Lashed too tight or not seated to begin with? I'm leaning towards the latter b/c you mentioned something about it not running right even before the cam swap.

 

Most likely not seated to begin with... I've learned that you can't just "eyeball" a valve seat...

Expensive mistake, but it happens... :-/ Hopefully, she'll be back on the road soon, better, stronger and faster...

 

Just an update on what's going on for those who helped with the MUCH-Appreciated advice... Car is almost ready to be put back together... I'm awaiting the last of the parts to arrive (head gasket and 2 intake valves) and then I can have her back on Saturday... The guy doing the work also discovered a little detonation going on, so he's going to do a mild port & polish to correct that... I think he felt bad for me so he's doing it free of charge... I'll post again when it's back and I can feel the effects of those stage 2's....

 

ahahahahaha, I told ya road toad knows what there doin..

 

Spoke too soon... As I type this, my car is in a garage an hour and a half from here... Here's what happened....

Was on my way to Import War in Hershey PA, and about an hour and 30 mins into the trip, I started having problems... The car started to lose power, and started making this awful noise from the front end... Pulled over about 5 seconds after the noise began, and the engine promptly died...

Tried to start it, and it just cranked, but wouldn't start... Temp gauge was in the middle of C and H, and had 7/8 of a full tank of gas...

It just turned over, but seemed like I wasn't getting spark or fuel.. Timing belt was turning, because that was the first thing I thought of, that maybe it broke... But not the case...

Opened the hood, and unscrewed the oil cap, which released TONS of smoke, which continued to come out for about 15 minutes... Tried to start it with the cap off, to see if things were turning inside, but is sounded like an old steam engine and sent this plume of smoke/steam about 3 feet into the air, and blasted my friend in the face as he looked in... He's okay, just made him a little blurry for a couple of minutes...

After that, we pulled the valve cover off, to see if anything was seemingly wrong, but nothing seemed broken...

So, I called the guy who put my motor together, and he thought that maybe everything had heated up and expanded, and things weren't sealing properly, so he suggested that I let it cool down, and crank it, and let him listen to it when we did... So we let it cool down for about an hour, and tried it again....

Cranked for a couple of seconds, then started up for about 2 seconds, then died... But when it was running, it didn't sound good, and it was shaking all over the place...

My engine guy says that something probably went in the bottom end... I don't know if I believe that. I don't think that if I spun a bearing or bent a rod that there would be smoke billowing out of the oil cap hole like it was. I think there's a bent valve or several that allowed the exhaust to backfire somewhere.... But I'm no expert.... I just think that with all the problems I've had, that I'm betting on the top end to be the problem....

Up to that point where the problems began, the car ran strong... We had some problems with fuel delivery on VTEC engagement, so we disconnected the VTEC solenoid, but the car ran and idled fine...

Any ideas on what could have gone wrong???? Regardless of what happned, I can't imagine that this is going to be cheap to fix, so the car is coming off the road as soon as it gets towed back home...

Any help would be appreciated!!! Thanks guys!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C_EJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">smoke/steam about 3 feet into the air</TD></TR></TABLE>

to get steam you need water/coolant..... are you sure it was steam?

 

Don't think it was steam, but that's what it looked like... It was just this whitish plume.... :-/

 

Head gasket? It does not sound good.

 

sounds like a blown headgasket just from what you describe. i wouldnt take anything back to this guy if i were you.

 

Did it drop a valve maybe?

 

I highly doubt it's a head gasket... I had him put in a Spoon Sports head gasket, and had him replace the head studs with ARP studs...

I'm still betting on a valve problem...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C_EJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Opened the hood, and unscrewed the oil cap, which released TONS of smoke, which continued to come out for about 15 minutes... Tried to start it with the cap off, to see if things were turning inside, but is sounded like an old steam engine and sent this plume of smoke/steam about 3 feet into the air, and blasted my friend in the face as he looked in... He's okay, just made him a little blurry for a couple of minutes...</TD></TR></TABLE>
This is what leads me to believe that the problem is more than just valvetrain. Sounds like coolant is getting into the crankcase, and probably vice versa. Could be a cracked head or block, head gasket sealing problem, or who knows what. I hope for your sake that it's easy to fix. Seems like you are having more than your share of trouble

 

i w0uld say headgasket or at least i hope its a headgasket thats the cheapest thing to fix lol thats what i would be wishing for.

 

If you had smoke comming from the valve cover oil fill, Its Oil burning thats getting up in to the head through the PCV chamber. even if you had another bad valve how would smoke get in to your head? The instant loss of power was 1 of the rings breaking. the sound was all the compressed smoke packed in to the engines head and oil pan when you took the cap off it relieved all the pressure and ka Pooey.

This is the same thing that happened to my lil red hatch. crusin down the road. car looses all power and stalls out and wont start. took the car home and kept trying to start it and threw a rod through the block. turns out there was pieces of the ring in the oil when i drained it. and all this compressed air came out the block instead of the oil fill.

do a compression check, just bump it and get the comp reading.. if you keep trying to start it and it is the ring gone bad. you dont wanna get the same result i did.

 

pull the oil pan on that bitch and take a look!

if bottom end looks good, then i'd guess it's warped/cracked head causing the hedgasket to seal poorly.

 

A valve could have dropped and fucked up a lot of ****. If it did you can probably say good by to your head, piston/pistons and might have to get the block resleeved. Cause of this was improper install of valve locks. For that to be a headgsket after it was freshly put on I doubt it very much cause when I have been desperate I have reused headgaskets with no problems.

Keep us updated.

 

and the award for "the worst luck in the world thread" goes to.................................b18c_ej8

 

I'm not an expert at this but did you make sure that the head and the block were straight and not warped. This may not be causing you headgasket to seal right and cause a leak. That's what I think it could be since everyone is saying its a headgasket. Good luck!

 

I haven't responded to this thread in a while, just because I'm so disgusted at the whole situation, I don't even want to think about it...

And if I wasn't trying to buy a house right now, I probably would be driving it already, but money is going to be extremely tight from now on...

I was outside on Friday night looking at the nice pretty engine bay, all shined up and cleaned, ready for the car show I missed last weekend, and I felt around my timing belt, which just didn't look right...

The header side of the belt is really tight, and the other side is really loose... Think it could have jumped a tooth or 2?? It also seemed like the teeth weren't lining up with the grooves on the cam gears, but I don't know....

If that happened, I know that there could be catastrophic damage done, but do you think my pulling off the road so fast and not letting it go for longer could have prevented a majority of problems?? Or am I giving myself false hope, while I should be prepping for a complete engine rebuild???

I've thought about selling it for whatever I could get for it, but then I think of how much money I've sunk into the car, and if I got rid of it before I got to see and feel what all of the mods did, I don't think I'd ever be happy, so I'm going to have to get this taken care of...

Thanks for the continued help!

 

And by the way... Thanks for the award... lol

 

if you think the timing jumped then reset everything back to tdc and get rid of those cam gears!!! i have heard of very bad things with aem cam gears. my friend had the same timing belt problem that you're talking about with his b20, you have to tighten by hand til it's just right.

 

Any news or updates on the motor and your problem?

 

Car goes to the shop tomorrow... It's been sitting in my driveway since it got towed home, and I've just been depressed about the whole thing... But hopefully, it'll be back soon and I can put the winter rat away! lol!

 

Car didn't make it to the shop until this past Friday, but is currently there and torn apart, and awaiting a total rebuild and new cylinder head... Here's some pics!








Fun stuff!! LOL!!!

 

lol, that's fucked up....it's teh damn #1 cylinder again. Good luck bro