Background: I drive a 99 Honda Prelude Base that just rolled over 100,000 miles a few weeks ago. Today I was driving along the highway back home in stop and go traffic. My car made some weird noises under the hood and something felt wrong. I heard a snap and my car died and I had to pull over to the shoulder. I opened up the hood and I could clearly see that the alternator belt snapped, as did the one underneath it. I had the car towed to a Firestone near my house.

The mechanic that inspected the car said that the harmonic balancer also broke somehow, and that it probably destroyed the timing belt as well. He told me 99% of the time when timing belts break the engine is probably fubared. I heard somewhere that the H22 is only an interference engine while in VTEC, and that if it was not in VTEC, there is a chance the engine head might not be messed up.

The mechanic told me they could replace the timing belt, but they wouldn't be able to do a compression test until they did that and that my engine may still be shot and I will have flushed $700-$800 down the toilet. Should I go ahead and replace the timing belt and pray, or should I bite the bullet and get a new engine/head?

Also, I read something about a leak test that may be useful in determining if the cyclinders are messed up or not. Would that help? Thanks.


Modified by jlim at 8:58 AM 3/24/2007

 

how fast where you going when the belt broke?
what RPM were you at?

 

do you know for sure the timing belt is snapped? pop the valve cover off check the timing belt if it is broken get a boreascope (or find someone that has one) take a look inside see if anything is wrong.

 

I say if you want to know if your timing belt snaped... take out the distributor cap and have someone crank the motor while you look at the distributor rotor... if you DONT see the rotor turn.. that means your timing belt is snapped..

 

Yeah, don't panic and start dishing out a bunch of $$$. Check to see if the belt is broken or not and go from there. You can change a timing belt yourself with a Helms manual and some tools.

If the belt is broken you most likely bent some valves. I'd suggest taking the head off and having a machine shop rebuild it.

 

I was going maybe 10 mph at most.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hawkze_2.3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
If the belt is broken you most likely bent some valves. I'd suggest taking the head off and having a machine shop rebuild it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thats not always true if its an h22 and was not in vtec it most likely did not bend valves.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kulrevon &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Thats not always true if its an h22 and was not in vtec it most likely did not bend valves. </TD></TR></TABLE>

True, I thought he was saying he was going highway speed when it happened. At 10 mph you're probably OK...

 

Can someone give me a brief explanation on why it could cause damage in vtec, but no damage when not in vtec?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jlim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Can someone give me a brief explanation on why it could cause damage in vtec, but no damage when not in vtec?</TD></TR></TABLE>

More than likely if you are in vtec the RPM of the engine is high. When the timing belt breaks you are more likely for the inertia of the engine to make the valves hit the piston when the RPMs are up. Also with the lift on the valves higher there is a greater distance for them to travel building more inertia causing more damage if they do hit. Never heard of interference?