This is the story - I was doing a full boost pass (H22A stock motor @ 10 PSI) and suddenly white smoke starts coming thru the vents and exhaust and the car dies. I try to start it again but it keeps dying unless I hold the rpms at like 2k. Sputtering bad at 2k rpms but if I take it up to 3k the sputtering kinda goes away... still blowing white smoke like crazy though.

Did a compression test and cyl 1,2,3 all read 10 to 20 avg - Cyl 4 was ok at 220. I assumed the headgasket had blown - drained the oil out of the oil pan (it was just oil - no antifreeze). But then I look in the water neck at the head and its milky white (oil/antifreeze mixed).

So I take the head off and this is what the pistons look like (pics below) ...

In the first two pics, that is the No.1 & 2 Piston - is the top suppose to look like that (not perfectly round)???




Now this is the block pic (No. 3 cyl), notice the black scuffing and the slight chips at the top of the block on either side of the cyl walls??? Do I need a new block??!

 

thats not good. that's some serious scoring on the walls. you had a blown headgasket too (pistons look steam cleaned)

 

Agreed, Def a head gaskett failure... what troubles me is the scoring on the walls.... detonation? Not sure what to make of that... you had good oil pressure the whole time right? Sounds like it might be a good time for a re-build. You should be able to hone that out and be ok.

 

Yes it had good oil pressure and yeah the head gasket looked like crap when I pulled it out - was it suppose to come apart in 3 layers??! lol. Not gonna lie to you guys, honestly due to some situations I cannot do a full rebuild right now cos I would go all out with sleeves, etc. but thats way beyond my current finances (right now).

Sooo I'm hoping that the Pistons are okay from the way No.1 and No.2 look not 100% round at the top (is that normal?)

and the block will be okay after honing AND with the small chip at the very top of Cyl 3 as shown in the pic above (?).

Thanks for your inputs so far! Back down to 8 PSI after this lol - it was tuned up to 10 PSI though my tuner suggest I only run 8 PSI max so it was my fault lol.

 

that block is going to have to be rebuilt. and yes the headgasket is supposed to be 3 layers. you just made an expensive mistake not listening to your tuner.

 

Are the no1 and no2 pistons damaged?

 

id just order some ebay nippon pistons and rings get new bearings while your in there and hone, check your deck and head, get new headbolts and head gasket and run it. Then check out your compression after you seat the rings. You should be good then just use torque specs

 

Well if I'm gonna do the honing process (my local shop said they can do FRM honing and do have the special grit stones for it),maybe I should just wait a little longer and get some Mahles 9:1 ?? Will the Mahles be good to go after a hone?

I really did not plan on tearing the block down but if Im gonna go that far, might as well...

 

You have experienced what is known as "washing" meaning the coolant displaced the oil. probably from a HG failure. Thats is why the cylinders are scored. The block needs to be serviced. You also need to tear down the mains and con rod caps because you likely had washing occur there as well. One of those pistons also looks to be in bad shape. I think the first picture. I would not reuse it.

 

Oh and one more important thing I forgot to mention, when I was removing the head bolts - ALL of them were unevenly tightened!! The bolts near Cyl. 4 were the tightest and the I could VERY CLEARLY tell the others were definately looser and uneven tightness.

Well I had some changes in plans since I got this thing all torn apart and have my own garage now (so I can take my own time hehe). I decided to do some "budget upgrades" as per this new thread I made :

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...6#post44941896

Let me know what u guys here think. I made a new thread so I could get more opinions

 

Today I took the block apart to send it off for honing and when I took the Pistons out I was like WTF?! Look at these pics (Piston 1,2,3 in that order - 4 looked ok but I'm gonna trash it too) ....

I am so glad that the pieces did not fly off into the head and block - they seemed to be in the Piston when I pulled em out! Glad I shut it off almost immediately when I saw smoke and towed it home right after.

 

melt down......to much heat probably from detonation.

 

If it really was detonation - I dont understand how it happened so suddenly? It was running fine for all these months on 10 PSI. Bad gas? Hey the head gasket was also blown so I wonder if maybe the headgasket had something to do with the Pistons gettin messed up...

 

incorrect
It was the friction generated from the lack of oil, because of the "washing" I told you about. .I have seen it many times. People will drive with a blown HG until the car shuts off. You need to take apart the mains and conrods, they may look similar.

 

DCFiver, you are correct. This is what my machine shop told me also (they build nitro drag cars too) and yes when I looked at the bearing they looked like they had one foot out the door lol.

I guess because of the turbo it accelerated the breakdown process because I saw smoke come in thru the vents and within 2-3 seconds it shut off and then I cranked it like 5 times and it refused to idle. I guess all the cranking and tryin to keep it idling while on the street side made it worse. I'll post up a pic of the bearings later.

 

wow dude ur shyte it done for.. detonation for sure and hell ya get them 9:0:1s cuz runnin them oem pistons w/ boost is no bueno i would highly recomend u runnin e85 or some kind of water meth kit cuz that will prevent that detination/meltdown issue inside ur engine e85 is highly recommended due to it being only 2.12 a gallon and being 105+ octane good luck and also check out this site http://www.varolo.com/village/kyle1999

 

Ban the troll.....

 

OMG I been trolled lol - I hope one of the admins see this.... trolls know about E85 lol