Problems Problems ...

I have a 91 CRX HF with an A6 engine swap.
When I swapped I used my HF dizzy and put it on the A6 because it came without one.

It was timed correctly. Everything was fine.
Until today.

Driving around a curve my engine started bogging out heavily and it seemed to fall to using only 1 cylinder. So I shut it off. Popped the hood and discovered burn marks on my CAI by my pos. battery terminal. Mind you I don't have a battery tie-down. I changed the plugs thinking they fouled. The plugs came out covered in black soot [running rich?] but no other damage. I started the car, it cranks just fine, it just really didnt want to and it still only ran on one cylinder.

Symptoms:
Smoking [white/greyish] out of my exhaust
Very hot negative cable
Hard to start
Running on one cyl.

My thought is that the connection of the battery and CAI caused a short and fried my dizzy. Or its just old and decided to take a shit on me.

Any input would be great ... cause I need to go to school on Monday.

Thanks,

Justin

UPDATE

I had my car towed home and removed the spark plugs and discovered that I wasn't burning the fuel. I checked the for spark and I do have it at the plugs. I then re-gapped the plugs correctly [they were a little close before]. I removed the dizzy cap and cleaned the terminals and reinstalled it. I cleaned off my battery terminals and snipped and primed both the pos. and negative wires.

Then I tried to start my car ... no crank. So now I'm charging my battery. My starter has sounded weak for a while now, so maybe its time to change that out. Good thing I have another one that is known to be working.

Any input or similar experience and guidance is appreciated and very welcome.

Thanks

did you check all your fuses?? couldve fried one when the battery touched the intake..get a little rubber protector or one of the velcro covers for your battery. i fried one of mine when my ground was loose on the alternator

x methinks you should check your compression... pry a long shot, but white smoke is indicative of two things... usually either your head gasket is blown, or you're SERIOUSLY not burning fuel. x

No dice with the starter. It won't crank at all.

HELP

i agree, check all your fuses.

I checked all of my fuses, they're fine. I did take the liberty of replacing my old corroded battery ground cable and now I'm cranking again. I'm still getting spark, its just not igniting. I figure I'm running really rich or my engine is flooded. I also discovered my #3 fuel injector has a slight leak at the fuel rail. I tried starting fluid to get it to kick, but it just caught for a split second and sputtered back to the starter cranking.

check compression... that's my 2 cents. couldn't hurt anything to check it.

Screw cold air intakes to hell. You shorted something out, check your fuses/ wiring. Thank the lord that this didn't happen to you:
http://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2060211

Although a little longer and your car would have been kentucky fried chicken.

jeah i definately put some electrical tape around the area where the battery contacted the intake pipe.

I'm running a compression test tomorrow ... hopefully that turns out well

so I ran a compression test ... and the results were awful.
As my car stands ... from the cylinder on the left to right [closest to dizzy over to the timing belt] I have:

60psi 30psi 90psi 60psi

Anybody care to enlighten me with the burden on my hands?

Thanks :disappoin

*Also, my stepdad believes that my timing belt skipped [its loose] and the car was out of time when we towed it back home*

Suggestion... Get it rebuilt!
(or even better yet, get a cheap SOHC 1.5L from the junkyard and put that in as a temp solution. Thats what I did with mine. (Not this Civic... I used to have a 89CivicHB))

well ... if it came to the point where I can't fix this without removing and replacing my engine ... I was just going to toss in another HF engine [or something similar] and build this for either turbo or mini-me

I just really dont have the time right now ... I need my car to go ... school is getting really near.

so I ran a compression test ... and the results were awful.


*Also, my stepdad believes that my timing belt skipped [its loose] and the car was out of time when we towed it back home*

Yeah that is a possibility. If your timing is off then that will yield you low compression results since the valves are opening and closing at the wrong times. Check your TDC position out at least; I'd start from there before getting a new motor, especially if it was running before.

check the timing belt for if it's broken, check the overall valve timing, if it jumped while it was running, it may have bent valves or put a hole in a piston... latter is less-than-likely, since you're getting any compression at all...

also, if you're throwing white smoke, it's probably either oil or water leaking into the combustion chambers... check/replace your head gasket.

hmm is it possible the compression gauge was leaking? but id check timing belt as well... good luck

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

The timing belt is not broken, loose, but not broken.

