My wif and I have a 99 prelude, it has 140k miles on it.
Its in fair condition with a few outstanding issues. Over the years we have determined the previous owner had the right rear 1/4 panel replaced, and they also slightly damaged the threading inside the crank snout, so the crank pulley will back out if i do not re-torque it every oil change.


Anyway its always been a fairly reliable car (except when i bent rod #1, which i replaced 3 years ago). Fas mileage has always been on the low side though, 20-23 mpg, while my h swapped accord wagon always did 25-28.

Anyway out of the blue about 4 weeks ago her car dies at random, when she tries to restart it it sound like hell and stalls. It really sounds like its firing on 2 cylinders.

I no longer work at a repair shop, and co not have time to look it over, so we send it to the dealer and pay $85 for an estimate. Got to love that...
Anyway they come back with "the crankshaft is bent, possibly because the lack of balance shaft belt"

I did not bother arguing with them, just towed it out, they had a $4600 engine replacement estimate for me.

I also did not bother to tell them I have not had a balance shaft belt on my other H22 powered car, and have not had it for over 60k miles without ANY issue.

I started pulling things apart tonight, i figure if i put an hour in every sunday night i will eventually get it all torn down and see what is wrong...


anyone feel like making a bet whether the crankshaft is bent or not??

 

bent? nah. The crank would have a hard time bending

My bet is autotensioner failure caused it to lose the timing belt.

Is the belt on there tight? Is everything still lined up?

 

lol, If your crank bent , I don't think that's going to be the ONLY thing wrong...


For Dealer Diagnosis

Keep us updated though, I'd like to know what's actually wrong compared to their glance.. You should take it back to them when you figure it out and see what the say again.. Good laugh.

Sorry to hear about the car though.

 

We had a crank that had 0.003" runout on the #1 journal when supported by the #2 and #5 journals in the block. When the main caps were torqued to spec, the crank couldn't be turned. Of course the #1 bearing halves looked like hell when the engine was torn down.

This engine previously destroyed an oil pump from a gross over-rev. Interestingly enough, it didn't tear up the top end. Go figure.

This was on a Honda Challenge engine I built. The owner ended up buying a brand new crank from Honda.

 

Actually the T-belt tensioner failure was what I expected to be honest, but the belt is snug and looks great, and its all in time as well.

As i get down I will take pics though I just wish i had time to dedicate a few days to pulling it apart. its just one more project I do not need right now as i am starting a new business (financial adviser/broker), plus I have a salvage title cbr I am restoring, and a 94 civic hatch with a built all motor setup in it.

The fact that the Honda Challenge engine got away so easily is amazing, it just goes to show how solid Honda engines are. This was my wife driving who rarely exceeds 4k rpm LOL.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v4lu3s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">"the crankshaft is bent, possibly because the lack of balance shaft belt"</TD></TR></TABLE>


Or possibly the crank is bent because your wife had waffles for breakfast. Did they also tell you it would cost $234 to replace the blinker fluid?

If the crank is actually bent, it has nothing to do with the balance shaft belt.

 

If you told honda about the crank snout issue it is likely that is why they say the crank is bent.

They don't have any real good way of telling that, plus, if it was bent to the point of effecting engine function, it would most likely not even turn over, as in 117's case.

Your description was kinda vague about what happened, was this a repetitive failure or did it just happen once and hasn't run since?

If it just all of a sudden died one day, and now it sounds like its running on 2 cylinders, of course my first thought is autotensioner but have you looked to make sure it didn't drop a valve or float one and somehow bend one? Did you do a compression test?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flyrod &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If the crank is actually bent, it has nothing to do with the balance shaft belt. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Agreed, 100%!

 

Honda would have discovered the crank snout issue as they had taken the crank pulley off to check things out down there. The crank pulley woodruff key was slightly chewed on looking, since i had run out of them when the pulley last came loose on us. I had cleaned it up with a file so it would still fit.

And my description was EXACTLY what happened. Wife is driving down road in left lane of 6 lane road, engine dies on her, completely shuts off, and she pulled into the suicide lane. She calls and says my engine died, and it wont run when i start it up again. i get there and crank it over and it starts hard, but does run with uneven idle for about 30-60 seconds before dying out. The short period of time that it is running it sounds as if spark plugs are switched up on 2 cylinders, it runs uneven and very rough.

Anyway my first thought was timing belt tensioner failure, the belt is snug and the engine is in mechanical time. The dealer claims to have run a compression test but never shared the results. Honestly I am not too worried, I have not trusted this engine since the first time it fired the crank pulley off.


I have had 5 h22's with around half a million miles on them combined, and never once had an issue with the auto tensioner, or hell anything else either. This one has just been a pain in the ***, and i am excited about putting a mroe reliable engine into it....though I would honestly rather sell it and paint my accord wagon and have my wife drive that until I buy her something newer...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v4lu3s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have had 5 h22's with around half a million miles on them combined, and never once had an issue with the auto tensioner...</TD></TR></TABLE>

I used to feel the same way about the auto-tensioners, until one day I had to walk. I lucked out and there was no damage to the valves, but the end of the spring inside the auto-tensioner broke off (~130k on the tensioner), the belt lost tension and slipped. Manual tensioner

Good luck on the repair; let us know what you find.

