Engine hurt! Need help please!

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F8L BYT

New Member
Well first I would like to say hello and it seems like this is a cool site and a lot of good information, I don't know much about Honda's as I am long time Mustang guy but I enjoy any well built car and not brand specific. Anyway onto my dilemma.

I have a 94 civic with the 1.5 non-vtec automatic. I was driving down the interstate today and felt it lose power a little and then saw a ton of smoke pour out of the exhaust and then it was missing out bad, I knew it wasnt good.

I changed the plugs immediately hoping I would get lucky but nope, still didnt fix it. Then I let it run and checked to see if there was a dead cylinder and sure enough one plug wire had no spark.

So Im thinking its either a burnt valve or a burnt piston. My questions is what do you guys think I should do in this situation? Money is an issue, but I would like to fix it the cheapest way possible but to where it will run perfect. Is there any engine swaps that are a direct bolt in instead of the slow 1.5 that is there? I dont want to change the ecm, harness or anything like that.

Thanks guys I really appreciate you helping this newb out!
 
So Im thinking its either a burnt valve or a burnt piston.

If you have no spark to one cylinder its an electrical issue not a piston or valve....

How did you check the spark?

Have you done a compression test or anything else?

How where you driving? Romping normal or grandma status?

Give us more info on the car.. is it stock?
 
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If you have no spark to one cylinder its an electrical issue not a piston or valve....

How did you check the spark?

Have you done a compression test or anything else?

How where you driving? Romping normal or grandma status?

Give us more info on the car.. is it stock?

I didnt do a compression/leakdown yet because it happened late last night and I didnt feel like messing with it. Im going to do one today. I'll post up the results later.

I was driving normal down the interstate at about 65mph

What I did was hooked up a prod and poked each wire while the car was running to short the cylinder out. So when it was on the compression stroke it would not fire because it was just being pushed out and not firing. Make sense?

The car is bone stock,except the cat has been removed. It has 96k miles on it. It has never seemed to run perfect like it has a studder in it when I hit the cash at first. I bought it with a blown head gasket and I fixed that last year and replaced the timing belt and distributor at the same time and timing is dead on so i'm not sure.

Thanks for the help guys!
 
If the plug isn't firing it sounds like a distributor issue, not an engine issue. The smoke could be the unburnt mixture breaking down in the exhaust. Get that plug firing and then see where you're at. Check the resistance on the plug wire to see if it's failed, then check the distributor contacts. Might be a super cheap fix if it's just the plug wire gone bad.

What color is the smoke? White (coolant), blue (oil), or black(fuel). This will help diagnose, and if it's black support the plug firing being the culprit.

If it ends up being the engine you can get a JDM replacement motor cheaper than fixing this one. Take a look at hmotorsonline.com, they have the best rep, awaiting mine from them.
 
I agree ^^^

If the OP says he is sure there's no spark in one spark plug wire....then its a spark issue. And I think it might just be a spark plug wire.

Just put one of the other spark plug wires on that part of the distributor and see if its got spark (or doesn't). That'll be a free way to narrow down the problem. Hopefully its just a bad spark plug wire.

If you have access to a compression gauge......can't hurt to check compression. But I do not know why this made you think of a valve issue??
 
Just did a leakdown test and as I suspected number 3 cylinder was completely dead... All others were good. Im going to pull the head off tomorrow and check to see the damage. Hopefully its a burnt valve which Im pretty sure it is




If the plug isn't firing it sounds like a distributor issue, not an engine issue. The smoke could be the unburnt mixture breaking down in the exhaust. Get that plug firing and then see where you're at. Check the resistance on the plug wire to see if it's failed, then check the distributor contacts. Might be a super cheap fix if it's just the plug wire gone bad.

What color is the smoke? White (coolant), blue (oil), or black(fuel). This will help diagnose, and if it's black support the plug firing being the culprit.

If it ends up being the engine you can get a JDM replacement motor cheaper than fixing this one. Take a look at hmotorsonline.com, they have the best rep, awaiting mine from them.

I didnt see the smoke because it was night time... Thanks for the link!
 
Dead cylinder and no spark?? Multiple problems or wrong initial spark check
 
Well got the head off to see what happened and the pistons look fine from what I can tell but it was definitely the valves... What are your guys opinions on what I should do?

166121_1520914107177_1364283428_31144319_988122_n.jpg


Here is the number 4 cyl. Looks like antifreez was in this one but I dont understand how?

164701_1520914587189_1364283428_31144320_2834124_n.jpg



Before it happened it was burning a bunch of oil like a quart every half tank when I would be going like 70-75mph on the interstate? What do you guys think my problem is and what do you think I should do to fix the car? Remember money is an issue! Do you think I could just machine the head and seats and put new valves in it and it would be fine?

Thanks again guys for the help!
 
What kind of mileage was on this thing?

I would say just replace the whole engine. In the long run, it will almost absolutely be the cheaper, easier option.
 
I thought i said it was a burnt valve... Im sorry i just know what that particular problem is been through it too many times...

Hey man if you need I will ship you some valve's if you want just pay shipping and throw me a little extra. and there yours. I got a spare head laying around...
 
I would say another longblock too. Probably $300-400 for a JDM version but I tried to look at torontojdm and hmotorsonline and they only had OBD2A D15 non-vtec. I would call them and ask what the possibility is.

