b16a ran like crap in hf

ok so i have a jdm b16a i bought off a buddy for 400$ he had it in his hf crx and it ran like complete s*** and seemed to get worse everyday....but he had a ls in the car when he got it and it didnt run right either. well when i bought it he had a cometic headgasket for it thinkin it had blown head gasket. well i took valve cover off today and the head looks brand spanking new almost, no build up anywhere, cams still look new and everything and its only supposed to have about 35,000 miles on it. so i guess my question is could it have just been the car making the motor run the way it did. it spit and sputtered and had a little white smoke out of exhaust and smelled like gas under hood, any help on this would be awesome because i want to fix it for my 88 four door

Anything?........

I had this problem too with the spit and sputter problem.
This was caused by the ignition wires not being in the right order.
So when I turned on my rex it would sputter and spit, also some white some too.

Try making sure they are in order and that should clear it right up.
After that leave it running for 5min or so to burn any gas left over from the sputter.

No CEL?

its not a plug wire problem thats all fine it has been checked and rechecked a few times and it didnt have any check lights in the crx currently in process of boltin up spare ls trans and jumping the starter to run compression test in garage to see if it has any cylinders are losing compression