Civicnoobie

I remembered in Hondas TSB for the 01-03 trans (cant seem to find the TSB now), but they listed by vins and serial #s the trans that were affected by the defective 2nd gear. My trans now # wasnt on it at all, which is obviously good, so not sure if mine is 100% safe that it doesnt have the defective 2nd gear in it.

What you think DJ storm?

ezone

Does it really matter?
It doesn't make your trans any less broken.
Your trans still flares between shifts.

djstorm100

What about tq the head bolts down a little more? help hold the gasket in place more?

Taking the head sometime this week to the machine shop to get checked out.

djstorm100

^has anyone done this?

djstorm100

cricket cricket

ezone

I personally use the factory spec and factory gaskets.

MPGFTW

First time post...

I just bought a 05 Civic Sedan and was looking at the DIYs for timing belt changes. I then noticed people were changing out head gaskets at the same time. After a little searching, I came across this thread. I am a little worried as my car had 93,000 miles on it when I bought it. I am not running out to change my head gasket just yet though.

Anyway, I know I am bumping a month old thread but here goes my theory...I have an extensive background in aviation maintenance and one issue aircraft have is corrosion. While there are many types, galvanic comes to mind. Galvanic corrosion happens when there is two dissimilar metals in contact with each other and there is an electrolyte added. (See Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion) For example, in an aircraft, if there is an aluminum part with a different titanium part riveted, or connected together somehow, and that aircraft flies through a rainstorm, those parts will start to corrode if they get wet and are not properly protected. Yes, this happens...

Thanks if you are still with me reading this!! As we know, our engines have aluminum heads and MLS head gaskets. Okay, two dissimilar metals. But wait, Honda spec antifreeze is used and isn't corrosive (not an electrolyte...) so how can galvanic corrosion happen?? Well, when that car was taken in for service, did some tech add tap water at some point to top off the coolant? Did a previous owner add tap water when they accidentally popped a cap off of a hot radiator? Whatever the scenario, it could happen. Tap water is a mild electrolyte. It contains trace minerals which can conduct electricity and therefore allow the two dissimilar metals to corrode. Distilled water doesn't conduct electricity and therefore not considered an electrolyte.

Here is a pic of a corroded head gasket:

Pic used from this website:http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/200

Okay, it is a long shot, but corrosion could be the explanation for the failing head gaskets. I am not saying everyone should go change their coolant right this second, but just opening this thread up to a little more discussion...

Is there any close up pictures of any failed gaskets? I know its a long shot, but worth a look to see if there are any signs of corrosion.

ezone

I just tossed out the one I did last Friday morning. IMO you can't ever tell for certain (visually) exactly where the breach was unless it was just a huge leak.

These can breach regardless of coolant history. We have plenty that ran with the factory fill, then type2 premixed coolant, so no tap water ever added.



I think it has to do with thermal cycling, the aluminum head expansion is limited upward by the head bolts, so it must compress the head gasket. The repeated cycling eventually causes the gasket to fail.
I think if the head bolts in this engine were TTY, they would retain a more constant tension on the gasket under a much wider range of operating conditions, or for a longer length of time/cycles.

TTY head bolts worked very well on other engines with MLS head gaskets.

JMHO, YMMV.

Matt_75

Nope, not the main problem. There may be some that blew sooner than they should have because they used water and it corroded the head, but not the ultimate problem. I bought my 02 civic ex brand new with 33 miles on it and it had nothing but the green original coolant followed by the current blue coolant that got changed when I did my timing belt. It was taken care of very meticulously by me from when I bought until now and it has a little over 93K on it.

Here's my thread when mine blew with pictures. You'll see both my head and block have no corrosion to speak of whatsoever.

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ml#post4621035

MPGFTW

I couldn't blow your pics up enough to look for it.

It was just a thought.

Matt_75

That's fine. New thoughts are always welcome.

Trust me when I say no water was ever used in that engine.

eastsider

What's the difference between factory fill coolant and type 2 premixed coolant?

(Sorry for the thread drift )

ezone

Factory fill, obviously, is what the factory put in it.... regardless of the coolant type.

I'm not sure when exactly the changes came about, but I think in the early or mid 90s there was a change from standard green coolant to a long life coolant--Type 1, which was very dark green (at the shops during any coolant service we had to mix it with water ourselves), then around 03 or 04(?) the factory started putting in the Type 2, which is a long life "premixed" coolant. It is blue in color.

(On that note: as a general rule when dealing with cars of many different brands, color of a coolant is not an indicator of the coolant type or formula. There are many different types and formulas, and many different colors. Very few are interchangeable, and there is no such thing as a universal coolant. I don't give a rats azz how loud anyone says it, it is an impossible concept.
Coolants are "application engineered" these days.)

