RuffRhyno

Here is what happened:

I have a 1993 Civic CX that I previously swapped a D16Z6 into. Yesterday, I swapped in a B18C1 that I have been working on. The motor is a 1997 B18C1 that I took apart, inspected the bearings and crank (which are immaculate) and put back together using ARP rod bolts and head studs. Everything was torqued to spec and with the Moly lube. The motor has a Skunk2 intake manifold, lightened, flywheel and aftermarket clutch, GSR trans, Type R wiring harness and chipped P28 ecu. I am using an OBD0 throttle body for the time being which doesn't have the MAP sensor on it, so I currently have the external MAP sensor from my CRX hooked up to it.

After getting the motor in the car I wanted to make sure that it would fire up right without having any kinds of knock or other problem. Time is an issue here so I planned on just hooking up the bare minumum of what I needed to and firing up the motor just to see if it runs. After plugging in the wiring harness, clutch line, putting oil in the motor, etc... I proceed to start the motor. Since there was no coolant in the motor or lines hooked up, I only planned on running the motor for a few seconds to confirm there were no problems.

The motor started on the first try. The revs jumped to about 2G's then right after that dropped and stalled. I then tried it again, this time the motor's idle jumped to about 1800 rpm's then dropped down to 1200rpm then leveled off at about 1500rpm. At this point massive amounts of oil came out from under the car. I turned off the motor and after inspecting the area discovered that the headgasket had blown. Oil was literally spewing out from under the intake manifold where the head meets the block, and towards the tranny side as well. It was shooting out with such force it was hitting the firewall. The other sides of the block were bone dry. So, after much disappointment and fatigue I called it a night and decided to save the work for the next day.

What I planned on doing today was swap the D16Z6 back into the car. This is my daily driver so it cannot be out of commission longer than this weekend. The conclusions I came to about the leaks was the either the head is warped, which doesn't seem possible b/c I did a compression test while the motor was out of the car and it came up fine. OR, somehow the headgasket was faulty, but that is a highly unlikely scenario. Could the blown headgasket have soemthing to do with the fact there was no coolant in the motor? I am just at a loss for ideas and I would rather fix this problem then put the old motor back in the car.

Thanks for anyone's help they can give me.

ScubaStevo80

I don't think it would be a great idea to start a car and run it without coolant... I would assume they can get hot quick when the crank is making 2000 revolutions per minute.

RuffRhyno

well after a little more research it appears like the problem I am having is due to the headgasket being installed "upside down"...
ggrrr let's see

does anyone in NY/NJ area have a new headgasket they want to sell haha

RuffRhyno

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by VolpeOwnsU &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I don't think it would be a great idea to start a car and run it without coolant... I would assume they can get hot quick when the crank is making 2000 revolutions per minute. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes it is not a good idea but I didn't even give it a chance to heat up considering I let the motor run for no longer than about 7 seconds

Combustion Contraption

the black side should be facing up when installing the head-gasket, did you face the metal side up?

RuffRhyno

UPDATE: I took the head off and flipped over the headgasket to the correct side. The motor runs without leaking any oil, but now it idles extremely rough. It fluctuates constantly between 1200-1600 rpm's and there is a CEL. I am using an Integra Type R wiring harness and there are some leftover plugs which don't seem to have any sensors to go to. I have a feeling it is just some kind of vacuum problem, but I need to diagnose it. I am using a first gen B16a throttle body on it now b.c I purchased a Type R throttle cable and bracket. Can I use the GSR throttle body with Type R throttle cable???

Combustion Contraption

no