So I'm driving home in my GSR on the freeway, cruising in 5th gear. Next thing I know my engine stops responding and my RPM falls to zero. Got on shoulder safely, towed car home, popped off valve cover and this is what I see:



I'm able to pull the belt out from the exhaust side of the engine pretty easily. But the other side won't budge at all! Belt seems to be stuck in the crank pulley area


I take out the distributor, bearing seems to be fine. Take out the cam caps, then I hear something fall near the cyl#2 exhaust valves. It's a dowel pin that looks like it belongs in a cam cap. But wait, all the cam caps have 2 dowel pins each, so where does this extra one go? (on the right between the 2 cam gears)


With the cams out I look down towards the crank gear, but instead I see the timing belt on the wrong side..


So I remove the P/S, A/C, and alt. belts. Everything is spinning freely, nothing is seized. Same for the water pump and tensioner.

I take out the crank pulley, and I'm about to remove the lower t-belt cover... then I notice a round scoring mark on the cover


Off with the lower t-belt cover...


Anyone know WTF might have caused the belt to end up in this position? The belt is jammed underneath the crank gear, haven't seriously tried to remove it yet, but it's not coming out easily. Belt has 30K on it, and there were no obvious warning signs or noises coming from the engine before it happened.. engine was running perfectly right before I hopped onto the freeway too.

I'm about to cop a used t-belt and run a compression test tomorrow. Looking at the position of the cam gears, I'll be lucky if it's bent valves only. I saw lots of metal at the bottom of my dipstick when I first pulled over, so it's probably not looking good so far. But I'll know for sure by tomorrow.

 

the belt simpy whipped around and fell down under the crank TB gear from the other side after it whipped to the other side. no biggy. the TB snapping is the biggest issue to figure out what was all damaged. at this point i would pull the head and just plan on a head gasket and valve job as well with new head bolts. this way you dont put it back together and have to pull the head off after you put the TB back together. so did you find where the dowel pin went? i doubt it was extra and floating around in the head. maybe you missed where it was supposed to go looking at other stuff, alot has to be checked and if it were any car i was working on i would scan everything at once. its possible i would miss its place initially but i would figure it out in the reassembly. so was it extra?

 

good pics though. definately helps

 

I heard the dowel pin fall near the cyl #2 exhaust valves when I was removing that center cam cap. But I'm looking at the cam cap and it's got both dowel pins in it already. At that point only the valve cover and 2 cam plates were removed, and those parts don't contain any dowel pins.

I'll post compression test results tomorrow.. hopefully pistons didn't make any contact. If they did, then expect a GSR engine and tranny for sale in the classifieds soon!

 

yeah my lil brother did this on his 88 pelude SI before he gave it to me. costed $600 for the parts and head work. not bad. how much you planning on selling for? i might be interested. how many miles on it?

 

I thought the damage was going to be A LOT worst when you text'd me but this still has me boggled. Just sell it and go K20 already.....jeez! Let me know if you need help with anything bro.

 

It looks like that dowel pin goes in the center cap cap that has the little rubber o ring, i believe there is a small dowel pin that goes in there or under im positive! also check your cam gears for cracks and chips that may have shredded the belt this happened to me on the freeway in 5th cruzing 65mph a few weaks after my dyno tune and my sk2 pro series cam gears cracked and chiped away shredding my belt, sk2 couldn't man up to there default even with high def. dig. pics i sent of the cracks. they blamed it on my cams cause i told them i used buddy club cams and they said it was cause of cam gear failure lol they suck f sk2! anyway i can bet you $5 you have 8 bent ex. valves, prepare to redo the head don't even bother with seeing if it didn't contact, its a interference engine which means the valves smacked the pistons once that belt let go! your looking at about $400 in parts and labor to redo the head and putting the head on is pretty easy i can even help you online with that but don't give up on the motor unless you don't care a toobit about integras.

 

Off with the lower t-belt cover...


Anyone know WTF might have caused the belt to end up in this position? The belt is jammed underneath the crank gear, haven't seriously tried to remove it yet, but it's not coming out easily. Belt has 30K on it, and there were no obvious warning signs or noises coming from the engine before it happened.. engine was running perfectly right before I hopped onto the freeway too.



If you didn't put washer #16 after the crank gear between the crank pulley that's why you shredded the belt! the belt looked like it rubbed on the inside of the lower timing cover and shredded that thing!, iv seen this before, that washer holds the belt straight so it rides the gears straight. no washer and eventually it will rub and tear apart. did you do anything down there recently? timing belt change or remove the crank pulley?

 

The #16 washer was there, you can see it in that first pic you posted.

Just picked up a belt, I'll be back soon with compression test results

 

comp test was 0, 240, 0, 240. head is coming off, hopefully the pistons on 1 and 3 didn't sustain serious damage..

 

YIKES!!!!!! umm....k20 time!!! lol

 

is it me...or is 240 psi extremely high for the GSR engine? if the pistons are good then its not too bad. hopefully the head isnt warped or beyond any service limits

 

i broke my timing belt on my Jdm B18C - SiR, i bought a new OEM belt, did a compression test, read 250,240,240,250 across the board, got lucky, didn't bend a valve or anything. just costs me a little downtime, a new Tbelt and a compression tester.

 

depends on the gauge you use, some may read 240, if all are close it's going in the right direction

anyway, my guess is bent valves, you'll have to pull the head and find out. honda valves are so dinky they almost never take out a piston.

 

why do ppl always say k20? I did a misshift and bent all my exhaust valves on gsr. Couple weeks and I was running again with new rings. cost me only couple hundred bucks.

 

that dowell 100% goes in the center cam cap in the same hole the O-ring sits in. the belt may have been installed too tight. or too loose.

 

if the compression seemed high for a stock gsr couldnt that be just excesive carbon build up on the tops of the pistons ?

 

so you bent your exhaust valves and spent a couple hundred bucks on piston rings???? what about the valves?

 

LOL

 

ha ha lol no... while the head was at the shop I put some new rings in with a fresh hone.

 

that dowel pin is from the rails that run across the cam caps

 

oh i got it now LOL makes much more sense

 

Winner.



Here's where it went:

 

What do you all think? Can I just get a valve job, resurface the head, throw in some new valves and call it a day?

Cylinders 1 and 2:


Cylinders 3 and 4:


Here's the head. Cylinder 1 is on the left. Exhaust valves on 1 and 3 aren't fully closed.


On that note, can anyone recommend a good machine shop in the Bay Area?

 

damn