Premixed means it comes already diluted 50/50 with deionized water. No ordinary tap water involved any more.
The formula is regular Ethylene Glycol, Non-Borate and Non-Silicate.

These days, Type 2 is all we use in the Hondas.


It's been many years since I have seen coolant corrosion issues in the cars we service regularly at this shop.

Matt_75

So are you saying the coolant I had in my vehicle when I bought it brand new in 02 had to be mixed with water prior to it being added to my engine at the factory?

ezone

If it was green, then yes-- AFAIK.

The next question is probably gonna be "What kind of water?", to which I answer, "I have no freekin' clue, but I bet it was done in tanks the size of railroad cars."

Matt_75

Just good to know for history purposes I guess. I changed it twice with the blue coolant(Type 2)...once with the timing belt change and once with the head gasket change. I'm sure it's good to go.

BTW I loosened my oil pan bolt to allow oil leakage. I feel much better now.

ezone

Now you need one of these stuffed in a rear wheelwell and you'll be set.

kinakoes2

Hey, that's a Snap-On/Blue Point scaffolding tool we doubled to remove jet pumps from Sea-Doo watercraft (boy those 2-st ones were a glass-filled-forearm's worth of PITA to work on)...

Not sure how or why it'd be used on a 7th gen though... and sorry for zombie-ing this thread, but it is proving I'm lurking rather than posting when the info is right there in search.

Since I have no records of coolant swap history in documentation with my recently-acquired 7th-gen... guess I'm heading down to my dealer for some Type 2...

kinakoes2

So... now that I'm sure my '04 is slowly succumbing to this issue (overflow tank is filling ever so slightly), thought I'd add some powersports tech cents to the Franklins in this thread...

While reading poster after poster frantically new-thread (with single-digit post counts) about this issue... I've often wondered why, when my old Toyota Paseo holed a rad in 100+degF Phoenix in 2003 at 70 mph on the freeway, then continued to gently run it down an offramp in search of a parts store, needle hovering just below the H... finally pegging right as I shut it down in a NAPA parking lot... why it didn't warp a head. By all accounts I should've had a gasket failure right in that nasty-hot parking lot that would've cost a grand to deal with (including tow costs)... but instead I slipped the old rad out, put a new one in, filled it with green coolant, and drove it another 180K.

So what are the diffs between this IME supremely-abuse-tolerant (if not oil-sippy) 5E-FE engine, and my D17, insofar as the head gasket? One, is that it's a more forgiving graphite type... and the other, very important distinction... is that its head bolts, are TTY. Mandatory replacement if they ever need to be disturbed after torque is set.

Regular bolts respond to the aluminum block and heads expanding and contracting by not expanding and contracting as much, which can lead to gasket failure if 1) all torque on head bolts aren't torqued *exactly* right in the right order, which then demands 2) all friction at every head bolt be exactly the same. MLS doesn't have the ability to seal as well during this kind of distortion, so voila -- have a coolant overflow tank latte, on me...

As a PS tech, all of the frontline sportbike engines I'd worked on personally have had TTY bolts since perhaps the early/mid '90s. Honda's however, did not... and their sportbikes (as well as all the other Big Four factories) used MLS gaskets with perhaps a little print of add'l sealer around coolant passages. I don't remember an angle spec after torquing while wrenching on them (that was a Kawasaki and Bombardier/Sea-Doo thing)... and Hondas tended to run damned hot -- 225-230 as the operating temp on early FI '98 VFRs and CBR929/954RRs (for emissions) -- but rarely overheated without severe provocation. This on motors with much less coolant capacity (2.7L for a '99 GSX-R750 vs. 4.0L on the D17) per displacement, yet much higher BMEP and thermal stresses.

So why does the D17, which its much, much less-stressed engine spec, blow gaskets like a helicopter parent at a PTA meeting? My theory (and it's not the most educated one, at least on paper), is the absence of TTY bolts, as championed by ezone here. Researched this one for a few weeks now... and every forum and all the sources I respect agree, not only do TTY bolts more accurately apply torque and maintain that torque over more conditions than reusable bolts... but do so without much extra cost/effort involved (not to mention, create a small amount of revenue, as they can only be used once). TTY bolts will stretch the shafts rather than the threaded portion, so heat cycling doesn't affect torque as much as non-TTY bolts. In the case of the sportbike bolts... they were intentionally spec'd much stronger with longer thread depth than milder cruiser applications -- that's why despite the high BMEP numbers, they didn't blow gaskets -- the specs were designed to handle them within lots of engineering margin (most of the raced Fours only lasted 50K-75K anyway, before being too expensive to rebuild competitively).

