Loss of power

[dgreblos]

I have an 89 Civic 4 door 5 speed 160,000 miles and it lost power on my way home from work today. Pulled the plugs and found oil had leaked down into cylinder 4. Replaced the valve cover gasket, spark plug seals and the plugs. Still no power. Replaced the plug wires, rotor and distributor cap. Still no power. Pulled all the plugs and cylinder #3 does not appear to be firing. It does have spark when the plug is out. It runs the same if the wire is off #3 also. Nothing seemed odd when I had the valve cover off. Is it possible that I have a fuel problem to that cylinder?

[hondacivic99sivtec]

Originally Posted by dgreblos

I have an 89 Civic 4 door 5 speed 160,000 miles and it lost power on my way home from work today. Pulled the plugs and found oil had leaked down into cylinder 4. Replaced the valve cover gasket, spark plug seals and the plugs. Still no power. Replaced the plug wires, rotor and distributor cap. Still no power. Pulled all the plugs and cylinder #3 does not appear to be firing. It does have spark when the plug is out. It runs the same if the wire is off #3 also. Nothing seemed odd when I had the valve cover off. Is it possible that I have a fuel problem to that cylinder?

could be your piston rings. i would do a compression check on each cylinder and then on two at a time.

[dgreblos]

Compression check indicated no compression in Cylinder #2. All other cylinders were between 160-175 psi. We will be pulling the head this week. If it is a bad valve should I replace just the valve or go through the entire head? It has been suggested that rebuilding the entire head could increase the compression and cause problems with the rings.

[hondacivic99sivtec]

Originally Posted by dgreblos

Compression check indicated no compression in Cylinder #2. All other cylinders were between 160-175 psi. We will be pulling the head this week. If it is a bad valve should I replace just the valve or go through the entire head? It has been suggested that rebuilding the entire head could increase the compression and cause problems with the rings.

it shouldn't be a bad valve. how low was the compression on the #2. if it was lower than 160 than it is your rings. that's what happened with my car.

#4 #2 #1 were all at 175 and #3 was at 125. if it was a dramatic increase like this and cause back firing than yeah piston rings.

[sblkcamaro70]

if you have no compression in a cylinder in your case where it was in an instance than chances are it is a bad valve. it probably isn'trings cause they go slowly over time. i had the same thing happen to me when i was delivering pizza. a little corner of a valve broke off. i would just replace the valve and put the head back on instead of rebuilding the whole head, unless you are looking for performance increases in the future like a turbo. as far as if you rebuild the head and it wrecks the rings. i have never heard of something so rediculous who ever you heard that from they can shove it up the ass.

[dgreblos]

There was no compression at all in the bad cylinder. The cylinder was pressurized with compressed air with all 4 valves closed. Air was hissing out the exhaust so we were then certain that it was a burnt exhaust valve. The head is off and one of the exhaust valves had broken off a small piece. The head has been sent out to be looked over as long as it is off.