And the compression tester is brand new ... I bought it 30 minutes before I ran the tests.

I have access to a timing light, I just don't know exactly what I'm doing with it

i would make sure the timing belt hasnt slipped a tooth. put the engine at TDC anf make sure the cam is lined up proper

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

The timing belt is not broken, loose, but not broken.

And the compression tester is brand new ... I bought it 30 minutes before I ran the tests.

I have access to a timing light, I just don't know exactly what I'm doing with it


Well you need to put that timing gun away for now cause that only adjusts ignition timing on a RUNNING motor.

All you need is a 17mm socket and a ratchet.

What you need to do is turn the crank (counterclockwise) until the white mark on the pulley is aligned with the tick mark on the lower timing cover. That's TDC. Then you should check your cam gear to see where its at. The UP mark should be pointing up, and if you have a D16a6 a separate tick mark should be aligned with a mark on the head. It should be all in a manual.

yeah, you saying the belt is loose, I'm leaning toward skipped tooth, and all your problems w/ the battery touching the intake are coincidental.

Alright well as soon as my dad gets back with the jack, I can get to the crank pulley.

Would a couple teeth really kill my compression like that?

I'm going to school to be a Honda Tech right now, but I just started about 5 weeks ago. It would've been, I guess, a little more convenient if this happened 8 months from now.

Yes. If say, your cam is not in time with the pistons, then when you go to do a compression check the valves could be slightly open when the piston compresses..essentially killing any chance of making pressure.

So why are there such variances across the the cylinders?

Are some of them closer to being properly timed than the others [the 90 psi vs the 32psi]?

yep, the valves are at differant spots being open.... they dont all open the same amount at the same time

that's the reason I told you to do a compression check, now, if you really wanna find out if you're leaking past the valves or the rings, put a teaspoon of oil in each cylinder before you do the compression check... if the numbers don't go up, then it's the valves.

(God I love being a hillbilly.. with limited access to tools and parts... but only sometimes.. )

All you need is a 17mm socket and a ratchet.

What you need to do is turn the crank (counterclockwise) until the white mark on the pulley is aligned with the tick mark on the lower timing cover. That's TDC. Then you should check your cam gear to see where its at. The UP mark should be pointing up, and if you have a D16a6 a separate tick mark should be aligned with a mark on the head. It should be all in a manual.
I'm sitting here looking at my crank pulley and I see no tick marks ... or a white mark for that matter ... I can barely see my lower timing cover. Am I missing something?

Also, do I need to remove the A/C and Alternator pulley to reach the crank pulley? Because thats how it looks to me

I'm sitting here looking at my crank pulley and I see no tick marks ... or a white mark for that matter ... I can barely see my lower timing cover. Am I missing something?

Also, do I need to remove the A/C and Alternator pulley to reach the crank pulley? Because thats how it looks to me

No need to remove any pulleys, your just checking timing. Is your upper timing cover already off? If not you need to take the valve cover off to see the cam gear. I guess you didn't want to download the manuals so I did the work for you.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb36/spree8/untitled.jpg

dude ... you rock :ylsuper:

thanks A LOT :thumbsup:

Umm ... what if there's no white mark?

its probably worn off... im not really a d series guy... but there should be 3 slashes and then some space between them and maybe 2 more? it should be one of the two slashes... not near the 3 close together.. sry if im not makin any sence.. sox are on and ive been drinking since 8.. :)

I'm going to go investigate this

anyone else have any other input if my white mark is gone?

I assumed that since my timing belt skipped ... the cam gear advanced x amount of teeth. So I found TDC [compression stroke] of cylinder 1 and retarded my cam gear back to its TDC mark [it was ~3 teeth off]. I ran another compression test and now I'm hitting 120 100 80 120. So I'm going to advance it another tooth to see what the compression is then. If it worsens, I'll throw it back to 2 teeth advanced.

