Grumpys93 : 1993 Accord LX

[G. Wiffington]

That's alright man, I know you'll get it together in no time & it will be a
beast for sure!

Mistakes just help us learn & grow stronger into the future.

[Grumpys93]

Dam... you're making my leaky gas tank issue not feel so bad.
So no drinking while working on the car this time ? (kidding)

So there's nothing left after this fix is there? Straight to the dyno again?

Oh drinking will still commence it just won’t be a copious amount. Blake and I still haven’t gotten it to start and run. Hoping that’s due to the low compression, but yes after first start it should be straight to a tune. While the head is out, I am fixing a couple of the small issues as well as install my AEM AFR gauge I just received in the mail yesterday. Not sure where I’m going to mount it yet.

Dealing with any kind of leak is never a fun task, especially if it requires dropping a fuel tank.

[Raf99]

Dam... you're making my leaky gas tank issue not feel so bad.
So no drinking while working on the car this time ? (kidding)

So there's nothing left after this fix is there? Straight to the dyno again?

[Grumpys93]

So I had some free time and tore the head off the car to look at the damage. I am happy to see that the pistons are still in excellent condition:

#1

#2

#3
#4

So after seeing everything was good I pulled the valves, these are the valves from cylinder #2(which had 40psi compression):

It was hard to see if they were bent, I first tried to eye it and couldn't see much, then I did the roll test and that was a little tough to tell. But When I put them in a drill, 2 of the 4 has a small wobble and 2 looked true. If you look at the picture you will see the 3rd valve on the right(intake valve) has a slight bend.


Cylinder 3 had a compression of 150 so I pulled the valves on that one as well and couldn't see much. I am going to replace them anyways. I went ahead and ordered 8 new valves from Honda 4 intake and 4 exhaust.

I will be dropping the head at the machine shop and should hopefully have it back next week.

Stay tuned.

[Grumpys93]

I hate when that happens. You should be good with just valves. One of my rescue projects had all 16 valves bent - stock pistons were fine; your forged pistons should tolerate more than a little valve contact.

That’s what I’m hoping for but you never know.

Dam, well good luck man. I'm not sure what to say except good luck.

Lol nothing really needed to say. Just bummed I made such a newbie mistake. Oh well live and learn.

[Raf99]

Dam, well good luck man. I'm not sure what to say except good luck.

[Fleetw00d]

I hate when that happens. You should be good with just valves. One of my rescue projects had all 16 valves bent - stock pistons were fine; your forged pistons should tolerate more than a little valve contact.

[98vtec]

Have you done a wet compression test? Could it be the rings?

no point in doing a wet test. the rings would have to be broken to only make 40psi. and they arent gonna be broken on a fresh engine that already had a clean bill of health on an initial compression test (prior to the cam gear install).

Stuff happens. This was definitely the last thing on my mind but the diagnostic ladder kept leading me towards it until i finally had enough and had to know. I feel for him, but it will get fixed and we will get back on it.

[judonoh]

Have you done a wet compression test? Could it be the rings?

[NH-503P-3]

Your text led me to believe it was worse. Well we’ll see. You got this. I got my fingers crossed so you can use yours to handle this situation lol. The CB forehead smacker issues I’ve created in the past always come with the financial kick to the jewels as well. Unfortunately they seem to go hand in hand.

[Grumpys93]

It's cool to see the attention to detail and patience paying off with this project, and it's fun to live vicariously through it. Also, I think you're going to be impressed with the quality of tone from the Vibrant resonator. I currently have a stock F running through a Vibrant muffler, with no resonator, and it's never had a tinny, ricey, tone. Your setup should sound even smoother with the resonator included. Looking forward to seeing some initial numbers.

I appreciate the positive feedback and I look forward to hearing this thing purr.

So a little update and sadly not a good one:

As I like to be transparent with this build, Saturday Blake and I attempted first start up and ultimately it wasn't successful and here is why.

It all started when we first primed the motor and heard metal to metal. We ended up finding a timing cover bolt was not fully installed and it was rubbing against the crank pulley.

Fixed that, second attempt we couldn't get it to even attempt to fire without WOT.

Long story short we discovered sometime in the past I put the head timing 180 out of the block timing. I now remember thinking when I did install the head a year or 2 ago, that for some unknown reason except maybe I was drunk at the time that #1 cylinder was on the passenger side. So in this drunken stupor I proceeded to treat #4 as #1. I don't know why I never verified the timing on the crank pulley and the flywheel, though I swore I did.

I guess this is one of the issues with having a lot of stuff happening in your life and trying to remember small stuff like this. So because I thought #4 was #1 I proceeded on that same night to install the harness as well, which you guessed it I put #4 injector on #1 and #3 on #2 etc. After we figured all this out, Blake attempts to start the car and it idles, but only on 2-3 cylinders.....

So he proceeded to do a compression test and these were the numbers he got: 180/40/150/180. So as you can see I bent some valves. I am really hoping I didn't damage the pistons because wiesco doesn't offer 8.8:1 forged pistons anymore so I would have to get 9:1 and ultimately buy a whole new set of pistons.

Blake is dropping the car off this weekend at my house with a basemap, so I can pull the head inspect the cylinders and valves and replace the valves. I am going to go ahead and order at least 3 intake and exhaust valves hopefully I wont need anymore.


So morale of the story is always triple check your work and triple check your checklist! Especially after a night of drinking and working on a car. But the good thing is it idled briefly before he killed it.


So stay tuned for carnage pictures in the following weeks

[Harriers Wake]

It's cool to see the attention to detail and patience paying off with this project, and it's fun to live vicariously through it. Also, I think you're going to be impressed with the quality of tone from the Vibrant resonator. I currently have a stock F running through a Vibrant muffler, with no resonator, and it's never had a tinny, ricey, tone. Your setup should sound even smoother with the resonator included. Looking forward to seeing some initial numbers.

[98vtec]

Thanks for the reminder on the shifter springs I need to get. And Blake bud seems like a honest fella, willing to right things that are wrong and put the work into doing it. Nice to see! Car looks great of course........ remind us all what HP you will run on first drive?

I treat people as I would want to be treated. Taking care of him appropriately turned out a beautiful manifold option for the F crowd which I sold another immediately after posting. I believe good things come to those who are willing to make things right even when it means coming out of pocket to do so.

[Raf99]

It’s hanging a little low because it isn’t connected to the rest of the exhaust. Since we were waiting on bolts and gasket. I’ll try and get a better pic today.

My goal was to make 350whp. I’m hoping to be closer to 400. But I don’t plan to run more then 21psi on the strip and 18 on the street

Ya, you'll love the resonator with the 3" exhaust. Really won't sound like a "ricer" And can't wait for your first exciting post of running 400 HP

[bjaccord]

Looking great! Hope everything runs as planned. The E85 should be fun to play with when available.