A couple of days ago I lost all oil pressure in my car while driving on the freeway. I shut it down within 5 seconds and had it towed to a repair shop. I was told the problem was the belt broke that drives the oil pump because the guide on the oil pump broke. I was quoted 1500 to get the car repaired. The current motor is an h22a1 with 99500 miles on it. I'm not that mechanically inclined and don't have the time or knowledge to do a swap myself. I'm debating on whether or not to just get the car repaired or buy a jdm h22 longblock and have them swap it in which would be about a 1000 more. Do you think i have damage to my motor? What would you do? All help is greatly appreciated.

 

Well there is a fighting chance that your motor is still alright I'd say. I would say replace the timing belt (I assume that is what broke), and repair your oil pump problems (replace if necessary); then do compression and leakdown tests to check the current condition of your motor. I say replace the parts first because my understanding of compression/leakdown leads me to believe that you need the timing belt intact to do the tests. If I'm wrong then I'm sure someone will correct me.

Even if your motor is messed up don't fret too much. The worst I would think it could be is some bent valves and the like. I doubt you'd have any problems with the bottom end. This could be a good excuse to build up your current motor actually (assuming you have another car to drive in the meantime). If your only trouble is bent valves, you could do a good cam job for much less than an H22a swap and end up with a lot more power. Just my $0.02...

 

ummm, correct me if i'm wrong, but there's no belt that drives JUST the oil pump. Pretty much everything runs off the one timing belt, and if THAT broke, a LOT of other stuff would be fucked up.

I'd reconsider what your mechanic told you....

 

THe timing belt is not broke i was told the balancer belt is

 

The balancer shaft belt ONLY drives the balancer shafts. If you disconnect/cut that belt, you just lose the balancers, not the oil pump.

Running no balancer shaft belt is a free way to pick up a few extra horsepower; I personally run my car without the belt.

 

I understand that. Whatever drives the oil pump is not doing that so i need a new oil pump. The purpose of this thread for me is to get an idea if i should just get it fixed or swap in a jdm h22

 

The timeing belt is what drives the oil pump so if you snaped that you could have bent valves ect. You should find out if you do have bent valves and any thing else that might be wrong with the engine then weigh those costs with the cost of a swap.

 

I doubt the t-belt broke because he said he shut the car off 5 seconds after he lost oil pressue. You might want to ask your mechanic exactly what happened. If your timing belt broke then the car would have shut off on its own. Maybe the pump just seized up on its own or something happened to the filter maybe? Just throwing out some ideas

 

any suggestions