All right Try and follow along I have a 98 Honda Civic D 16 Y7 the motor has a bad head gasket. So I purchased D 16 Y8 and pulled the intake off of my y7 and installed it on the Y8 and put it in the car. I was having troubles getting it to turn over and start but figured it out it was the wiring with the spark plugs. Car started up and ran perfect for about seven minutes until I shut it off so I could top off the fluids and burp the radiator. So I go to start the car again it turns like 2!revolutions and there's a loud bang so I go turn the car by hand and everything spins fine so I go to started again and it rotates a couple times and bangs again so I have no idea what that issue is. So I check my timing and check the bolts that hold the torque converter to the flexplate and all that is tight so I figure hell let's try and start it will more time and the car turns over now no problems but I didn't do anything except rotate the motor by hand about 20 times so whatever I go to check on my wiring and I pull of the air filter box which is full of coolant so I proceed to pull the spark plugs which are fouled out so I decide to pull the valve cover which is full of coolant and oil mixture so I put it all together and I finally get the car to start by holding down the gas to the floor while turning it over. the car smoked like crazy you can smell anti freeze burning all signs of a bad head gasket. I was able to back out of the garage and park it but it had no power. So my buddy who I got the motor from says he put a new head gasket on it and everything is good with the motor is it possible I switched a line which I don't see that being possible but maybe one of you guys has an idea before I call this guy a liar. Thanks. I Posted two pictures and I also have video of the car running and the noise it was making when trying to start it but I don't Know how to post videos.

 

Bump

 

That's definitely a oil/coolant mix. In your freind's defense he may have put a new head gasket on it AFTER he overheated it and warped the head.
I think you should have just replaced the head gasket on your original engine.

 

Compression test to verify the condition of the engine/compression/warpage.

 

I got 30 ish on 1 2 and 4 and 65 on 3

 

So there are no vac lines that I could have mixed up to cause this?

 

Comments?

 

yes its possible to mix vac and coolant lines which would be very bad, have you done a motor swap before? before jumping into something like this you osjould be familiar with what everything does and the difference between coolant and vacuum ports

 

I did my jeep swap. No problems. I'm pretty sure I did everything right the hoses are all certain lengths I didn't have to switch anything or add any parts. Nothing left over.

 

Hey guys,

My question centers on how did coolant get in the valve cover cam area. It would take quite a lot of damage to the lower end to allow this to happen. Enough that I don't think the car would run if it ingested that much coolant.

Also he said it ran fine till he topped it off and burped it which is when coolant gets into the upermost areas of the cooling system.

I personally doubt it's the head gasket. I mean it could have a bad head gasket but... Also remember that be did swap the intake manifold and re-used the original paper gasket.

Could a leak there cause this issue or is it more likely to be a coolant line mixed up with something like the valve cover breather line (or whatever it's called). I've been out of the scene for over 10 years but have done a dozen swaps and owned a handful of needy vehicles. I have also done this swap. Before I tossed in a b16 into one of my hatches I threw a d16y8 long block into it when the original CX took a dump difference is I kept the y8 manifold and tossed in the correct ECU.

Personally I just can't see anything broken in the bottom end dumping coolant into the topmost part of the engine without taking out a rod on the way. Also I've lost a rod to hydro lock and once to a catastrophic failure at 9000rpm and even then coolant doesn't get into that area.

He also had coolant in the intake manifold itself I think.

At this point my opinion is to drain all fluids dump a few quarts of old oil in the top then do an oil change and try running it again for a few bit with low coolant also with the valve cover breather hose disconnected and blocked off. If it runs take the car engine back out and re do the intake manifold and check the connections.

That of course doesn't explain the bad compression readings and the fact that those exist might say it's not worth the trouble. But I've seen a dozen times someone do a reading wrong. I don't have a lot of experience with bad D series rings but in a B series if you running 30LBs on a cylinder you know it! Meaning the guy who sold it never actually ran it once he put the new head gasket in or he never put it the new head gasket or he screwed the buyer over knowingly

I guess I'd do another compression check right away.

Also my experience with head gaskets is if they go bad just go through the hassle of replacing them as long as the head is flat.

 

For all 4 cylinders to have that low compression...huh..I saw a guy put a head gasket in upside down once. How loud was the bang it made? I would pull the head and pan to see what the bang was.

 

It was more of a clunk. I.e. Starter vs Touque converter sun gear. Or piston vs valve