Rep Power: 0

Need a little help with finding out what could possibly be wrong before I take my car in to get repairs... If it's needed.

I'm not really auto savvy, but figured I'd get a cold air intake a few weeks ago (aem) for my 06 civic coupe. Ended up getting it installed by a friend who has done the install before on other vehicles. Anyways he did a pretty good job and it was going fine until this afternoon. I was going 65 steadily, not driving like an *** or anything and all the sudden I lost rpm's. I couldn't accelerate at all and immediately took the upcoming exit. My check engine light, oil light and battery light then came on. About 5 seconds later I lost a lot of steering capability... Not sure if my power steering went out or if it was something else.

So I called the buddy and was pretty nervous about what could have gone wrong that we might of messed up on. Turns out the hose that feeds into the throttle body wasn't secured enough and had been leaking... It was a turquoise color on other parts below it. So he said to check the radiator cap. Did that and ended up going to get some 50/50 coolant. Tightened the hose clamps and started pooring. After that I waited a few minutes, turned the car over and it started. But now the engine shakes pretty hard and won't go above 4k rpm's. I haven't tried to drive it on the highway yet... Oh yeah plus the dipstick which is all plastic seems to have broken at about 6 inches below the handle.

I'm wondering if anyone might know what's up with my engine before I take it in and they tell me I need a new f'in flux capacitor or some crap that costs 10 grand. Thanks

 
Rep Power: 512

uh... it's typically not a good thing when your dipstick comes out of your engine half gone... Just sayin..

and if it's idling like it seems like it's gonna blow up and not rev past 4k, there's something wrong. Get an OBDII sensor, plug it into the port and get the codes read.. Autozone will read them for (i think) free..

and what started "pooring" after you tightened the hose clamps?

 
Rep Power: 812

and usually when the oil light comes on, it means buy a new engine. i highly doubt the intake install had anything to do with it, even if you left off all the maf and pcv hoses. it might run badly or possibly mess up the engine, but only over a long period of time. im also not sure how a coolant hose plays any part in this, unless for some reason your friend took off the heater hose to fit the intake and forgot to put it back on. in which case, your coolant would be completely pumped out, causing the engine to overheat and melt the plastic dipstick, and cause the engine to die. dont feel too bad tho, you can get a low mileage engine for around $1k, maybe less if you shop around. and maybe another $1k for the install. have your friend pay half of it.

 
Rep Power: 313

It sounds like you may have been losing coolant for a little while. You may have overheated the engine and not noticed due to low coolant. In the process you may have burned some oil. Drain the oil and see how much comes out, if no oil or very little comes out you know your in big trouble.