I have an h22a in a 94 eg.
Today a crack formed in the heater hose and the temp gauge went crazy.
As soon as i noticed the gauge went up I pulled off the road and shut the car off. called my friend, and went we to Autozone. bought a heater hose, drained the fluid, put the hose on, and filled the radiator back up with fluid.. I started the car and it seemed fine. I drove it about 2 miles back to my house and turned it off, and no radiator fluid had been lost out of the motor.

later on the day I went to start the car and it idled very rough with lots of dark smoke comming out of the exhaust pipe, and there seemed to be liquid in the pipe as well. It did not feel like oil. It almost felt like one cylinder was not firing.
i could get the car up mabe 3k and it would start running alittle bit smoother.

I know black smoke normally means running too rich.

I was wondering, is this most likely a head gasket or it has jumped timing or the main relay could of gone bad?
I currently am stumped because nothing else changed on the car except the hose.

Any advice or opinions would be a big help. thanks


Modified by 94CDMeg at 8:47 PM 10/21/2008


Modified by 94CDMeg at 8:56 PM 10/21/2008

 

how hot did you get it? are you loosing any coolant? yes black smoke means rich, if it was white that could be coolant. if it was my car i would start by pulling the plugs out looking at them carefully. do a compression check. that should tell you if you have a blown head gasket.

 

if it feels like its misfiring while its idling....just start pulling 1 plug wire at a time, and see if it changes anything.
Check for spark.

Just remember the main relay powers the fuel pump, so if the relay was bad, u'd have no fuel pressure and the car probably wouldn't start.

Take off the valve cover and make sure ur cams and crank are still in time

its kinda weird that the car would run rough after overheating a little.

How hot did the temp gauge read before you pulled over?

 

yea sounds like youre running rich and misfiring is there any check engine light ? if so check it with a scanner. IF not then check your ignition system and fuel system make sure they are up to par.

 

umm id say it was like 3/4 the way towards hot. and its not leaking coolant anymore since I changed the hose. Im going to check the spark tomarrow. I was going to do it today but i didnt have any time.

and it wasnt white smoke. ive learned another way to check if the head gasket is blown. you start the car let it idle for awhile long enough for the thermostat let coolant start flowing through the engine. at that time you take the radiator cap off and if coolant shoots up out of the radiator, it means that during the compression stroke of one the cylinders, that cylinder is loosing compression through the headgasket and pushing the fluid out.

and as far as ignition. in July or August I had to put a complete brand new distributor, I have MSD wires, and when I installed the dizzy I also put in new NGK iridium plugs. But I will still check.

 

another thing that I have herd from my uncle who is a honda mechanic, is that the oil might of gotten like super heated which would make it thinner and because of that it might have been able to somehow get into the combustion chamber. it is completly possible because the engine already burns a little bit of oil.
and thats why it is burning that dark smoke and not firing correctly. I did not try to start it today but tomarrow ill check it out.

Just wanted to say thanks for the help.
haha keep it comming

 

all cylinders have spark. and its only black smoke. no coolant has leaked and no oil has been burned or lost..
im stumped.
tomarrow im going to check the timing.. any other ideas? its still driveable right now... its just burning really really lean it seems like
any help??

 

Maybe your engine coolant temperature sensor is bad. If i'm not mistaken,
this could cause your motor to run rich.

Just an idea.

 

Had a bad temp sensor on an old chev 350 V8, and as SKDRCR says, that made that thing run rough as snot, and flood it out completely sometimes.

I'd start there.

 

thanks for the idea. ill try it.
Do you happen to know which one it is? Is it attached to a green plug on the passenger's side of the block?


Modified by 94CDMeg at 9:43 PM 10/25/2008

 

thanks for the idea. ill deffantly try it.
Do you happen to know which one it is? Is it attached to a green plug on the passenger's side of the block?

 

any help??

 

Shoof is right! Wait until engine is at normal operating condition and producing the problem your posting about,then pull one plug wire at a time from each plug itself.Reconnect each plug wire as you go through this process. If you have a fouled plug for MANY reasons,when you pull the plug wire while its idling... you will see no difference in the running condition,which means pull that plug and check for moisture or oil.If in that case,replace the plug or better yet replace all with NGK plugs.Do a compression test as well and make sure all your plugs are tight before you check your compression.Your pressure should be around 150 PSI or higher per cylinder.Most likely you have an ignition problem or a blown head gasket. But if it got hot enough,it's possible you have collapsed some rings,which would cause an abundance of oil blow causing lot's of smoke and a rough idle or you could have jumped time as well.