After successfully performing a a6 / z6 head swap and taking my 88Si out for a test run, I noticed that it was spilling oil.

Further inspection revealed that the builder of the z6 head (bought it on eBay) did not install the cam seal in the head, but other than that the car sounded really good after swap.

Installing the cam seal, a relatively straight forward task, quickly turned into a nightmare after my neighbor, a life-long mechanic, forced his way into to project.

When finishing up, I gathered torque specs to torque the cam bolts down only for him to scoff and tell me that it would be perfectly fine to hand tighten them...

Unfortunately, he tightened the bolts WAY TOO MUCH resulting in a pinned cam, and causing the timing belt to jump.

After fixing timing and torquing the bolts to what they should have been to begin with, the cam is free now and the engine turns over, but that is it - seemingly no spark.

Dissassembly of the distributor shows that the dizzy was wrecked by the trauma but after replacing it, still no spark.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should try next???

-Dizzy has just been replaced
-Checked all dizzy harness wires back to ECU for continuity (with multimeter)
-Dizzy appears to be getting power.

-Could my ECU have fried?
-How should I check the main relay to make sure it is powering the ECU?
-What else could have caused the car to quite starting after this boneheaded move?

 

So I assume he was a diesel mechanic? They dot use torque specs for ANYTHING but heads and rotating assemblies LoL...

You say you assume... Do the basics and CHECK for spark, CHECK for fuel, CHECK for compression. Those are the only things that the engine needs to run (assuming air is not being blocked from going in). Until you do that any advice people give you is just talking out of their butt. Remember Hondas are interference engines so if the timing jumped a lot you might have more problems than you think.

 

Funny thing is I had just told my wife that I didn't really want him helping me, but he was letting me use his MAC tools, so I figured it would be crappy of me not to let him help.

Timing just jumped a couple of teeth on the belt. There is no spark - testing done by inserting screwdriver in the spark plug wire and by using a spark plug, both held near various ground points.

As far as compression goes, this same mechanic [my contempt is so much right now that I can't even bring myself to call him my neighbor] told me that compression was useless if I wasn't getting spark at this point, but considering my noob skills seem to trump his 14 years experience, I'll probably barrow a gauge anyway.

As far as fuel goes, I'll check the main relay - any chance the ECU could have been damaged?

P.S. Did I mention that the last time he was under my hood he wrung the head off one of my waterpump bolts in the engine block? This guy is some sort of an overtightening addict.

 

Sounds like a butcher...buy yourself a good set of tools (look on craigslist or Kijiji). Somethings are better done by oneself than to trust another..

 

I would never trust a piece of steel for a spark test only because depending on what type it is may give you a false negative. Is this distributor new or used? I have seen where a rebuilt distributor come without coils... Take your cap off and make sure everything is plugged in/there. Compression would still tell you it is mechanically sound. You should ALWAYS do a compression test/ leak down test if your timing jumps.

Stop calling this guy a mechanic because it is obvious this guy is clearly a professional CLOWN!

 

Oh and to test fuel just pull a plug and see if they are wet. If you have "no spark" then your plugs should be soaked. Did anything get chewed apart inside the distributor? Could have messed up a circuit on the ECU. If ur worried, Pull the cover and check to make sure nothing is burnt or dry joints - but just because you don't see it don't mean it's not bad though. Does the red LED come on?

 

Now, did THAT get rectified?

 

Did your cam snap?
0_o

 

Good point - this would be shown with a compression test as well as stated previously.

 

Could also just take off the distributor cap and crank the motor.
If the rotor doesn't spin then something is wrong.

 

Yes - I was not referring to you when I said preveiously stated - just the fact that "Thee Mechanic" said it was pointless to test compression.

 

Ahhh - thought you were suggesting to do a comp test.
Either way works.

 

Kill your neighbor

 

Hey gentlemen,

If anything, thanks for the moral support - you guys are too kind: I've been calling him far worse than a butcher and a clown!

