Hey guys I have 97 Civic swapped to B18c1 Gsr Motor. I Will get straight to the point so here's the problem. The car is turboed, to 8 pounds of boost, street tuned. So heres where it starts ,about 2 weeks ago i opened the hood and saw this, if your standing directly in front of the motor to the left (tranny side), between the head and the block there was oil seaping from there. When i did the swap the head was off from the block and during the assembly process Instead of using an oem headgasket i used the feltpro advance auto parts gasket. I know i know , I learned from that mistake.So i went to Acura bought a brand new headgasket and changed the headgasket to oem, and also had a friend put in arp gsr headstuds while i was at it. The head that was on their , looked like it had been warped , according to my friend. So i had another head that was lying around which looked very good compared to the old one. So we swapped the head also while we were at it, and swapped the stock intake manifold for a Edlebrock victor x . Assembled everything and went to start the motor, it would start but die it kept doing that , brought it to a shop and they diagnosed it as the valve lashes being too tight,so they loosened them and the car ran fine. 2 days later i went to go get the car Dynotuned. On the dyno the power the car was making kept steadily rising, Until it hit the 4th pull which was 285whp @ 8 psi and the next 2 pulls , the car dropped to 230 hp and the tuner said Vtec is not coming on . He put an oil pressure gauge on the head and tested oil pressure , it had pressure . He took the wire from the vtec solenoid and ran it to the battery and the solenoid clicked,he claimed it was a mechanical problem. I drove all the way home ,And had a local shop check all the vtec pins in the head to see if it was missing any . All pins were in place. So that same night a friend and I changed the whole vtec solenoid itself. Drove the car for the first time and man the car spun tires and it felt like all the way power was there. So the next day i went back to the tuner he puts the car on the dyno and the same problem again.Except this time when He went to go check the oil pressure it had no oil pressure whatsoever. But the last time he added a quart of oil this time as i recall he checked it and said it was good. i drove all the way back home again.Some symptoms are that the car on cold mornings or just in general when you first start it up will rumble up and under 1000 rpms and at times will shut off the first try and then the 2nd try after rumbling it will stay on like normal. Now as of today it was a very cold morning close to 10 degrees out i went in to start the car and it started rumblinmg and shut right back off. I went to crank it for a second time and it wouldn't even crank over after that . What is going on please help anyone ??
Thank you so much in advance to anyone that can help!


Some symptoms That i have recently confirmed -
-After a few Mins of driving the car will throw an ecu light. (not at start up though).
-No Restrictor on turbo . Will be getting one asap.
-Vtec is intermittent ?
-Some people claimed oil pump issues but don't those go bad all together>?

Thanks again guys for any help .Its greatly appreciated.

 

Did you diagnose the CEL code?

 

No sir I haven't yet.

 

Then check the cel. I'd be suprised if it was completely unrelated to your current problem.

 

By not crank over, do you mean starter is not working, no cranking, enginewillnot turn over???

If so, check all your main power and ground connections, power and ground at batt., batt. to chassis ground. chassis to engine ground, grounds at thermostat housing, batt. to enginebay fuse box and the main fuses, batt. to starter motor, make sure all the connections are clean and tight.

Have you checked fuel pressure, is it consistant?94

 

One thing i never do is swap a used head on a block without giving it a hot tank valve job and resurface just to make sure its not warped, i dont deck them unless there warped! a head can warp from heat or being disasembled from the block incorectly, any bit of old dirt or carbon from a old head laying around can damage the head, im gonna say maybe you have dirt in the head floating around in the oil now and its cloging the vtec solinoid. If the car isnt fully tuned with the injectors your using your gonna have rough start ups untill the car warms up enough to stay on, if the car wont click check the starter or even try to pop start it! if it starts its most likely the starter, they do go bad eventually at the wort times! if your in a garage or drive way let the car roll back in reverse and pop it in reverse to pop start it, when you pop the clutch start the ignition at the same time to start the motor. i use this method when my starter acts up when im in my garage parked or in the drive way. just make sure you have a friend to push it back up if it dont start!. $5 bucks says the cell code is for vtec solinoid or low oil pressure.

 

ls-boost.....BAM!!! jk

 

not a bad idea! easy 200hp!

 

Its not turning over period at the current moment .I don't know what to do .

 

If so, check all your main power and ground connections, power and ground at batt., batt. to chassis ground. chassis to engine ground, grounds at thermostat housing, batt. to enginebay fuse box and the main fuses, batt. to starter motor, make sure all the connections are clean and tight. 94