The only other option I'd heard as a substitute are studs, most popularly ARP studs, at least on Hondas (they seem to be a common denominator on a lot of hi-po cars like on Mitsubishi 4G63s and DOHC V8 Fords). However even studs cannot avoid the cycling issues affecting their threads... though it does spread that torque over two sets of threads, which may be why they're better than the OEM D17 bolts (which only have one set of threads to withstand cycling as the shafts won't yield), and why they should be used for projects involving boost (too much stretching will result in pretty expensive failures with high chamber pressures). If that's in the cards for your D17, I think it's worth it to invest in them if you're having to swap the gasket anyway. My 20 cents.

ezone

You should subscribe to my newsletter.


I think someone could make a little money if they could supply the right TTY bolts for some of the older Hondas such as this.



Honda has specs for measuring to see if you can reuse them (on all the engines I have dealt with that use TTY). Some engine have different tightening specs for used vs. new bolts too.

kinakoes2

Ford has a blanket guideline that any OEM TTY bolt for their applications can be reused three times, then they're unsuitable. I think that's pretty cavalier considering the shadetree variables involved... but IME they're not that worried about being sued if they do fail.

On my builds I never bothered -- a used TTY bolt will never be as dependable as a new one IMO. Not worth the risk of being wrong in such a vital and labor-intensive application. But it is nice to know Honda at least provided some contingency data if for some reason no new bolts were available. But less that I wouldn't reuse them.

I do wish someone would do the research to see if a 7th gen TTY part interchange is out there. As long as it gave no additional cons and all of the bennies of the OEM bolts + no gasket failures... I'd get a set for my impending swap. As of now, I guess ARPs are the only way to bulletproof the head... sold.

siliconvalley

kinakoes2, I have the same 5SFE engine in my Camry. That darn thing is almost non-destructible. There were several times my coolant hoses and radiator were broken and the temperature went skyhigh. But after new hoses and a new radiator, the engine has no trouble with the head gasket.

I bought my Civic because my old 93 Civic was so reliable. I didn't know my current 04 is so shitty

ezone

I spent a little time looking through various engines in the parts catalog and couldn't find any TTYs that matched the 7th gen head bolts.
Catalog says 10X140mm

Maybe aftermarket? Maybe some other manufacturer uses TTYs that size?

kinakoes2

Ah thanks ezone -- however I think the more accessible (and proven, including future builds) solution, is the ARP one. However I haven't looked through Acura catalogs, either...

Given that there aren't ten thousand replies to a thread here with a TTY cross-reference that works without any downsides... I'm willing to spend the bit of extra money to get a lot more security as far as that interface is concerned. Besides, if I'm expected to go aftermarket for the TTY bolts anyway, why not go ARP.

Time as well as cost are the two largest pins I have in the air at the mo... but not the only ones, and certainly not the most important ones. But I am one of those irritating tinkerers that loves to improve on a machine but hates to have to dive back into a job when it could be avoided. Blame my dealer training!

kinakoes2

Actually, the 5S-FE is a completely-different engine family -- the S series of engines (5=fifth-gen/S=engine fam/FE=economy engine configuration; GEs are the performance Toyotas). Mine is a 1.5L E series, the 5E-FE, with the trick scissor-gear-driven intake cam, and the belt only driving the exhaust cam. Makes the intake rotate in the opposite direction to the 4A-GE and other non-geared Toyota motors, but this was a little tank engine -- 280K with zero hard-part failures besides oil control ring degradation (which was pretty comical over 250K). Once I ran Rotella-T as well as the Mobil I'd been using for 15 years, though... that went down to affordable levels. They USED to make superb engines, this Toyota company. The 5S-FE is sadly also one of the last of that era of truly bulletproof Toy engines (pre-96 was the gold).

I think the 7th-gen Civic is the first example of the 'lost decade' Japanese financial recession hitting one of the biggest (and IMO, one of the most arrogant) auto factories in the JDM... it was in my mind the first Civic in which engineers weren't given free rein to make it vastly superior to its predecessor, and for the first time, factor general content ceilings on how to make a part. While they didn't take *all* the content out, you can clearly see that they had a bit of trouble meeting both tightening emissions, fuel economy, and cost margins, while still (barely) appeasing the performance crowd around which the model was famous. I think the 6th-gen chassis is definitely superior as a driver's car... but the 7th was roomier and more efficient -- two things that Honda, like Ford or M-B... didn't at the time think was their reason for being. Nowadays, of course... it's all things, equal priority -- foremost being economy. Hence... we have a 7th-gen that blows head gaskets every five years. If you were a shrewd bean counter, that's exactly the Ford you'd build too. Trust me, I've owned (and wrenched like a boss) under one for a very trying year).

ezone

I think that replacing the regular bolts for studs that are still regular isn't really improving anything, the same failure would eventually occur sooner or later..

Can ARP supply TTY head bolts or studs?




Ya know, for all the 7th gen head gaskets I've done, I really haven't seen any come back for the same failures yet.
Blame flat rate.

kinakoes2

Do many 7th gens come back at all after 180K? I don't doubt they could... but just wondering how many just get sold to people who won't send their cars to a dealer for service.

