new Honda owner here. I have 60psi Compression in cylinder 4 and about 120-160 across the rest of the cylinders. I am assuming the piston rings or head gasket. I was wondering if I should just pull the motor out or just take the head off while block is in baay

 

If you wanna do it right it'll have to come out and be honed, unless you wanna use a drill honer lol. It would probably be a pain in the *** to measure clearances with the motor in.

 

So should I do a full oem rebuild or just replace gasket and rings? And should I spend a little extra for forge pistons and rods?

 

If its not too much to take the head off and check what your cylinder bores look like you might want to find out exactly whats causing the leak in cyl 4 before you start buying stuff...

Im rebuilding my H22 now and noticed after I got the head off that one of my cylinders was badly scarred all the way up the cylinder walls... Dont have any exact compression numbers for you but I do know that cylinder was misfiring badly while the engine was still running.

I just honed it out with a fine grit drill hone so Im hoping that fixed my problem... But I guess your right either way when you have compression issues you're going to need new rings

 

More than likely you'll have to pull the piston out, cause you cant really see if the rings are f'd unless you pull em. 120-160 seems a lil low to me, so yeah I would just do a oem rebuild with new bearings and possibly a oversized piston set if you walls are too messed up to just do a hone. Never put used rings on a fresh hone or vice versa.

 

if i go to a bigger piston wouldnt that mean i need aftermarket?

 

i don't think that you have eather going on. I think that you have a bent ex valve. Open the valve cover and get a feeler guage and spec the clearance at the cam lobe (.019 ex and .017 in). If you know what you are doing and the motor is stock then you should adjust intake side to .019. It will give you a better responce time. if you can fit more than .020 in the gap you have a bent valve.

 

I sure hope it is a bent valve. I surely do not feel like ripping the block apart. as long as i just have to remove the head. its all good.

oh yea, no coolant in oil, and no smoke coming out of the exhaust. when it idles you can hear the miss.

 

so i drained the oil and as the bottom of the drip pan, there were tiny peices of metal. looks like parts of a ring? or the wall?