves were leaking.

Yesterday, I finally got the head back on and everything hooked back up. First try, it started on a dime. BTW, everything was torqued to manufacturer's specs using a top-of-the-line digital torque wrench. I was very pleased that it ran.

Today, I took it for about a 15mile test drive. I noticed some burning smell and smoke emanating from the dip stick area of the exhaust manifold. Otherwise no leaks or drips.

When I got home, I did a quick pressure test of each cylinder. #1 at first showed 140psi. I moved to #2 which showed about 160psi, as did #3. #4 was the highest at 170psi. I suspected blow by. I went back over each cylinder and #1 went to 160psi, but the others remained about the same. Why #1 changed, I don't know. Anyhow, I looked up the specs for the B16A2 from the Honda service manual and it says 135psi!?!?!?!!?

Now I'm afraid the machinist took off too much of my head thus changing the compression, which in turn, created such a large blow by that my pcv can't keep up and the excess is blowing out the dipstick along with oil and thus dripping/spraying on the exhaust causing the burning.

After compression test, I started the car and removed the oil cap with the dipstick in place. The amount of air coming out would be almost comparable to the amount of air coming from the exhaust. In other words I have HUGE blow by problems.

Now, I'm stuck. I've already sunk about $1200 into this, including all the parts, machining and the money paid for the first head gasket change.

Do I live with it? Could this cause the car not to pass smog (coming up in 2 months)? Could the high pressure ruin the engine or wear out the rings even worse than they are?

The head gasket is genuine Honda, and before I installed it, I checked the thickness with some calipers. It measured 0.5mm. I don't think you can purchase anything any thicker. I really don't know what to do next. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

P.S. The car has 203K miles on it.

steveeb

And, YES, that was the short story.

purgat0ry

iTrader: (3)

High crank case pressure from what I understand can show a few things.
Malfunctioning PCV system
Bad rings
(maybe more, but I'm dumb)

Is the PCV valve clean? or is it gummy? (Image A)


When you performed your leak-down test, it showed clearly an issue in the lower half of the block, when you had your head off, did you check the cylnder walls for any obvious damage? Hairline cracks, bad scoring, etc.
Is your coolant discolored (brownish)?
If you go to burp the radiator do you never get an end to the bubbles coming from the cap?

steveeb

Yeah, I need to check the pcv. I think it might be gunked up.

Also, did some more searching and found that 160psi, might actually be low. The Honda Service Manual says 135psi minimum. On the net, I'm hearing of 180 to 200+. I'm not sure that's with stock engines or not. Mine is 100% stock except for a cold air intake.

I'm guessing the rings are bad from the multiple over heatings and the amount of miles on the engine. But it's too late for fixing them because, at this point, it would cost more than it's worth to redo rings.

purgat0ry

iTrader: (3)

160 can be a bit low for a B16.

If you decide to not keep the vehicle at all, sell it to somebody else, don't scrap it, 99 SI's are kinda hard to come by (unmolested and not riced out **** like this)
Good luck otherwise

steveeb

Trust me, parting out this car has been sitting at option #2 for a while. Yesterday, it was nearly topping the charts, especially when I had to go out to "un-strand" my son last night at 9:30.

The car IS drivable, BUT BUT BUT (and I need advice here), IF I'm getting so much blow by that my pcv can't keep up and it's blasting out of the oil stick, IS THERE A POSSIBILITY THAT POISONOUS FUMES COULD GET INTO THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT IF HE TURNS ON THE A/C or HEAT?? Would "Recirculate" prevent this?