Hi all, I have a Civic Ex with a D16Y8. I replaced the head gasket about 20k ago using a aftermarket head gasket. I realized i needed to replace gasket as the car started overheating and would have hard starts. I would sometimes hit the gas a bit to clear the misfire from the coolant entering the cylinders. Well I replaced the head gasket using a Honda OEM gasket. Even sprayed copper spray on the gasket to make a great seal. Assembled the head and all components and did a compression test before starting the car. Had 210 on all cylinders like i did before. Well after assembling the engine the engine barely wants to stay running. runs really rough and makes a loud metal ticking noise. Not sure what's that about. Also after taking off the oil cap a thick cloud of smoke came out of the cylinder head as well as the spark plug tubes when removing spark plugs. Is this an extreme case of blow by possibly caused by starting the car the way i did when it had the coolant leak?

 

Sounds like the head got a little too hot. This will cause a warp. Did you take the head to a machine shop before installing the head gasket?

When a car overheats its best to turn it off immediately and not let it get any hotter. If you ran it like that for any decent amount of time over the middle line on the gauge it will warp the motor.

 

I did get the head machined. when the motor overheated it hit about 246f in temp. i didn't realize it until i was driving. i pulled over and put in coolant which brought down the temp to normal levels and the car drove normally. it was about a week after that the rough starts were happening and then consistent overheating to about 207f. I then stopped driving the car and did the head gasket.

 

did you set timing correctly??

 

So timing is off by 2 teeth. I'm wondering if the timing belt is stretched or something is off because when I line up both the cam and crank there is a lot of slack in the belt on the side facing the radiator. When i turn the crank it will move about half an inch before the cam will turn. Basically the slack tightens up once the crank has turned then the cam will start turning causing the timing to be off. I was trying to avoid taking off the crank pulley and belt cover to re do timing as i never had to do that before when re installing the cylinder head. i will need to investigate what's happened in the gear sets that the belt routes on to see if something got out of place or belt stretched when i pulled on it to slide it on the cam gear. hopefully i didn't bend valves because i think the noise I'm hearing is them kissing the pistons slightly. I am also spinning the motor counter clockwise like it should

 

Yeah...off by that much will definitely result in what you're experiencing. Should have replaced the timing belt w/ a new Genuine Honda unit. Did you even bother replacing the belt tensioner and water pump ??

 

about 5k ago i replaced with a gates timing kit which included a gates timing belt, tensioner with new spring, and water pump with new seal. I read that gates was the OE supplier for the belt which is why I went with them.

 

Finally got everything timed right. I’m guessing out of the multiple times I tried to time it right and continued to stay out of time it bent valves as it runs right now but still makes a knocking noise

 

Assuming you installed the belt correctly using the alignment mark on the timing belt crankshaft gear lined up with the oil pump housing mark and cam sprockets aligned properly (UP at 12 o'clock).. belt tensioned properly your true mechanical timing would be correct so some things you could do are - first, do a compression test if you think you bent a valve. Takes 10min.. Next, you could check the valve clearance to make sure that's all in spec, could set it to the min tolerance to help with chatter.. Make sure that is done with the engine cold and done properly.. - tdc for each cylinder being done.. Also you could add something like Lucas oil stabilizer to help quiet things. Then lastly try just using a higher octane fuel to see if cuts down the knocking. Hope some of these ideas help you out ✌