Or.....if you can rebuild it......and feel confident then do it
 
Impressive pic. You need to rebuild the head, valve job. They likely failed due to carbon build up on the seats from oil burning, carbon prevents heat transfer from the valve to the head and they burn up. If you can fully dissassembly and reassemble the head yourself the valve recut shouldn't be too bad (<$500), but if not it'll run closer to $1k (incl. parts). People are always pulling these to swap in something more powerful, check craigslist to see if someone is selling theirs cheap after swapping. Also try the junkyard, bring your compression tester. These aren't high demand for swaps, so you can get them cheap I'd think. If you enter "D15 for sale" in google it'll return classified ads from the various honda forums. I'd look to swap as opposed to rebuild.
 
USDM non-VTEC OBD1 D15 will have quite a few miles on it by now....but you could get lucky...and if compression is good....its way better than what you got going on right now lol. Other D motors can mate up to the transmission (AT...right??) but would need some modifications to work properly.
 
instead of wasting time and money to rebuild shit why not just pick up a sohc zc and use any accessory you must from your engine?

or even better put a d15b vtec in it... both are cheap and will get you back on the road.

id personally look for a jdm importer close to you that has some reputation so you dont have to pay shipping though. i use jdmenginedepot cause its about a hour and a half away and they give me good prices and parts.

where are you located?
 
I think a swap is your best option... If you can pull your own head you can swap your motor. I only know OBDII issues and am ignorant about automatic trans., that said things to be aware of (research it on here).
-Sensor plug/harness differences b/t years and OBDs, you can probably work around this by swapping the comparable part from your motor
-If you get a VTec you will need to wire for it, and get the ECU to run it as well
-Potential issues if you find a longblock out of a manual, there may be none, I'm just ignorant about autos altogether.
Any of these are solvable, it's just how much time you want to spend chasing them down, as you mentioned a drop in solution. So to summarize find another D locally (junkyard, craigslist) I bet people practically give these away. Stay away from VTEC if you want plug and play. If you want to add a little kick consider adding a b18b, its DOHC, but non-VTEC. Will give you 150HP and 130TQ, you can get one for $750. It's pointless to add anything VTEC to an auto in my opinion b/c you don't have the gearing and shift control to take advantage of the VTEC.
 
It's pointless to add anything VTEC to an auto in my opinion b/c you don't have the gearing and shift control to take advantage of the VTEC.

If im correct: he would have to use a auto vtec ecu which engages vtec sooner...

still pretty pointless.. but a ls (b18) swap would be nice! its a pretty simple and cheap swap and even for a dd the extra power is nice to have!
 
What kind of mileage was on this thing?

I would say just replace the whole engine. In the long run, it will almost absolutely be the cheaper, easier option.

car has ~98k miles

I thought i said it was a burnt valve... Im sorry i just know what that particular problem is been through it too many times...

Hey man if you need I will ship you some valve's if you want just pay shipping and throw me a little extra. and there yours. I got a spare head laying around...

Thanks man I'll let ya know if i need them or not. Right now I'm thinking about just re-seating the head machine the bottom and replace the valves and valve seals and hope that fixes it

Impressive pic. You need to rebuild the head, valve job. They likely failed due to carbon build up on the seats from oil burning, carbon prevents heat transfer from the valve to the head and they burn up. If you can fully dissassembly and reassemble the head yourself the valve recut shouldn't be too bad (<$500), but if not it'll run closer to $1k (incl. parts). People are always pulling these to swap in something more powerful, check craigslist to see if someone is selling theirs cheap after swapping. Also try the junkyard, bring your compression tester. These aren't high demand for swaps, so you can get them cheap I'd think. If you enter "D15 for sale" in google it'll return classified ads from the various honda forums. I'd look to swap as opposed to rebuild.

I would love to swap for another d15 but the only issue I have with that is buying one that some guy says ran perfect and everything and then it being a POS and I'm in the same position and just wasted 400 ya know... I have a hard time trusting people I dont know about things like this.

instead of wasting time and money to rebuild shit why not just pick up a sohc zc and use any accessory you must from your engine?

or even better put a d15b vtec in it... both are cheap and will get you back on the road.

id personally look for a jdm importer close to you that has some reputation so you dont have to pay shipping though. i use jdmenginedepot cause its about a hour and a half away and they give me good prices and parts.

where are you located?

Indianapolis... Read below about the motor

I think a swap is your best option... If you can pull your own head you can swap your motor. I only know OBDII issues and am ignorant about automatic trans., that said things to be aware of (research it on here).
-Sensor plug/harness differences b/t years and OBDs, you can probably work around this by swapping the comparable part from your motor
-If you get a VTec you will need to wire for it, and get the ECU to run it as well
-Potential issues if you find a longblock out of a manual, there may be none, I'm just ignorant about autos altogether.
Any of these are solvable, it's just how much time you want to spend chasing them down, as you mentioned a drop in solution. So to summarize find another D locally (junkyard, craigslist) I bet people practically give these away. Stay away from VTEC if you want plug and play. If you want to add a little kick consider adding a b18b, its DOHC, but non-VTEC. Will give you 150HP and 130TQ, you can get one for $750. It's pointless to add anything VTEC to an auto in my opinion b/c you don't have the gearing and shift control to take advantage of the VTEC.

I would love to swap in another motor like a b18b or even a gsr but I'm in college right now and dont have a job thats why I havent. This is my daily driver and thats why I need it fixed for as cheap as possible.... After I graduate and find a job, I will have the money to do a motor swap then! :)
 
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