I bought my first Honda the other day, a 94 Del Sol with 200k on it, so a little back story in case it helps. The guy I bought it off of got it from his sister after she trashed it trying to avoid a deer. He had to put the muffler back on, replace the passenger CV axle and ball joint, but it took him about a year to get around to doing this. He is (or at least was) a family friend, so we trusted him, bought the car for 800, test drove it before hand, ran like a champ, I was excited after having my last car spin a main after having it for 3 months I thought I had something good going. I drove it to my dads, spent the night, woke up the next day and noticed it had a surging idle, figured IACV, nothing to worry about, went into town, had to replace the battery, and got the oil changed because it seriously needed it, then hit the road for my 3 hour drive back home. I made it about 50 miles and suddenly felt the car kind of surge, but it only did it twice and stopped, until another 10 miles down the road it started loosing power, then suddenly lost almost all power, died when I let off the gas, pulled over the side of the highway, tried to start it back up and it died almost immediately, got out checked all my fluids, everything was full, only weird thing was foamy coolant, waited about 10 minutes while I cried softly into the steering wheel, then started it up again, got it to stay running long enough to limp it to a gas station, but when I started it up to do that it suddenly developed a very loud, rapid, sounds like upper engine, knock, I'm at a loss, the guy we bought it off of claims it has to be the cat causing back pressure, but this knock is high pitch and extremely loud, and I'm at a total loss, I'm assuming I'm going to have to replace the entire engine, but I'm hoping someone here can give some advice on something cheaper to try first. (And we are going to try bypassing the cat to see if that fixes it, but I doubt it will)

 

first off is the coolant foamy almost like a yucky chocolate milk ? 2nd confirm mechanical timing 3rd time for a full ignition tune up(I'm thinking your power loss/stumbling is cap n rotor related). 4th any CEL ? 5th compression test 6th drain the oil and look for any metal shavings 7th don't loose hope yet I've seen a lot wore and the engine was salvageable. unbolt the cat from the header and see but even a clogged cat won't doo all of what you're describing.

 

Yeah, foamy like nasty chocolate milk, so I'm guessing head gasket is all but blown, water pump and timing belt we were told was done 40k before, but I'm not sure about anything he's told us at this point and do plan on checking that, when I can finally get it towed home that is. No CEL, only light on is SRS and the oil light came on, but the oil level is full.

 

THe oil light will come up when the voltage of the car drops below a certain point

 

Voltage shouldn't have dropped though, unless my alternator went bad within 60 miles of having it checked, I tested it when I replaced the battery, all checked out fine, at first it only came on when the car dropped to about 700rpm, but when I limped it to the gas station it came on halfway there and stayed on the rest of the way, even though I was running between 1k and 2k rpm that whole mile or so.

 

hmm, you need to check you mechanical timing and see where that's at.

 

As I said, I plan to once I can get it towed home and get to tooling on it, I just hope it is something that simple, if its not I'll be stuck until tax returns to replace the engine

 

Oil light is an indicator of low oil pressure not levels. I would guess you have a bad oil pump or is malfunctioning due to another failure like bearings or contaminants. Do not run it any more until you find the cause.

 

Forgive my ignorance, its been a while since I was in the repair part of the industry, so could a timing issue cause low oil pressure?

 

What does your oil look like on the dip stick? Is it clean or look like chocolate milk? If so, you more than likely have a blown HG... you may have spun or ruined your bearings...

 

I'm honestly surprised nobody has recommended a compression test yet, ya know... to drive the last nail in pointing towards the HG

 

Might as well include a leakdown test to see which cylinder most likely got the brunt of it.

 

missed my OP ?

 

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm fairly certain I need to replace the HG at this point, though from the deafening rattle and massive loss of power I'm fairly certain I have other issues, which may have stemmed from the HG, but are now beyond that, just have to determine what they are, and if the engine is salvageable at a decent price point.

 

hmm, seems I did!
I either TL;dr'd it or missed it, long day at work was coming to a close

 

Don't guess. Post the facts that you have found, compression check values, what does your oil look like, etc. Have you pulled the valve cover? Any valves or rocker arm assembly broken? Did your timing belt break?

 

I will post more info as it becomes available, I broke down 2 hours from home when I had to work in 4, so after waiting for a tow I had absolutely no time or tools to check anything, I'm hoping to have more info Sunday if I'm lucky.