I've got less than 16K miles on the car and I need a rebuild. No turbo, no supercharger, no NOS, just back luck I guess.

Took my car to Inline Four to get some cams and gears installed. Had them do a leak down and compression before hand 'cause my car was idling a little funny since my warranty issue back at 6K miles.

I had blown up a clutch, stripped some bolts outta my crank and loosened 8 bolts outta my flywheel. After warranty, my car was idling a little shakey and so I told them but they were like, "The shop foreman went for a test drive and everything checked out ok."

I was like, "I think my valvetrain or somethings screwed up dude." But of course, they weren't gonna touch anything else.

10K miles later, I decide to install some cams so I took it to a local speed shop.

Anyways, the guys at Inline Four, called me back and basically told me that I needed an engine rebuild. Probably new piston rings. Apparently, my leak down is at 40%, my #1 cyl. at 165 PSI, #2 at 135 PSI, #3 at 165 PSI, and #4 at 185 PSI.

The speed shop guys asked me if I was burning excessive amounts of oil. I check my oil every so often but my oil was never low. I don't think even a quart low.

I called one of my buddies at the dealer and he said he'll get the shop foreman to check it out. I'm hoping its not the same foreman that said everything was dandy before.

Sorry, just had to vent out some frustration. The thing is... I know a lot of the mechanics at the dealer and to tell you the truth... I don't trust them. A lot of them just goof around and they're lazy as hell. I'm just hoping that when I get my car back, It'll run good as new.

 

you still have warrenty correct?

 

Yeah, well, I hope so. I hope they're not like, "Due to your carbon fiber hood, excess resin was sucked into your HKS airfilter and caused premature piston ring failure." or some **** like that. As for mileage, I've only got 16,000 miles and my car's a 2001 model.

 

you should still be covered...unless you had those cams installed, then you will be in for a fight unless you switch them out and all is stock when you go back to the dealership.

 

Those numbers for an h22 are pretty low. I ran a compression test couple months back and it was around 210-215 psi across the board. Now's a good time to install those Type-S pistons e.t.c. though

 

you know thats not as low as you think except for #2, for h22 it should be 185 psi is normal. Where exactly did the leakdown test leak from? You could either hear it at the exhaust or the intake or if its neither then your piston rings are fubar'd. Its very possible the clearances werent set right when he installed the cams and its letting air past the valves. Get him to adjust the valves again, properly this time.

 

i think they did the test before installing anything. i know i wouldn't want to install cams in an engine with an already rough idle.

 

Yeah, I didn't install the cams. The leak down and compression was on a bone stock motor.

So is 185 PSI normal? Where can I find the "normal" compression in writing? I know that as engines get older, the compression might fall but, damn it, my motor only has 16,000 miles on it.

So... update today

I took my car to the dealer and had a talk with the foreman. Some early thirties, speed junky looking dude with cool *** shades and tats on his forarms.

I told him that ever since my warranty issue, the car never idled smooth. It almost had the "just after a tight valve adjustment" shake intermittently. Then it would go away after a quick drive. It wasn't like it had a leaking vacuum line and it wasn't a drop in rpm's like when your fan kicks in. It was just a rough idle.

He told me that it's probably just a EVC valve or something. Said that it was probebly fouled up somehow. He showed it to me and it was a little electrical connector in front of the intake manifold.

He assured me that it was the culprit and they'd warranty it for me like on Monday.

I asked him about my compression results and he said that it didn't seem very abnormal (sounded like bs to me, he probably just didn't want to warranty that type of work). He said that the guys at Inline Four probably didn't do the right type of compression. He said there was two types of compression, a dry and a wet. The wet is when you squirt in some oil before and it'll bring the compression up like 10 PSI's. And thats how it should be done. He said thats why my compression levels are so low. (still didn't explain the severe differences between cylinders)

All this was sounding fishy. He just seemed like he wanted to avoid the situation and just patch things up.

So I called a ex-mechanic buddy to stop by my shop. He said that you do a standard compression to check leaks through the valves and then you do the oil compression to check the rings. Well he also said that if you squirt oil in and the compression goes up (like the 10 PSI that the Honda dude told me) then my rings are gone. Because the oil is sealing up any fractures.

My buddy said he'll borrow another friend's compression machine this weekend, before I've gotta take my car back to Honda on Monday, and he'll do one himself. He said maybe the #2 cylinder was just a flook. We'll make sure this weekend.

If compression is jacked up on the test this weekend, should I take it to another dealer? I know that this joker at local Honda dealer isn't wanting to perform a serious warranty service on my car. He just keeps telling me that everythings gonna be ok.

Should I take it to another dealer and say that my cars eating a grip of oil (which its really not), just so they can do a compression check for themselves. This clown was gonna charge me to do it, and that didn't even matter 'cause the current compression readings didn't seem abnormal to him anyways.

 

Well your buddy is right, a wet test is to check for ring leaks and your dealer is like almost every other honda dealer. Getting them to diagnose the problem correctly is a PITA.

The actual compression values for each cylinder are not as important as the variance between cylinders. I can't recall for sure but I think you want less than a 20% variation in the readings. Your friend should know for sure.

Good Luck.

Gabe