Dublocivic

I purchase a 96 Eagle Talon TSI AWD (with only 30k on it!) for my second car incase my 600hp civic blows up(hope not lol). The car is in excellent shape but the timing belt jumped. I pulled the head and found that every intake valve is bent... My question is: Is the bottom end reusable? The intake valve relief's show where the contact occurred.. I looked fairly close and the pistons dont look to be damaged besides the half-moon shaped dents from the valves (no cracks or anything) but the contact is kinda close to the edge of the piston but it didnt hit the cylinder wall or breach the edge of the piston.
I think it looks reusable but Im looking for a second opinion.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
--Adam

93LSivic

A good site for the DSM is the vfaq.com page. I think thats the one. Sounds pretty bad for the head. I forget but is it the 1G or 2G heads that flow more. Check around for a used head, they are easily obtainable. DSMtrader.com is good for parts too. Also look out for the 2G's they had a batch of bad motors that suffered crank-walk. My buddy had a 95 Eclipse that had this, always had problems.
Good luck, wish I had a beater car of something of that magnatude!

SiR Kid

Any time there are marks or dents in the pistons, ESPECIALLY on a forced induction car, the pistons are fucked.. that causes hot spots on the pistons during combustion, and will melt things internally...

I'd find a new longblock, personally.

BTW, Welcome to the world of real turbo cars DSM's are cool.


[Modified by SiR Kid, 3:09 PM 1/8/2002]

Dublocivic

Thanks for the reply's guys
I've heard about the crank walk issue. A friend of mine has a Talon FWD that keeps blowing up because of it... I wonder if there is a set serial number of the walked blocks... hmm..
The dents dont have any sharp edges, it just seems as if it made the relief a little bigger.. I asked the previous owner about what RPM she was at when it occurred (she has a real light foot) she said about 2- 2.5k rpms. I thought about getting some Emery(sp?) cloth and massaging them a tad to touch it up.
eheh.. yea man I really lucked out and got leather, factory cd player etc... and to top it off the awd tranny was just replaced 1000 miles ago!

turbosol

The 1gen head IM and TB are all larger than the 2gen, but the 2gen ex. man. flow better than the 1gen.

SlowTeg

Depending on how much money you have, I'd just opt to buy at least a 1g shortblock, or even a full 1g longblock. They're very cheap if you look around. Rebuilding the 2g block is another option, but the early 2g dsms like they said are notorious for crank walk. Only real way to fix it is go with a 1g block.. The problem with crank walk is that you can't really tell until it's too late. Usually the addition of a stiff pressure plate is what wears out the thrust bearings quickly, but it still happens on many stock cars. Good luck.

-Mike

iceburgslim

I bought a 1G DSM that had this problem with the intention of fixing it as cheaply as possible. Long story short I spent a ton of money only to have a car that was working the same as when I bought it (not at all!). I'm not sure if I got the full story on the car from the previous owner...rebuilding the head made the engine run again, but it had serious blow-by, not even driveable. So dont take the cheap way out. Take the whole motor apart, and make sure everything is within spec. Replace the rings. go to http://www.clubdsm.com and look at the FAQ's and everything else you can find, somewhere in their is a way to tell if you HAVE crankwalk, but there is no way to tell if you WILL get it. Some 1G's had it to, and any motor with a crank can get it.....but it is rare on 1G's....sorry for rambling, and enjoy your project! Later!

Dublocivic

Thanks again for all of the words of advice and the linx. Ill let you all know how it goes..(hehe.. the only true way to have a fast street car is with RWD or AWD but the civic will still see some street use but mostly weekend beatings at the track.

16g-95gsx

Here's my opinion. You have been blessed in a way. You now have the engine pulled apart and have the ability to upgrade the internals. Yes you do have the 2g block which does experience crankwalk in about 15% or so of the cases if I'm not mistaken. Now you can pick up a nice JDM engine for about 900 dollars, they are 1g's straight from Japan and usually have about 30k miles on them. They sometimes come with 16g, or big 16g turbos and larger injectors if you are lucky. Another option is since crankwalk seriously doesn't happen in every DSM as everyone likes to make it out to sound like, you can upgrade your internals. Get some J&E pistons, and some nice Eagle rods. The eagle rods can be picked up for i think 400 dollars at Turbotrix.com and are enough to handle 600hp easy, and the J&E's are about 500 dollars, plus small parts like rings and such and you will have a fully built engine for 1100 in parts. Then the engine will be bullet proof as far as the bottom end goes. The head I would either have fully ported and redone with some nice SS valves, or I would just swap it for a 1g, of which I would still have the valves replaced. The 1g heads flow just slightly under a ported 2g head, but then again the 2g head's passages I hear are developed better as far as angles are concerned. Now of course that is just wat I have heard, I have never delt with the head before.