Evans1109

Hi HT, I just picked up a 92 civic cx that the previous owner put a d16zc swap and it had a leak in the water pump then he got laid off so he had to sell the car. I picked up the car and drove it home which was about 20 - 25 miles from where he lived stopping halfway to check the radiator and over flow to make sure there was still coolant. When driving it home the car had very little power and I could not get it passed 55 mph. When the car was put under load the exhaust would get cherry red and my mom which was following me said it looked like white smoke was just sitting in the muffler. So when I got it home I was looking over the motor and saw that the headgasket was leaking as well as the distributer. I got a new headgasket and o ring for the distributer and fixed that also we took the exhaust off and ran it with just the manifold to see if it would run better while we checked the ignition timing(after ensuring engine timing was where it should be per fsm). When the car was started the ignition timing was off a hair so we got that lined up where it should be but the car was really quiet which is very strange considering it was started with JUST the manifold. I moved the car out of my garage and drove the car around my driveway and the throttle response was a lot better and started in first with ease(versus driving it home and having to get the rpms very high to even get the car to mave on the slightest incline). My question is why the hell would the car be quiet, maybe a clogged manifold? I was told not to drive the car cause the engine timing was off but we checked it twice and it is where it should be. help please.

Engine
d16zc
y8 IM
LS throttle body
LS map sensor
P28 ecu
Factory manifold(from the original motor)
Test pipe(now replaced with magnaflow hiflow due to inspection and emmissions)
N1 style catback(was told it was from egay)

Replaced
Head gasket(from napa triple ply metal)
O ring for dizzy
water pump
cat

Evans1109

ttt, When the car is at idle there is a good bit of vibration, could the problems be due to insufficiant spark, which may explain the quietness of the motor? Any opinions?

Evans1109

Today my friends brother stopped by and called us a bunch of idiots, the person I bought the car off of labeled the wires 1 through 4 but the one that was labeled 4 was actually 1 and so on. So the mechanical timing is off 180degrees and plug wires 2 and 3 are reversed at the dizzy. when we checked timing originally we thought we were checking it on 1 but we were checking it on 4. So everything should be in order hopefully by monday and then the car should be running right.