Rep Power: 0

Hello,

I recently got a $200 amazon gift card, and I also have a real nice coolant to exhaust leak on my 04 D17a2 coupe. It's somewhat slow but my girlfriend noticed how my exhaust looks when I start my car in the morning. Anyways, I foolishly tried a head-gasket-clogger thing, that didn't work. I've been putting straight water in my engine for a while now, so it's also probably a rust bucket.

I plan on doing a citrus rust removal thing I heard about, then doing the head gasket + water pump + timing belt. Pretty sure I damaged the water pump with the gasket clogger, but I'd rather do a good job fixing my car anyways. I'm not incredibly experienced with cars, but I have done a few things including my clutch before. Don't have the money for a mechanic so I'm doing it myself apart from the machining.

My main question how to find out what kit to buy. I see many different ones on amazon -- some with head bolts, some with extra little gaskets, or other small things that I'm not totally sure of yet. I'm really not sure how to filter out a good kit from a bad one, or useful components from extraneous ones. Does anyone have any advice on how to filter some options out? They range from $60-$200+. I want to buy decent parts, but I'm also a college student that's not made of moneybags. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 
Rep Power: 210

buy the kit that states Honda Genuine(or/oem).

 
Rep Power: 512

Part numbers in my sig in the headgasket link.

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...arts-list.html

 
Rep Power: 0

Test the hypothesis that the cheapest one is crap.

 
Rep Power: 512