I'm in the process of replacing the head gasket on my '98 Honda Civic EX and realized I broke the valve/stem thing where the VTEC solenoid goes. The solenoid was removed from the head when the head came off but the valve thing was still down in the hole. I must have laid the head down in a way that torqued the valve thing as it slid out of the hole and got crushed.

So my question is, what should I do? I really don't care to have working VTEC. Can I just put it back together without the valve thing and disconnect the wiring? Or do I have to find another valve thing, or do I have to buy a new VTEC assembly all together?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

if I'm not mistaken you'll have to replace your vtec solenoid all together. i see you don't care to have working vtec or not, just keep in mind, if you leave that vtec solenoid off, you will have motor oil all over the place. best to do it right and fix it instead of rigging somehing up.

 

Thanks for the help. Just to be clear, I can bolt the actual solenoid back to the head (shouldn't leak any oil), but without the valve thing inside. The problem is, without the valve in place, I don't know if that will engage VTEC all the time, or none of the time, or just run funky.

 

Just to be clear, I've attached a pic of the broken valve. Sorry for the bad quality.

 

Anyone?

 

If you disconnect the wiring, the broken solenoid will just work like a big metal gasket. Make sure you pull all the debris out, but if the housing of the solenoid is fine, it'll just channel oil. DO NOT run Vtec with it. It could potentially end dangerous.