Hey guys. I have another account here, but I lost the password and no long have the email, so I'm starting fresh.

94 Accord EX 5sp 4door, F22B1. This is my girlfriend's father's car. Basically every gasket that could leak, was leaking, and everything that needed to be replaced was in need of replacing. So the engine got rebuilt along with the transmission. It ran good before the rebuild.

Originally it didn't want to start at all, I discovered this was because of the engine flooding from too many previous start attempts. So I got the cylinders dry and now It will start now, but it runs pretty rough and shakes.

Intake was thoroughly cleaned by me - down to bare metal. EGR ports and everything (EGR ports were horrible). Everything was cleaned, new gaskets everywhere.

Vacuum lines appear to be correct.
It seems to run better with the IAC disconnected, but it still runs rough.
IAC was cleaned during the disassembly thoroughly with brake cleaner (it was plugged bad)
No check engine lights when everything is connected.
No vacuum at EGR Valve, so that's good.
Tried another distributor, same thing.
Cam timing appeared correctly done by the machine shop.
Engine seems to like more ignition timing rather than less.

The exhaust smells very rich.

Any ideas? I'm just really scratching my head since everything worked fine before.

Thanks.

 

Have you check the spark plug gaps? What about distributor cap and wires?

 

Spark plug gap is fine, 40 thousandths. Cap and rotor are new oem honda. Old wires were swapped with known good wires, no difference. I bought a remanufactured Hitachi unit, no difference in performance.

Actually you know what's really bizarre, I just took out the plugs again and they are BLACK! Blacker than black. The pistons look wet when I shine my flash light down there. Really odd. It smells like gas. Fuel injectors were working fine before.

Maybe the fuel pressure regulator? Hmm...

 

Yes, it's running super rich for some odd reason. If you can diagnose the FPR then I'd do it.

How's your 02 sensor?

 

O2 Sensor is a brand a new Denso.

I just took a second look... the wetness on the pistons - small puddles actually, appears to be oil. It smells more like oil and it doesn't seem to evaporate.

I used my gun cleaning kit with a patch to get down in there. If all of that is oil in there... I am really screwed. That means the engine was machined very poorly.

Time to call it quits for tonight.

 

Yeah, it's either oil is coming from the valve guide or headgasket mating surface isn't sealing properly.

 

Yes sir, those are my thoughts exactly. It's starting to make more sense now. It will run good until oil gets to the top end, then it starts running like crap.

I need to do some more diagnosing today before I start tearing things apart and call up the machine shop.

I did hook up my leak down tester yesterday and I got almost 100% leakage. I know the engine isn't broken in yet, but geez. It was bored over 0.5 millimeters.

Maybe I just should have bought a H22A, lol.

 

If you can interpret vacuum reading then it will tell you if you have bad valve guides or not.

 

Good idea. I'll go borrow a vacuum gauge. Well, my leakdown tester is showing about 10% leakage on all cylinders give or take. I know the conditions are not right and the engine is not broken in, but I'm getting a lot of air coming out of the valve cover. If the oil cap is on and I plug the PCV fresh air line, I get quite a lot of air coming out of the PCV valve line. The only question is the air coming from?

I would think if I'm getting oil from the return passages, that i should get some air bubbles in the coolant as well.

I think I'll try to have a friend of mine take a look at it too - he's an Acura/Honda technician. A fresh set of eye never hurts.

 

Nah, 10% is safe and is pretty good. You don't want anything over 22% of leakage. I believe those air you hear are just going past the ring end gaps down into the crankcase which is why you'll hear it through that PCV hose. How new is the headgasket? It shouldn't show signs of air bubbles in the coolant resevoir if you installed and torque down the headgasket properly.

 

All the gaskets in the engine are new. The machine shop installed the head.

I'm not getting bubbles in the coolant, but I think that I should if the engine was indeed sucking in oil from the return passages.

I'm leaning towards valve guide or maybe they forgot to put the valve stem seals on.

 

Well, I've been busy, but I have an update.

I let the engine warm up a fair amount so I could get a more accurate compression test and leak down. Compression: #1-200, #2-197, #3-192, #4-195. Leakdown: #1- 5%, #2- 8%, #3- 7%, #4- 8%.

My friend said I should have over 200 compression and less than 6% leakage, so at least my numbers aren't way off.

Per his suggestion, I adjusted the valves (cold of course). They were a little too tight in my opinion, but the adjustment didn't affect the operation of the engine very much. It ran slightly better, but overall it is still very rough.

I didn't see any red flags with the head; valves appear to have seals. Nothing jumping out at me.

Another suggestion I got was to pull the intake manifold and see if I'm getting oil on the valves. I think I will try peaking through the injector bosses first before I go on another wild goose chase.

