Diet

Hello new friends,

Last week, I purchased a '95 Civic EX on Craigslist for $800 to serve as a winter daily driver - I live in upstate NY, and I don't want the salty roads to destroy my clean SRT-4 (I'm sure some automatically hate me for owning an SRT, but I like it...).

The civic isn't completely stock, but being new to the Honda world, I'm not the best at identifying everything, so please bear with me. The upgrades that I'm aware of:

- 1.6L "JDM" non-VTEC engine block (how do I tell what specific engine type?)
- VTEC Head
- Approximately 50k miles on engine block
- 204k miles on car body
- Cold air intake
- Aftermarket exhaust
- "typical" Honda rust- mostly on the panels above the rear wheels
- A few other things, but nothing else I know of that would be relevant to this post

Anyway, on my drive home, after about 10 minutes of driving (which, aside from rough acceleration and a rather frighteningly loud "ticking" sound that came from the engine), I noticed a gradual decrease in power. I was travelling about 55 mph heading towards 50. I tried downshifting to 4th to attempt to regain some speed, but that wasn't happening. A few seconds later, coolant blew everywhere and I was forced to coast to a stop. Oh, and yes, I was paying attention to the temp gauge, but it turns out to be broken... and wasn't reporting the overheating.

Long story short, the radiator has a pretty large crack in it, and I'm guessing I now have a blown head gasket since there is white steam present in the exhaust that was not there when I first looked at the car.

I've ordered a $35 radiator from eBay (just need something that works) and bought a bottle of Bar's Leak Head Gasket fixer... which, as terrible as it sounds, actually fixed my girlfriend's Subaru when its head gasket went. I've also purchased a SunPro temp gauge and metric conversion kit so I can know my engine temp.

During my wait for the new radiator to arrive, I have replaced the thermostat and cleaned out the throttle body- which seems to have cleaned up the idle.

Anyway, for those of you who have read my entire post so far, do you have any advice for me as I dive into this? Based on my description of the car, how much should I even put into this? Like I said, right now, it's just a winter rat- though honestly, I really like the car and would eventually like to build it up a bit... If it's worth it.

I guess any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure I'll have many more questions as I work on it...


Thanks much,
Diet

20-EM2-05

Check on the stamp next to the exhaust manifold to see what it says. Should be a D16Z6 seeing you say it's a EX. Also check the head stamp to see what it says. Should be P28, but since you said it's not Vtec, it probably came with the JDM D15B non vtec head. If not he didn't know anything that he was talking about and replaced the D16Z6 head with a D15b7 or a D16Y7.

Just do a little searching and you'll have plenty to know about these little single cam motors.

P.S, just because you own an SRT-4 doesn't mean you're not welcome or people is gonna hate on you. Everyone has their own taste in cars; It's just the people bitchin' that has the attitudes and think their car is the ****.

HondaPartsHero

Replace this or make sure its hooked up for the stock temperature gauge, I doubt the gauge itself is bad (ECT Gauge sending unit in pic not the red circled thing)

sk8rdan103

Civics worth it I have a 96 vtec I just bought it's fun to drive has it's problems but keep up with all the maintenance and you be good should go get that 3 step **** from MonRo it actually works with the idle and did you give it an oil change yet?

Diet

Thanks guys for the info.

After some investigation, I've found that the temperature gauge itself is actually broken. I don't know about internal or electrical damage, but the needle broke right off... I am starting to wonder about the PO of this car. Seeing as the temp gauge is part of a one-piece gauge unit for everything, it looks like the cheaper, temporary solution of the mechanical temp gauge should be OK... I think.

In the picture with the part circled in red- the circled part on my car does not have the adapter there for a temperature sensor. Where can I get a part like that?

And I'll take a look at the engine numbers when I get home from work tonight. Hopefully I can figure out exactly what I have in this thing...


Thanks again for your help!
Diet

P.S. I'm not one of the SRT owners with an attitude, so I don't think I'll have any problems getting along. Thanks for the warm welcome- and I do definitely have my own unique taste in cars!

Cynical 1

you can probably pick up a used cluster for around $50 or less - will be factory and correct, instead of wiring the aftermarket gauge in...

Diet

Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to do that... I tried putting the one from Advance on last night, and even with the metric conversion kit, there's no way it's fitting. Ohhh well. I'm going to take a drive over to my local salvage yard this afternoon and see if I can find one...

And I looked for the block code last night... it was something like D16Y... I should've written it down, but I was more concerned about getting my radiator and temp gauge in before I ran out of daylight.

Thanks again all for the input so far.