so yea, driving down the highway last week just cruising at 70-75 in 5th, and then the engine made this strange "gulp" kinda noise. so i pushed in the clutch and listened to how it sounded, and i could "roll start it" buy popping it back into 5th, but had no response, so i rolled off the highway and had it towed.

mech called me back and said the timing belt snapped and a few valves were leaking air. so the head is at the machine shop being rebuilt.

i'm not sure if there's any damage to the piston heads or not. but i'm wondering, even if the piston head is scratched up a little, and the rings were ok, then would it still be fine? or will the surface damage to the piston will mess it up too much?

other options might be to put an other d series in it, or switch it to OBD1 or 2 and put a B series engine in it.

oh yea, it's a 90 CRX Si

who else has had this happen to them, and how did it all work out?

 

Well depends on how bad the piston slammed the valve. If your mechanic took the head off he would've seen what was happening. If it was anything severe I assume he would've told you. You could ask him or go look at it yourself. But I've seen pistons after a scenario just like yours and the valve just chipped or left a small indention on the piston head. Nothing to worry about......If there's shards of the piston missing then most definitely replace the piston and if the pistons dont look bad just make sure you vacuum up any shards of metal in the sleeve.

 

Next time, don't try to roll start it. You could have done more damage. I agree the pistons are probably ok if the guy didn't say anything about them.