 

"All the gasgets in the engine are new." I was doing a valve job on my car and when i put it all back together I found a huge amount of oil down in the spark plug holes. I had put a new gasget on the valve cover after putting it all back together and the new gasget was wayyy to thick. this meant there was a gap between the valve cover and the holes to go down to the spark plugs. i threw the old gasket back on which lowered it back down to its proper height and boom worked perfectly. this was on a 93 accord but i think this might help your situation

Tim

 

Thanks Tim (I'm a Tim too). The spark plug tubes are completely dry; they are sealed well. I'm getting oil in the combustion chamber.

I was doing my best to look through the injector bosses with my mirror, but it's hard to get a clear view. From what I can see, the valves look pretty dirty for hardly being ran. So I think I will regretfully pull the whole intake to get a better look at the valves.

I think the shop screwed up the guides somehow. So, I think I will end up pulling the head and seeing if I can get new guides put in, or maybe just trash this head.

 

Is the engine misfiring or is the idle low?

 

I guess you could say it's misfiring to some degree because that's why it's running rough and shaking.

 

Just an update... so there was definitely oil getting in the cylinders. So, I pulled the head and took it to a NEW machine shop (a nicer one that is more performance oriented). They discovered the valve stem seals were way too loose, so the original shop must have ordered the wrong seals. They checked out the rest of the head, vacuum tested it, and couldn't find any other problems. They put on new ones and we both felt that this would solve my problem. Wrong.

I put everything back on the engine Sunday, fired it up, and it still runs like crap - shaking and not wanting to run. It appears to be same problem. Oil (or something that looks like it) is getting into the cylinders.

I even bypassed the cat to make sure the exhaust wasn't plugged up - it still ran poorly.

Again, the car is perfectly timed - cam timing, balancer/oil pump line up perfectly. Ignition advance is perfect. I triple checked it.

So, I'm stumped. The new machine shop is stumped.

I might end up taking it to a good shop that I know of to see if they find something I can't. If they don't find anything I will probably have take the original machine shop to court to get my money back.

 

my plugs were turning black quick is was cuz l was running rich. which probally will make plugs not fire correctly and make it rough idle. change plugs and check fuel pressure. then as ur do that check ur throttle body adjustments

 

I think it is a mechanical problem. Plugs are brand new. They don't smell of gas. Fuel pressure is good, I'm not sure what the actual number is because I don't have a honda pressure tester. I don't see my regulator magically failing.

It fires up no problem, so I know everything is timed right and I have good fuel pressure and spark. However, once it starts running, it's shaking and missing horribly and will eventually die out.

 

So did you get the valve seals replace since they were a bit too loose? Did the car run ok afterwards?

Honda recommends that your Compression Numbers are above 180psi. If it is then you're good. Also, you can have leakdown percentage up to 22% and it would still be good. Just not below 180psi and over 22% of leakdown and you're good to go.

 

Yes, new valve stem seals were installed. They said the valve were seated well and the guides looked fine. I adjusted the valves... again.

No, it still shakes violently and doesn't want to idle. I actually think it runs worse now than it did originally. If you don't give it any gas it will lose RPM and die.

Oh EGR valve is working fine. If I open that up, it dies in a few seconds - so no EGR problem here.

I've exhausted all my resources, so I think I will have a shop look at it. I've gone to this place before and they are good guys.

 

Oooo i just had this problem driving home, 200rpm idling almost to 0 but recovers to 200 abouts / shook to hell standing still. Was a blocked vacuum hose from the valve cover going to my air intake, had some spare tubing in the boot, Seemed to sort it out for me. I just had oil filled sparkplugs due to a rocker cover gasket replacement and the seals didn't set right in the sparkplug wells, probs same reason maybe of the gasket hight. No oil got down past the plugs tho, Just a 3" pool of oil in each one XD, Still drove :D. sorted that now *pretty much*. Then this rough idling happened first time since owning the car, but also sorted now with the hose.

 

Didi you accidently swap the TPS and MAP sensor connectors? They do reach and the values are not so far out of range to set a DTC but will cause a car to die if the throttle is opened.

 

Check the EGR again. It might be stuck partially open or leaking.
Unplug the IACV and see if anything changes.

The F22B1 spark plug tubes don't work the way the B2 seals do. The actually seal around the outside diameter of the tube. So gasket height wouldn't cause a sealing issue unless it was REALLY thick (like 3/4 of an inch).

Air coming from your PCV is normal, it's just blowby from the pistons.

Check the valve, if it isn't venting the crankcase the pressure will force oil up through your rings.

 

That sucks.