dbman96

OK this is just sadly ironic.

I've been running NA since March; pulled the turbo for smog, ordered a new one on the group buy. Now my turbo should be here any day and my engine died on me TODAY.

It started I guess last week - under light acceleration I would hear a light "knock" sound - very discreet, didn't bug me too much since I had the J&S on and it didn't have any reason to detonate. Figured maybe I was getting a little misfire since the distributor has LOTS of miles on it. So today I pick up a new distributor cap and rotor, put it on at work. On the drive home the car feel way better, more responsive, I think life is good.

As I climb the mountain home I notice the knock is getting a little louder. It's not there if I'm OFF throttle and it's not there at FULL throttle, but in between it's becoming noticeable. By the time I get over the top of the mountain it's knocking louder, still goes away if I floor it or if I coast. A little while later I realize if I take the car out of gear, it won't idle at all, just stalls. Against my better judgement I figure whatever damage is done, is done, and I can make it another 10 miles home. I finally quit about 3 miles from home; it just hurt too bad to listen.

I got the car towed home, dropped the oil pan and block girdle - all the rods LOOK ok; there MIGHT be some sign of the shoulder bolt striking the base of the cylinder on #3 but it's hard to tell; it may be nothing. I can crank the engine through rotation with no interference.

I'm thinking there's a POSSIBILITY I put a valve into a piston but don't know how that could happen. The middle crank bearings have some light scoring on them which worries me but they're not in terrible shape. I haven't taken the head completely off yet, but I will tomorrow.

I'm wondering if anyone can help me identify this mysterious knock that's killed my damn STOCK B18C. The timing belt notches on the cam pulleys still line up correctly so I don't think it skipped or anything.

Bearings? Rods? Rings? Valves?

If you have some idea what's wrong, what would you recommend I do to fix it? I know everyone's going to say send the engine to GE and have it sleeved and built up, but I just bought a house so I don't have a lot of money and I need my car EVERY day to drive to work so I can't send my engine away for a month. I'm open to any useful suggestions though. Buy a B20 shortblock, go CRVTEC, go cheap and put an LS block in, or whatever is a GOOD solution, I don't know... I'm totally lost right now. If it's the valvetrain I have no CLUE what I'm going to do. Obviously I've got boost in mind so I don't want to skimp too much but I need a FAST solution to get back on the road. Ideally I hope to figure out what's wrong tomorrow, get parts ordered by Wednesday, and get it fixed over the weekend. Got a loaner car until then (possibly longer if necessary).

You guys rock, I know this will all work out, and thanks for any support and assistance you can offer.

Blowing engines SUCKS.

VaporTrail

perhaps it's not what you think it is.

check the ICM (ignitor module). It's a common failure.

dustin

That so sounds like a spun rod bearing...

Pull the rod caps and take a look at the bearings...

sparkz

sounds like a thrown rod beaing to me as well. dont really wanan burst your bubble but you should check it out and hopefully your crank is ok. a friend just recently spun a rod bearing. totally disinegrated hte #4 bearing, and whatever was left is all in the oil pan. the crank journals were pretty scared up as well too.

X2BOARD

Sounds like a spun bearing from here too. Did the knocking sound like someone threw a wrench in your crankcase and it was banging around at partial throttle ? How did the oil look when you drained it ? If you drove for that long on a spun bearing you should have some residue in the oil pan. If it's spun, I hope the crank didn't get damaged.
Good luck !

Projekt20

I say....if only your block is messed up...find a B16A block swap that in and drive slow for awhile until you get enough money to send out the B18C block. This way you have a car to drive while saving up or while the B18C is getting built. Anyways...B16A blocks are a dime a dozen.

-Trung

dbman96

That's a good point - is there any trouble in mating a B16 block to a GSR head? And anyone in Cali got a block they're trying to get rid of?

It DEFINITELY sounds like there's a loose wrench in the crankcase, but I drained the oil and didn't see ANYTHING in there... not sure how that works. Will it be very obvious to me when I pull the rod caps if that is the problem? And if the crank is OK what else should I check for damage?

Dustin - while I'm working down here is this a good time to put the 22 psi crank pulley on for my JRSC?
I would LOVE to believe that it's just the ICM, but unless the ICM is loose and flopping around somewhere in my oil pan I don't think that's what's going on. That noise is just TOO painful. VaporTrail, if this metallic hammering is a normal sound from an ICM failure then I'll be thrilled beyond belief.