 

I didn't mean to insult you with that response, I was merely trying to rationalize Honda's response to you.

I read something wrong in your description, I thought it was some sort of ongoing problem.

I would love to know what actually went wrong with this thing, slowly dying out but not seizing the engine is odd, esp because it stayed in perfect time. Maybe a valvespring broke? Is everything in the head fine?

 

Oh no I am not insulted. I was just trying to clarify so you knew exactly what had happened, I would not believe it myself if the car was not sitting in my driveway (and my wife wasn't driving my wagon and i wasn't driving a brand new Tacoma!).

The valve springs look good, nothing looks funky at all in the head.
I will be taking pics as I look it over of course.
I suspect that once the oil pan comes off I will know a LOT more.
This engine did bend rod #1 3 years ago due to water (30k miles i guess), i tore it down, and inspected it at the time, replacing the rod and bearing and it ran better than it did before, makes me wonder if that was what gave out...

Flyrod, was that an all stock h22 that had the tensioner fail? Honestly on the engines I used the tensioner on, they all had stock cams, stock internals, and did not go over stock rev limits. THe one engine I have that I did a manual tensioner on has crower stage 3 cams, portflow springs and retainers and is 13:1 compression.

 

To be honest I do no believe the dealer mechanic at all. Not to put down guys at the dealer, but a mechanical problem like that is not one they usually fix, its a replacement of engine, so the less time they diagnose the faster that they can fix and get the car running again.

 

+1 i used to work at a honda/acura dealership, some of them can't diagnose a car very well... they start replacing parts by parts till they get lucky and fix the right one..

 

I finally got a replacement engine in my wife's lude, the old one with the "bent crank" is sitting in teh garage, hopefully I can start pulling it apart soon...post some pics etc.

 

i tore the engine down today....not a problem that i could find in it. the only thing that i think was a problem was one of the sensors at the crank was cracked and was rubbing against the crank sprocket. I am betting that timing was way messed up.

 

last update before i let this die.

the only thing i could find wrong was a smashed sensor at the crank. It looks as if crank pulley wobble shattered one of the two sensors behind it, breaking the plastic mounting tabs off and damaging the sensor housing itself s it was misshapen. Apparently it still worked well enough that it would not throw a code...but messed up timing REALLY badly. Too bad the dealer did not bother to take the lower timing cover off and take a look...then again I wish I had.
Regardless the car runs great and I feel better with a different engine in there now.

 

Sounds like one of those freak problems, but just having the peace of mind not dealing with the crank pulleys loosening is worth the cash a jdm h22 goes for usually.

 

yeah, and the new found peppyness.

 

I agree with both of you, i have spent years wondering when something bad would happen to the old engine.

 

That makes sense....good find

Want to get rid of the rest cheap?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v4lu3s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
And my description was EXACTLY what happened. Wife is driving down road in left lane of 6 lane road, engine dies on her, completely shuts off, and she pulled into the suicide lane. She calls and says my engine died, and it wont run when i start it up again. i get there and crank it over and it starts hard, but does run with uneven idle for about 30-60 seconds before dying out. The short period of time that it is running it sounds as if spark plugs are switched up on 2 cylinders, it runs uneven and very rough.
</TD></TR></TABLE>


sounds pretty similar to how my H23 died a coupla weeks ago. except the crank wasn't bent



<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mgags7 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Want to get rid of the rest cheap?</TD></TR></TABLE>

x2

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v4lu3s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">last update before i let this die.

the only thing i could find wrong was a smashed sensor at the crank. It looks as if crank pulley wobble shattered one of the two sensors behind it, breaking the plastic mounting tabs off and damaging the sensor housing itself s it was misshapen. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Quick question: What type of clutch did you have on there? OEM? Or aftermarket?

 

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

Quick question: What type of clutch did you have on there? OEM? Or aftermarket? </TD></TR></TABLE>

the seller claimed it to be a Centerforce dual friction, but it was just a tired oem clutch.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mgags7 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That makes sense....good find

Want to get rid of the rest cheap?</TD></TR></TABLE>

i am trying to decide what all i need to part with, right now i have 2 h22a4 blocks, a jdm h22a block, the h22a crank with slight threading damage, 2 h22a4 heads, a couple of valve covers, 1 or 2 sheet metal oil pans, one cast oil pan, a jdm header, couple of halfshafts, an f22/h23 crank, one obd2 distributor, 1 or 2 obd1 distributors, multiple sets of cams, the stock pistons and rods from the h22a4, plus lots of little things including manifolds and throttle bodies, an h23a1 transmission, a gsr transmission (with bad 5th gear syncro and slightly messed up case), and who knows what else....thats in addition to teh 99 lude, 92 accord wagon that is h22 swapped and a 94 civic that is h22 swapped. Expect to see stuff popping up for sale soon is all I can say.