Thing about studs IINM, is that the the stretching occurs primarily in the threads (since there are two sets of threads), so while clamping force is the same, there is a bit more ability to expand with aluminum heat cycling. Using a stud also allows more accurate torque, since you're applying force right next to the threads that are doing the stretching (well, one set of them anyway), rather than twisting a long shaft to the threads you want to get the torque on.

If ARP made TTY bolts for the 7th gen... why not. Not sure if they'd rate them the same as their studs... but hell, may as well ask. Firing off an email (which I hope actually gets answered).

I wonder if Honda updated the gasket since 10 yrs ago? That might explain the lack of comebacks on redone D17s you've done (if the above reason they haven't come back doesn't apply).

Have a related story about how Honda sometimes responds to field parts failures if they're severe enough, at least on the moto side... a parts mgr friend of mine bought a brand new CBR929RR literbike off the floor in summer 2001, and was having big sloppy leather-clad fun at trackdays in Phoenix... that is, until one day, his #3 injector locked open, filled his motor, and soaked his crotch on the side of a 103-degF surface road in town. Needless to say, he was bummed. I got to tear it down... yup, pintle failure(?!?) in #3 injector -- 60 psi fuel pressure in a nice even stream until he turned the key off. No other failures but the injector.

Well, his chain of command got a hold of corporate... and right at opening time the next AM, there's a white Econoline with a red Honda wing on the side, parked in front of the service rollup. My parts bud then came out of his car. Guy came out and tersely asked what happened, and listened about ten mins to both of us. 'Thanks, we need this bike now, guys.' Had us sign some forms (my SM, who's a privacy advocate, rebelled until they threatened to drive off). They got the van doors open... and in there, was a shiny-new, already-prepped, full CBR954RR -- the 929's successor which had just debuted at the time but wasn't in showrooms yet. We rolled it down the ramp and they took the dying 929, Pingled it, did a bit of paperwork, and drove off.

So my bud got a not-yet-available Honda literbike, in exchange for a very severe problem with an existing flagship Honda literbike. They really wanted that bike.

ezone

I've done head gaskets on some cars with less than 50k. Last one I did only had 70k.

Sure, there are many that never go to a dealer, some only come here for warranty, some are permanent customers for the duration. I know we have a few 7th gen customers with well past 200k.


I don't think they stretch at all. They still have the same mechanical properties as the plain old bolts they replaced.

The head gasket STILL takes the brunt of the abuse between the differing expansion rates of the dissimilar metals in the engine.

If they were intended to stretch during use, they would be TTY, tightened in either the elastic or plastic region.

Do update with info!


# 12251-PLC-004, suffix is 004 so I'd assume this is the 4th version at this point.


I've had similar things where they really really want the removed parts for inspection or whatever, but nothing as cool as that.

kinakoes2

If the head gasket were actually the weak point, then it wouldn't matter TTY or conventional -- no matter how hard you clamped the gasket, it would still experience the movement of the aluminum above it, but be expected to clamp and seal without gas leakage, the liner beneath it. If the ARP studs aren't a solution, then why do engine builders use it to protect on other motors, against the same problems we're seeing on the D17 (gas leakage into the coolant jacket)?

A former Penske IndyCar technician friend of mine who lived here in the '90s explained it to me thusly: when threads are torqued, it's the stretching of the threaded portion that puts tension on the fastener head, before loading of the shaft (which makes sense, as the deepest cut portion of the threads makes up a thinner shaft than the uncut shaft). It's this stretching under tension that allows a fastener to not back out -- when proper torque is applied. With studs... you have *two* areas of elasticity, so even with greater clamping force, you still have the ability for the fastener to stretch via the threaded areas, before it reaches the point of plasticity -- and failure (for a non-TTY fastener). Not saying a TTY solution wouldn't be better... for a bolt, that is.

Anyhow -- will ask these same Qs to the ARP folks, and get the gritty. I'm eager to learn a bit too about this aggravating issue...

AFAIK, the last 3 digits of the Honda PNs don't necessarily mean it's a new part -- it's just that the part has been reviewed and if it demands it, it gets design mods. Sometimes it even signals a mere change in the factory that it's outsourced to (Toyota and Suzuki{moto} also seem to follow this practice IME). That it took 4 revisions for Honda to get a gasket to seal properly seems unlikely, since other MLS gaskets on other models seem to do okay. Mind you this exp is on the moto side, of course.

And yeah... that 954RR story was *highly* unusual. Even Dave, my SM at the time, who'd been a Honda-cert'd moto tech for 25 yrs had heard they do that but hadn't seen it with his own eyes. Apparently it doesn't happen often... but neither do pintle failures on Denso injectors.

lowlife9

could a completely clogged EGR be an issue i remember reading this was the leading cause for the older legends failures.