[Modified by dbman96, 7:01 AM 5/7/2002]

riceanator01

Definetily a bearing issue, if not then there is a possibility that your camshaft had some play in it , maybe from the turbo, and one of your valves might have gotten bent, by being of just a little bit out of timing, but usually you wouldn't even be able to start the car due to the fact that you would have no compression, and to be totally honest it could be a number of things, but if it's a bearing then go to your local junkyard and... Good luck man, I just had to do a full valve job, with a port and polish, and milled head on my 2001 civic, just because I mis shifted from 5th to 2nd, I was trying to downshift to 4th, but the gear spacing is so close in the 2001's that I got nailed and I didn't even know it, the gear slipped in real smooth, oh well I guess...good luck though


[Modified by riceanator01, 3:07 PM 5/7/2002]

dbman96

See I thought about the valvetrain idea for awhile but I can't imagine why it would be getting so much louder and LOUDER as I kept driving - if a valve hit a piston and the engine was still able to run, wouldn't it eventually get beaten into submission and/or ejected out the exhaust port? Plus the sound wouldn't have gone away when coasting or WOT. The rod bearing makes sense because when it was just partially shot, it would only be floating at light load. I think.

Hey why is it that B16As are so common? It's not like there are a million and a half wrecked Sis out there, are there? I would expect to see lots more B18As in junk yards but it seems the going prices on 16s is cheaper.



[Modified by dbman96, 7:14 AM 5/7/2002]

dustin

Sounds like that are always bearings. It got louder because it started as a little extra friction between the bearing and the journal... and as it spun it advanced to more... and more... and eventually the friction was so great that it spun. (gets REALLY loud when it spins.. goes from a ticking to a knocking almost instantly, don't ask me how I know ahhhh)

If it SPUN, then the bearing had so much friction against it and the journal that they locked up and it started spinning inside the rod instead.

Here are some spun rod bearings from my ZC (whoops):





When you hydrolocked your motor and had to replace a rod, did you re-spec the bearings (plastigauge, etc) ?

dbman96

Thanks for the pics dustin - that will help a lot tonight.

When I rebuilt the first time I plastigauged the rod bearings and they came out a little on the tight side but I rechecked the original bearings and they measured almost exactly the same, so I wasn't too concerned, figured it was just the stupid plastigauge. Sounds like maybe I should have thought about it a little more. The replacement rods were the same spec (letter/number) as my old ones. Maybe I should have tried to get a size larger on the bearings.

dbman96

Oh and in your case was the crank damaged badly? What do I need to be thinking about for crank repair - is this just a polishing issue or do I need to be looking for a new crank?

X2BOARD

Good point. These are stock Honda bearings, no ? Since the turbo was no longer on, did you really rev that motor often and is it at stock redline ? If you didn't notice any type of foreign material in your oil when you drained it, you could be luck and have not damaged the crank (if you spun a bearing)

*B16's are very common place because they have been around sooo long. (Over 10 years right ?)

dustin

The crank in the pic was pretty much damaged beyond repair (for my purposes). After returning it and polishing it, I don't think I would have been able to get it back in spec with oem bearings. So I just threw the crank out.

However, I drove on the "almost-spun" bearing for 2 months until it actually spun... so I had more opportunity to damage it. Mine was caused by oil starvation (oil light came on once at idle, I filled it up, apparently the damage was already done though)

Dustin

X2BOARD

I had an oil starvation incident too and spun a bearing (or two, but who's counting) Drove on it for about 1.5-2 miles to the house. Results ? Lets say that Dustin's pic of his crank looked nice. Typically a spun bearing results in buying another crank. It is very difficult to resurface or polish it back to 'new'. Plus that can weaken the crank.

dbman96

Crankshafts are expensive little buggers too; maybe it's time for a new block

dbman96

I'm sure this has all been explained in detail once or twice but could I swap a B20 block in under my GSR head (assuming the head is sound)?? Seems like this might be an affordable way to get this show on the road and gain a bit of low end push while I'm at it. What's the diff. between the B20A and B?

dustin

You mean B20B and B20Z? They have different compression pistons, but the rest is the same.

You could definately do this... it would just be like having ls/vtec. You'd need some machine work done to the head and you'd have to run an oil line from the pressure sender to feed oil to the head.

Dustin

dbman96

the more I look at doing that, I'd end up having to get forged pistons to boost it anyway so I might as well just build up my poor block.

Projekt20

You see them more cause everyone doing a LS/VTEC buy them and just use the head.....I'd just go with the B16A block myself. If I would've done that a long time ago I could've saved myself a lot of time and money....as well as over a year's worth of downtime. I've seen some forsale for like $50 and some for free if you take it out of some people's garage.....plus with a GSR head the CR of the B16A will be raised about .2 more. And in the background you can have you GSR block built up to 84.5mm with GE sleeves and then add a 8.8 JE piston and Eagle rod (j/k). Anyways...it's up to you. Good luck!

-Trung

-Trung

FAST94GSR

I recently lost my engine and had the same exact problem as you what caused it was my goddamn oil pump, it decided to break and phucked everything up. gah

turbo_ef9

looked like my old zc:D

dbman96

Damn guys I got in there and that rod bearing was worn down to about the thickness of aluminum foil - the crank is probably worn down about 50-100 thou from the damage.

Looks like it's CR-Vtec time for me. Just got my turbo in from the GB so maybe it will all come together at once. Picking up the B20B tonight.

Wish me luck!