Well... as my post a couple of days ago said my check oil light was on and I couldnt find anythign wrong with it... I didnt drive the car just to be safe and changed the oil this morning. The car sounded fine and good, but the check oil light was still. I drove it .2 miles around the neigborhood to see if anythign unusual happened. It did, oh it did! A valve tapping noise started up and within 50 ft the car went dead. It just died right there. Anyway, I got out to pop the hood and see if I coudl see anythign and everything appeared fine.. So, I tried to crank it but the starter spun and refused to engage. So, I walked home all 1000ft or so. Got my brothers car and towed my car home.. Put it in the garage and popped the valve cover... Heres what I saw upon inspection... I looked closer at the cams and notied one of them had a spot on the mount labeled E4 being the exhaust cam with no oil. It was dry and had a ceramic headers discoloration to it.. You cna see it in that pic if you look closely! I thne noticed some metal shavings around that connector... SO, I removed it... Heres what I saw.. Not good... My cam is shot... ... I dont knwo what caused this... I guess something with the oil pump caused it... I am afraid to remove the head because I have a feeling I may see more bad news... Right now I am not sure what exactly went wrong and/or happened... I can figure oil light was a good sign... I am wondering if the engine is shot or what? Give me some clues guys, ask more questions... anything! I already miss my lude....

 

Well, if the exhaust cam locking up is what caused the car to die, you might not be too screwed. You probably have little or no valve damage since the car died immediately. I think your biggest problem is finding why it went dry. Check your oil pump first obviously. You dont have a large dent in your oil pan do you?

 

OK... we pulled apart the odl oil filter as I had it sitting there and there was a little bit of shaving on it.... Not much and very very fine... Not easy to recognize eiher... Next, we looked for a dent in the oil pan after the techie yanked my car off the lift.... NONE... Its as good as day 1... Now, how hard is it to get to my oil pump and what am I looking for?

 

not that im a honda pro or anyhtin but if your intake cam was gettin oil then somthin might be clogged?

 

well part of the exhaust cam was gettign oil too.. It just looks like one part wasnt getting oil... 3 of the 4 valves are coated and the repective cam areas... Just not that one... Thanks for the ideas and help so far... I may have to have it towed somewhere... I hope not, especially since I wanted to do all my own engine work.. This just puzzles me... I have some experience working on engines too.. Just never seen or heard of anythgin liek this and dont know the repercussions of such a problem... If this constitutes a rebuild minimum I guess I will be JDM H22 pretty soon.. Of course, I dont have the money for a swap at the moment...

 

your oil light was telling you that you didn't have enough pressure reaching the head.

on the H23 I'm not sure where it is or if it's got one, but most Hondas have a secondary oil pump basically that is for the head. It pressurizes the oil going to the head so it can have oil.

um... eh, anything I tell you isn't going to help.

Right now what you need to do is get the head off and make sure no other damage has occured. I'd drop the oil pan, look for shavings, and then check the rods and crank for the same discoloration. You might want to go ahead and rebuild it, replacing the bearings etc.

But first and foremost, you need to find the part that went bad. Cams don't lock up as a problem, they lock up as a RESULT of a problem.

There are a bunch of things. Check the intake cam for the same wear and tear. Check visible oil passages for blockage, pull the oil pan and look for shavings.

The head is going to have to come off anyway. You'll need to have the cam journals line bored if you keep the same head. Go ahead and start pulling it off and see what you find. I doubt the pistons are messed up. It just seems like an oil pressure problem in the head.

Anything I've just said, may or may not help you. Remember that there is nothing like getting a professionals opinion on something in person. It's hard to diagnose something like this over the internet. We may miss a very basic issue that we would've seen in person. Always keep that in mind and double check what you hear/read.

 

thanks man... I guess I am going to crack it open either tomorrow or tonight and see... I looked in the visible oil channels and saw nothign wrong so far... My main concern is how could the pump go bad in only one place? Its only that one spot... I wnet down and checked the rest... I also dont really want to rebuild it... I'd rather fix it fairly simple or just swap... I mean, if its gonna run me over 1k then I rather just spend a little extra and get the better motor..

 

The fact that it lacked oil in one spot just showed you the weakest link. Your oil pressure was low, that's what caused the problem. The camshaft holder might have been over-torqued where you got the wear and the metal shavings. I would think your oil was low or you need a new oil pump.