Why are hondas so notorious for throwing rods through the block? Driving like idiots? or is this just a pandemic?

 

Driving like idiots and improper maintenance, think about it almost every f1 team runs a honda motor, not saying our daily drives are f1 engines but they were built on the same principles

 

I see alot of riced out civics being beat on like it's an f1 engine... True that on the f1 honda motors though.

 

i think you mean Indy Car uses all Honda engines. Honda dropped out of Formula 1 entirely in '08 or '09. now it's all Renault, Mercedes, Ferrari...

i agree with your point. i think it's the combination of the widely accepted idea that good reliability means "no maintenance required... ever!" and excessive hooning.

from experience, you can push them pretty hard as long as you maintain them very well. my civic with 245k original miles is driven like a rental... and my accord with 170k is regularly operated at it's limits by both me and my wife. maintenance as needed on a month to month basis (dirty oil gets changed; tires, brakes, ignition system are monitored and replaced when worn...)

 

I know two people who have poked rods through their blocks, both engines got hydro locked.
I think a lot of people break rods from boosting, trying to make too much power on stock internals, and a bad tune or a lack of one doesn't help either.

Going along with what Mark said, I have tortured my B16 since '02 but I have maintained it carefully.
If it breaks tomorrow I won't be mad.

 

Its mostly done from over-revving and just plain beating the snot out of a high mileage motor with large rod bearing clearances.

Although, the only rod I've ever seen exit the block was on my brothers B18C5, completely stock with 28psi being shoved down its throat. It was very safely tuned via AEM and on C16 fuel. We literally found pieces of piston skirt laying on top the radiator! I guess every motor has its limits!

 

I really don't know very many guys that throw rods. Most the people I do know that have either revved the **** out of their car, sucked up water, were boosted or blew a headgasket that dumped coolant in the base.

 

The only people I know who have screwed up Honda engines basically did so by being a moron.

The closest I can think of as having an issue besides owner stupidity would be the '90 Prelude I just looked at the other day that has bad compression in cylinder one. It's a B21A1 though, and that's just sort of what they do. You won't find this engine in a Civic.