This is my daughter's car, 140K miles. Driving normally, red lite came on, engine quit. Her boyfriend got there, checked oil, didn't appear on dip stick. They put 4 quarts in. Still wouldn't crank. Had it towed back to the dorm. I drove up to south carolina and towed back to Florida. During the daylight you can see the oil on the stick. I'm in the middle of a tear down, not out of car yet but close.

I checked spark, it has it. Fuel dribbles out of the rail (noticed in taking it appart). Oil in the middle two spark plug holes of the cover, one and four clean. Has a good battery, plenty of gas, cooling system was fine, no unusual smells and visually looks ok for a car its age. Also no oil in collant or collant in the oil. Removed the oil cap and you can see valve train move when engine is cranked. When I saw no compression on number 1 and number 4 I figured it was a blown/cracked head or possibly the block. So I am in the process of pulling the engine. Down to pulling the axles.

Today at work got to thinking... Does the honda have a cutoff switch of some kind that is thrown if the oil runs low? Their portable generators do. And if so could that be one of the problems? I admit the no compression bothers me.

As the crate engine from a parts house runs a little more than I paid for the car for her I decided to rebuild. I have rebuilt engines in the past (used to race SCCA years ago) but never with all the electronic junk they put on them now. And this is a VTec. As I am being careful to label everything its taken quite a while to get to this point.

I also thought I would get the tranny rebuilt as long as it would be out of the car due to the mileage. When we got the car first thing I did was have the tranny oil changed and the timing belt replaced.

Any suggestions or help is appreciated.

Thanx Wade

 

Go to the local junkyard and get one from there. Shouldn't be more than $400. I was looking to swap a f23 in my 95 and LKQ wanted like $350.00 with 75K. It would be much easier and cheaper to swap another in than to rebuild it. Besides if you throw aftermarket parts in it you lose the reliability of the Honda name. Especially the F series! I have over 260K on mine and she still runs like a champ!!
I can't tell you why your engine now is messed up but that is very uncommon for an F22 to do that so young.
Good luck
Oh yeah and welcome to H-T

 

the pistons aren't siezed up in there are they.. not to insult you just a question. I'd ask your daughter how long she ran it without checking (or changing) the oil because if shes like my sister she'll probably say once or never. Now granted you know how to tear down an engine, and rebuild it, are you willing to spend more to rebuild than to just get another. Alot of people on this forum sell the f22xx because they pull them for the h22. i know theres a guy selling one for 200 in new york same year with 146xxx miles on it. I personally would think getting one with less miles on it for $400 would be the better route to go, seeing that you'll still have to figure out why there was no oil to begin with.