Am I on the right track, because as far as I know, I am.

you could say you're on the right track, but its' best to just figure out where TDC is on both, and reset the timing from there... after you've done the valve timing, reset your ignition timing, and you should be good to go.

Are you using a new timing belt? you should be.. and make sure your tensioner is working properly.

What should my compression be at?
and as far as I know, my ignition timing is correct. It was timed when I did the swap, and I haven't removed or had problems with the dizzy. Its the timing between the valves and the pistons that I'm having problems with.

The timing belt is not new, although I was planning on the belt/tensioner/pump job very soon before my car took a dump on me. I believe this whole mess is from my tensioner not being ... well tense.

I just need to know that I'm on the right track with tinkering with the teeth, I don't want to cause any damage. It's acting like its wanting to start, more-so than it has since it quit on me.

yeah, well, one thing at a time, but I can tell you this, you keep using the same belt that crapped on you the first time, next time, you might have bent/broken valves, or worse damage. so before you run the engine, get a new timing belt.

Cranking it won't damage anything, although things might hit, stopping the cranking engine dead in it's tracks.

but yes, continue w/ playing w/ the teeth... and you still need to check your ignition timing when you're done, b/c the cam drives the dizzy, and the dizzy is timed by TDC, not by the valves. so if the cam was moved, so was the dizzy... while the crank stays in place?! yeah, check your ignition timing too.

Hey dude ... you're a lot of help and I appreciate all of the effort. I retarded the cam gear 1 more tooth and now my compression is damn near 150 across the board. I started it and it sputters and bogs so now I think I move onto ignition timing, correct?

I'm so excited :icon16::icon16:

Dude ...

ITS FIXED :grinno:

Now I just have to tune the timing a little more [its damn near dead on]

Holy crap ... this is like one of the greatest achievements in my life
I fixed my own car

Thanks all of you :thumbsup:

Dude ...

ITS FIXED :grinno:

Now I just have to tune the timing a little more [its damn near dead on]

Holy crap ... this is like one of the greatest achievements in my life
I fixed my own car

Thanks all of you :thumbsup:

Congrats, nothing like the feeling of personal satisfaction.

congrats

hell yeah, I was actually right from beginning to end... that doesn't happen often when I'm not personally dealing w/ the car... gonna have to celebrate this one :D

congrats on fixing it, np for the help, it's what I'm here for.

Feels really good doesnt it? Especially when it costs near to nothing!

Being able to do something that a shop would have surely lied to you about and knowing what you did is the best. Also the reason why I still drive a 16 yr old car and everyone thinks im crazy.

Cheers fellas! :cheers:

she runs better now than she did before

Although my handbrake light comes on sometimes for no reason ... I'm not complaining one bit

ehh mine doesnt come on at all.... oh yeah... GO PATS!!! 48-27 WHAT?

check the brake fluid, and the lil connection near the ebrake handle under the trim piece... if fluid is low, that will make the light come on.

Yeah that light has two purposes, handbrake and fluid level.

does it do that when to front brakes have no pads in them or the caliper's seazed? mines on constantly...

... and applause to everyone that helped... I just gained a few knots of knowledge thanks to you guys.

no, it has nothing to do w/ the actual brakes themselves, just the fluid level indicator sensor, in the fluid reservoir.

So if there are no pads, it would allow the piston to push out and the fluid to fill the chamber therefore reducing the fluid in the reservoir then activating the sensor which in turn switches on the light to make for the root cause of my light to be in fact my brakes, and therefore putting your comment to rest....


....Right?

Well, check your fluid when you pump your brakes, if its low when you do, then yes.

well, since you wanna play semantics, and be an ass about it, no, it doesn't put my post to rest, since the root cause of the light being initiated is still the fluid level, fact is, (semantically) it still isn't the brake pads themselves causing the light to come on, it's the lack of fluid level... the fact that the fluid level is going that low b/c there are no brake pads is solely consequential.

have a nice day :D

my fluid was low, so that little annoyance is fixed ...

now onto bigger and better things ... like my exhaust and wheels

:grinyes:

still so happy to drive my car