Hey guys and gals. Its been a long time since Ive worked on a Honda, but was a long time member of Team-Integra.net and owned a 98 Integra LS a few years ago. Well, now my friend has a 2001 Honda Civic EX (1.7 VTEC), Auto, 180K that is having a few issues. I only know a very short history of the car, and he was driving it home when:

Issue number 1: Overheating. Driving down the highway, the vehicle shut down due to what he believes was overheating. Checked the water level, empty. He said he put nearly 2 gallons in the overflow tank and radiator before it was full. Had it towed home.

Issue number 2: P0325. I believe it might just be because she is overheating. I check the plugs and saw this:





This was on plug 3 which was the worst of them all. you can sort of see material transfer between the electrode and ground. The plugs are Denso PKJ20CR-M11. The gap looks off, but that wouldnt cause overheating. Maybe the knocking though. I cant hear any audible knocking when the engine is running though. Does the white indicate anything? from what I heard is that is indicative of a blown head gasket.

Also, water was shooting from the overflow tank like it was nobodies business and when i was watching the coolant temp on my code reader, it showed a high of 240 degrees before I shut her down. She was still running fine, no smoke out of the tailpipe whatsoever, even when slightly revving. Compression results were inconclusive, i had 188 on cyl 1, 176 on 2, 167 on 3, and 179 on 4. Cylinder 3 is low, but not by anything substantial, especially at over 180k miles. The head gasket was JUST replaced, that was the service he was bringing it home from as a matter of fact.

Tomorrow after work I'm going to look at it again and make sure the thermostat hasn't failed closed. After that, I'm kind of at a loss of where to go. Any tips? My friend doesn't have any more funds to take it to a repair shop which is why I'm helping him out.

Thank your your help Honda-Tech. Ive come to you guys many times anonymously in the past and you've always proven to be very helpful.

 

Headgasket failure is an extremely common problem for the D17. More then likely, that's the problem.

https://honda-tech.com/honda-civic-2...e-etc-2889523/

 

Just from my experience; If its blowing coolant out of the radiator then its a bad head gasket. It doesn't have to blow white smoke out of the exhaust. The pressure from the blown gasket has to go somewhere so that can be the issue. The car would overheat as well. If the head and block wasn't checked for warps then the service was a waste if they were warped.

 

I agree with Jmott. These were all the symptoms I had on my EM2 before I replaced the head gasket. I rev'd mine with the overflow tank filled up completely, and you could see the exhaust bubbling out through the coolant (it also very clearly smelled like exhaust). My spark plugs looked like that.