@edsadan: I have started acquiring my own tools after this. As soon as I can afford an air compressor and such, I'll be getting that as well. Though I'm a noob, having this guy around has shown me that I have relative common sense - something that seems to go a long way. (my only fault was not being more emphatic in telling him that I wanted to borrow his tools, but didn't want his help)

@N3va3vaSatisfi3d:
After this cam bind, I took apart the dizzy and it was LITERALLY toast inside. Several broken teeth, metal shavings everywhere, etc. I got a new dizzy (or at least a finely re-manufactured one) - no dice. I know the coil is fresh because I had to transplant this dizzy's innards into my original dizzy's housing (the z6 VTEC dizzy has a slightly different form factor than the regular ol' diz)

After I stayed up way past midnight testing my harness wires going to the dizzy with a multimeter to check that the connections were good.

Tonight, I will be pulling the ECU to do a visual inspection of the circuitry. This ECU is a p28, does it have and LED viewing window? I have not seen a red led, but I hadn't really been focusing on the ECU until now.

Also, I had my suspicions that there might be a better way to perform a spark test... No, the plugs aren't soaked

@1990edsedan:
Did the water pump situation get fixed??? Yes, with a whole lot of Permatex.

@4drEF
Nah, the cam looks good. I visually inspected it and it seems ok. I know I can get one from the junkyard if I needed one. To the best of my knowledge, the replacement dizzy that I put in is ok. The fact that I'm getting no spark makes that hard to say definitively though.

After checking my ECU I'll do a compression test. I know it would solve my obvious electrical problems but, I agree with everyone, it is something that I simply need to do.

Thank you all very much and please keep the info coming. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a blathering noob, but hopefully you guys can help be out of that state.

 

@EM2Ninja:
Dude, I felt like punching him!

 

Guys, thank you all very much. I found the @#*%in' problem...

The cam wasn't broken in half, but it was indeed broken along with the cam gear (the key broke off the gear, slightly disfigured the cam, and caused it not to turn).

Fyi: my neighbor apologized and offered to crawl a junkyard to find me a replacement camshaft and gear (and have them polished I hope).

You guys rock and know what the he'll you're talking about - hope to learn more from you all in the future.

..will post pics when I get to a computer.

 

Just so you know - I assumed you were OBD-0 (didn't pay attention to mini-me setup)... Only the OBD-0 ECU's have a small window with a LED for checking codes.

 

screw neighbors wife for revenge...!!!

 

Buy him a beer and laugh about it after he's a noob at Hondas and so are you

 

Yeah, I'm ODB1. I saw the window on ODB0 and have been curious why the ODB1 ECU doesn't have the same nifty feature...

 

Actually, I owe him a beer. With all of his jackassery, I'm having to learn an awful lot for myself.

 

Unless Victor, my neighbor, coughs up a camshaft and pulley today, it will probably be Saturday before I can put all the replacement parts in. Until then though, I do have another question:

When I took the car out on its test ride (before it got "Victorized") I noticed that it was a little sluggish on the throttle. I didn't think too much of it at the moment because I knew that I had a leak from the cam seal - I thought that, perhaps, this could be the reason for the sluggishness. I was reading a post in a different thread the other night where a dude was complaining about the same thing after an identical a6 / z6 head swap (on the same type of car: 88 CRX si) - you guys have any clues???

 

Common issue (but obviously each engine is unique and your problem might be something else) is that the timing belt is off 1/2 a tooth with the mini-me.
You can set it either a little advanced or a little retarded.
Sounds like your engine, and your neighbor, were set on the retarded side.
For a true fix you need an adjustable cam gear, but it's really not worth it unless you are going boost or something crazy.

Another common problem could be ignition timing.
You MUST disable electronic ignition advance while setting ignition timing.
You do this by keeping the jumper in the service connector (the one for pulling CEL codes) while running the engine for timing process.

 

Thank you! I'm going to send your quoted post to the guy in the other thread - hopefully he will thank you personally as well.

I told my co-works all where this guy works his day job (so they don't go there with THEIR cars).

 

Small world.... I think that I met ya at the pull a part this weekend!