Alright I'll try to keep it short.

I bought an engine from someone (D15B) and so far I've replaced the timing belt and some gaskets (intake mani gasket, valve cover gasket, etc.) I figured it'd be a good idea to replace them sine the engine is out of the car and in my apartment so I don't have to mess with it later.

I did the timing according to the Honda manual... I aligned the groove on the crank up with the arrow on the block, and then positioned the cam pully with UP facing up, and all of the aligning marks set properly.

I put the belt on, tensioned it, and can now manually turn it over with a 17mm wrench on the crank pulley.

After turning it a few times through all four rotations (the book says counter-clockwise only, so that's what I did) I checked to make sure that the timing marks were all still lined up - everything looks fine.

I noticed when I turned the engine over that one stroke feels quite a bit stronger than the other 3 - it happens when the intake valves on cylinder 2 are opening and the exhaust valves on cylinder 3 are closing. The engine turns over with a good chug, while on the rest of the 3 strokes I can feel a quite a bit of compression but not nearly as much as the fourth turn.

I checked the valve train (from what I could see with the head on) and all of the valve clearances look the same, and as far as I can tell all of the valves are straight. I also checked up in the cylinder walls and they still look very clean and you can actually see some of the hone marks on them. The engine looks to be very low mileage (the aluminum in the head isn't even very oil stained) so I'm not sure if this is normal or not?

Is it because the engine is cold? I have the oil pan on with a new gasket, the intake manifold on with a new gasket. I looked in to a compression test but all the instructions I've found say that you have to do it in the car because you actually have to turn the engine over with the starter so you get good readings - and you can't really do that by hand.

Again, any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

Any thought would be appreciated.

 

sorry this doesnt help your main question but one other thing i would replace while the engine i out is the main oil seals off the crank, there a btch otherwise to do
-|saac

 

Its the compression stroke your fighting against, remove the spark plugs to make it easier to turn by hand. As for comp testing out of the car, uhmm get a couple friends to hold'er down while cranking.

 

Lol I have the same question also man, but have no luck on any reply. Is it like the crank is hard to turn at some point and easier to turn at other point? Iono if it normal or not, but it scares me. The car drive fine and all, but who know. Someone out there got to know this.

 

I removed the plugs and tried it again and it was easy as hell for every stroke. You were 100% right. Thanks man, you put my mind at ease. Clutch and flywheel come next Monday, so this beast will probably go in the following weekend!

 

Question - wouldn't each time you turn the crank 1/2 way one pistion would be making a compression stroke? So it should feel the same every time you turn it?

E.g. one doing compression stroke, one doing intake stroke, one doing exhaust stroke, one doing combustion stroke? Isn't each piston doing a different stroke than the others every cycle?