Bad Shift/power loss

[Kang114]

aright so saturday night i was out just cruising but i found a couple of races. to get to the point, i was in the middle of a race and when i shifted at the top of 3rd, i missed and put it stragiht back into 2nd. so my car screamed and slowed immediatly and i was deep in redzone for maybe 1sec. now my car feels alot....idk 'softer?' and it feels like ive lost power. could this have done serious unfixable damage to my engine??

[ludeguy]

heh - you MONEY shifted it ... tell any mechanic and they'll know what you mean.

you probably have bent valves. get a compression and leak down test and it should tell you if you do or not.

I've heard of a rare incidence where money-shifting only resulting in the timing belt "jumping" a tooth so the engine was only mistimed - but unfortunatley most of the time it means bent valves - which means your head has to come off etc etc.

It is a serious condition and I wouldn't spend too much time driving the car - except to a mechanic - because if the valve head pops off due to serious damage it's gonna be bouncing around in your cylinder on top of your piston and you can imagine what kind of damage that can do.

on the bright side - some new valves and some nice valve guides - might do you some good (:

i'm sorry for you dude.

[unknownluder69]

yea dude that sux but learn from this and take it to the mechanic, if u can find one that specializes in imports this way you know them if you ever need upgrade help or you do the same thing again. but lets hope not.

[Kang114]

fuck......you guys know how much a compression test and all this shits gunna cost? i mean, its not significant power loss(i had 2 friends who own same car drive it) and they said they didnt even notice anything but im extra paranoid about the health of the car so.

[kornflakes28546]

if you do the compression test yourself, the kit will be around $100 bucks

[ludeguy]

Originally Posted by Kang114

fuck......you guys know how much a compression test and all this shits gunna cost? i mean, its not significant power loss(i had 2 friends who own same car drive it) and they said they didnt even notice anything but im extra paranoid about the health of the car so.

if you want to go cheap - take it to a college that does "auto repair" - it's a great exercise for the students. (: might be too late with the holidays and all - however they have all the equip for that sort of thing and i can guarantee it's one of their exercises.

all the students will learn from it ... hell they might even pay you (haha i doubt it).

compression/leak down is pretty simple test... i can't see a mech charging more than like 50 bux for it... then again.

here is another post on another forum to back up my guess...

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1075981

[Kang114]

and at a local garage?

[Kang114]

thanks

[ludeguy]

Originally Posted by Kang114

thanks

hey let us know when you get it figured - i'm always interested in these sorts of things (;

[AcesHigh]

I don't know ~ with my JUN ecu I've gone (dangerously) way over the natural redline of 7200rpm. Granted this is a relatively new block, but at 8.5k I didn't float my valves, or have a rod shoot out of my cylinder. Now obviously this isn't safe but my point is I don't think redlining on the stock redline could cause any significant damage to the engine.

What I think what you experienced was fuel cut. It typically happens when you cross redline on accident by fault of the ignition system on the stock ECU. It would feel like you've just hit a brick wall and the car would go into a limp or "safe" mode. I've had this happen before while using the stock p14. I don't know whether it causes permanant damage or not (maybe at the root of the death of my 200k H23A was this?) but unplugging the battery for half an hour and resetting the ECU clears the limp mode.

[Kang114]

thanks aces, that gives me some sort of positive hope. anyways, my buddies at school said they can do a compression test for me for free. would just the compression test alone be a sufficient indicator of if my engines ruined or not??? and what kind of readings should i expect???

[ludeguy]

Originally Posted by Kang114

thanks aces, that gives me some sort of positive hope. anyways, my buddies at school said they can do a compression test for me for free. would just the compression test alone be a sufficient indicator of if my engines ruined or not??? and what kind of readings should i expect???

"ruined" is a pretty strong word - at most you're going to need new valves, that hardly ruins an engine.

hopefully it could be something like what aces said - that would of course be a lot cheaper. or a timing issue - wouldn't that be a relief.

a leak down test would be a bit better than a compression test. I'm not too positive on the numbers - but I think somewhere in the range of 185 psi for each cylinder +/- 10% wouldn't be too horrible. the cylinders are capable of 200 psi - so optimally that's the best - but on a used car obviously the numbers will be a bit lower.

make sure the car is topped with oil, and the engine has recently be run, also have someone hold the throttle wide open when you test.

best of luck.

[niterocker]

this happened to a friend of mine. he had a focus zx3 and accidentaly put it in first at 60 mph. luckily he worked at a garage and was able to get the new transmission and valves at cost. good luck man, sorry to hear it

[Kang114]

Aright well my friend just did the compression test today and he said eveything seems to be in good condition. idk if the readings are diff. for a downleak test but the readings came out as 150/150/150/148. He said the shop teacher checked up the readgins range and this was in really good condition.......but 185??...idk any comments?

[ludeguy]

Originally Posted by Kang114

Aright well my friend just did the compression test today and he said eveything seems to be in good condition. idk if the readings are diff. for a downleak test but the readings came out as 150/150/150/148. He said the shop teacher checked up the readgins range and this was in really good condition.......but 185??...idk any comments?

atleast their uniform - within 10% of each other - but I believe that is a little low (anyone else care to comment?). however their uniformity *probably* means it's not bent valves because i doubt you could bend them all the same (: but you never know.

of course I don't have real references so i'll show you why i'm saying what i'm saying...

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=176947
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=141738
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=546862
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=162357

Try the limp mode reset thing aceshigh suggested (although if your vtec is still kickin in - i doubt your in limp - because limp would disable the vtec) - check your timing - not just with the light, but how the cams timing marks are lined up - i don't want to believe the whole jumping teeth with the timing belt thing - but since i read it somewhere i have too ):

best of luck - let us know (: