Balto

Hi guys, I bought a 1997 HX for 2k a month and a half ago or so, and I knew going into it it was going to be a project car, and so far I have replaced (myself).

Timing Belt and water pump.
Cleaned the EGR chamber and replaced all the injector gaskets, as well as replacing the EGR chamber gasket itself.
Dizzy Gasket.
V-tech Solenoid gasket (solved a major oil leak).
Spark plugs.
Spark plug wires.
Oil.
Tested the TPS.

Now to the problem:
Whenever I'm on a cold start, or once in a while at highway speeds, the engine will almost feel like it's lugging down and then catch itself. I know it's not going into Lean burn as ever since I got a P0401 CEL (cleaning the EGR chamber fixed this) it refuses to go into lean burn anymore. I did a compression test and #4 and #3 Cylinders are at 180 and #2 is at 160 and #1 is at 165. I know this isn't low enough to warrant major concern, and I'm not burning oil at all, but I'm trying to figure out what is wrong and I'm coming to you guys for help. Any help or suggestions at all would be extremely helpful.

[Edit]: I almost forgot to mention, when I'm at a cold start and I get this feeling, if I downshift and punch it (getting the car into V-tech range) it instantly goes away and I feel the 'power' come back. If what you want to call this D16Y5 V-tech 'power' haha.

TomCat39

If you are concerned you can do a leak down test and see if you get air coming out other places, i.e. air in cylinder 1 hissing out of cylinder 2 (bad head gasket).

If I recall correctly, the Y5 is Vtec-e the 96-00 version of the Z1 (92-95). Punching it would put the motor into normal operation, not vtec. Low rpm it should be running 12 valve (vtec-e mode) and when you punch it, it goes to normal 16 valve operation.

The Y8 was the 96-00 performance SOHC motor aka Vtec "power".

I am not sure how sensitive the EGR valve is but possibly your cleaning did more than clean but actually messed it up some. You could try going to the salvage yards and getting a used one, swap it in and see if your problems subside.

Balto

Yes you are correct about the 12v into 16v operation. As for the leak down test, wouldn't I be burning oil/losing coolant if my head gasket was bad? I don't overheat, my coolant is fine, I'm not losing oil either. The 'surging' problem was there since I bought the car, long before the p0401 CEL and the cleaning of the chamber. I never touched the EGR itself, just the chamber.

NotARaCist

iTrader: (1)

Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that you have a crack in the head gasket directly between those two cylinders. No oil or coolant would mix, and you wouldn't even necessarily overheat, but you would lose compression between the two. Do a leakdown test.

Balto

Well at least I have another project to keep me busy, I found a good writeup on how to do it here on there forums so I'll go ahead and do it. Is there any harm in driving the car like this? I have work on Tuesday and it's a 80 mile round trip.

NotARaCist

iTrader: (1)

The second someone says no, something will happen.

It's possible the "crack" could get bigger and become failure.

Balto

I'll just assume yes and baby it more then I already do.