A friend has a 91 Civic DX automagic with the stock D15 engine. A while go, he was driving down the road and the car started pouring steam out of the engine bay. From what he told me, the steam seemed to have come from around the distributor and the temp never went high enough to reach overheating; he turned the engine off before that. We towed the car back to his place, topped the coolant off and tried to start the car. It would crank but no start. So, we just pushed it into his shed.

That is about as far as we went. This weekend we both will have more time to inspect the car. I do not want to say the head warped, but I do not know. What could have happened to it? I am guessing a heater hose or something like that gave up (I honestly have not spent any time on the car since the event), but am not sure. I also do not know why the car does not want to start and how one event led to the other.

 

did he ever put the radiator cap on before driving ?

 

Yes. Do you think the cap has failed?