Rep Power: 0

Hello guys,

I drove through a puddle with my civic. It was probably no maore than 4-5 inches deep. My car shut off and took awhile to start again. Blew crazy amounts of white smoke for a bit. I know I sucked water through my intake. I changed my oil (looked fine), changed my plugs, checked for spark on all cylinders, and did a compression test. My check engine light came on with cylinder 1 and 3 misfire. I have 115psi in cylinder one and all the others are around 150psi. My motors ticks really loud too.

What do you guys think my problem is? Bent valve? cracked piston?

Any help is appreciated.

Ian

 
Rep Power: 811

the compression numbers are a bad sign that something broke. possibly bent valves but no way to know til you open up it up. try removing the plug and see whats inside with a flashlight.

 
Rep Power: 284

I don't think it's bent valves, I think you damaged the piston in cylinder 1.

If you can get your hands on a boroscope pull your spark plug and look inside the cylinder with it, should show you the problem.

 
Rep Power: 511

Enough water in the cylinder would most likely cause a bent rod

 
Rep Power: 0

Thanks for your help. I work in DC and the car is in New York so I won't be able to look at it untill this weekend. I was thinking bent valve or damage to the piston.

 
Rep Power: 0

Ok guys,

I took the head off my civic this past weekend and found piston one about 3/16" lower than piston 4. Bent rod I would assume.

Also, the motor was at tdc on piston one ont the compression stroke and when I looked at the underneith of the head, cylinder 2 exhaust valves had one open and one closed. Compression was normal on the cylinder. Is this normal. I can't see the cam through the rocker arm assembly to see if the two exhaust lobes are identical.




Would you guys say bent rod?

thanks,

Ian

 
Rep Power: 200

TDC on this engines is piston tops are flush with the deck. If ANY pistons don't come all the way up there is NO doubt you have a bent rod, maybe more, spin it around and watch them all. You are right though, 1,4 and 2,3 are on the same through of the crank (different strokes of compression, but same position in the block...

 
Rep Power: 200

The good thing for you though is there is no reason to pull the engine if all you need to do is replace a rod or two. You are halfway there, pull the head and the oil pan and knock the hole assembly out the top. If you have a ridge on the cylinder take it off first, but unless you have a bajillion miles on it it will be fine.

I had my civic head off a couple months ago and it had zero wear in the cylinders, could see the crosshatch still. It has almost 150k now. I also had the b18 apart in a 90 integra I had and it still had it too. It had 130k. Honda must have some really hard cylinder walls. American engines, particularly "V" engines have a lot of cylinder wall wear by those miles. The "inline" engine are better though.