Murdered civic on the thruway

NYSpeed Automotive
1

For those of you who don’t know, i am n8, some of you know or met me, for those of you who haven’t, i had a red 89 crx dx that had a b16a swap that was burnt to the ground while off the road three years ago this halloween (car was off road uninsured, about three months after having swap completed it was destroyed and i never saw a dime for it. - $6,000 for n8.)

Fast forward to about 6-8 weeks ago, i purchased RaceForVic’s (ubrf) black 1992 civc si hatch, had a jdm GSR swap, ITR block with CTR pistons, DC header full 2.5 inch exhaust, hi flow cat, and a black flowmaster muffler tucked up in the rear ACT clutch in the trans and some generic borbet 6 spoke wheels. Paid very resonably

Car was to be my daily driver to get to school and back for the next 2 years. I BABIED THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF THIS CAR. NEVER EVER DID I LAUNCH THE CAR EVER. NEVER WOUND OUT FIRST @ WOT THE WHOLE TIME NEVER FUCKING POWERSHIFTED OUT OF FIRST EVER. NEED I STRESS IT MORE!

The only time i ever really raced, i raced andy’s TT 300zx. Was from a roll started in second powershifted 2-3rd (FIRST TIME EVER!) wound third to about 7900 rpm and put it in fourth was a good race, car felt great.

           Fast Forward to about two weeks ago from today.


 So i am on the thruway driving a 7hr drive from where i am moving to in PA to home in Lancaster. this was a friday i was to be moved down on sunday and start school that monday, i had just pulled into the rest stop on the 90 approx. 115 miles or so from Buffalo. i had driven straight through up till this point. I pulled over for food and gas, stay there for about 30 mins with my hood open to cool off the motor to under 100 degrees, check my oil level get under the car look for leaks or anything of the nature. (again i baby the car soon as i got it i changed the oil, plugs, tranny fluid, k&n oil filter, new fuel filter, inspected distributor wires etc...) it had only been a few weeks since i bought it and i am overly paranoid about something going wrong especially on 7hr drives... anyhow car cools off completely, i start it let it get to operating temperature before i pull away, don't even floor it no vtec nothing, driving it like a stock d15 that i don't race just drive... my friends even pick on me for driving like an old man.

Anyhow i get up to speed set the cruise control for about 80mph… around ten miles after leaving… POP! POP! POP! BOOM! white smoke covers both lanes behind me, starts pouring through the vents every where, car stalls, oil light comes on, FUCKING SHIT. being optimistic i tried to lie to myself and say hey it could be a head gasket. after a hellacious night involving two state troopers, two tow trucks, and an ambulance later i get towed home.

Take the car to Hybrid. upon further inspection of the motor and a leakdown test cylinders #1 & #4 are showing very low numbers on the intake side. they pull the head, and there is about half the size of a nickel hole in the piston on cylinder #1 (the worst part is the all the pistons still look brand new all shiny not too much buildup.) The head is completely fine though.. no bent valves nothing, come to find out a certain nameless somebody who had originally owned the motor and built it in the back of a pickup truck (i did not know this.) had degreed the intake cam  +1 or +2 degrees forward causing the timing to be advanced under throttle especially @ WOT, thus causing detonation. (mind you everyone compression was about 12.5.1!!!)

So now i am in a shitty situation, i had to delay school 3 more weeks, fucked up moving into my new apartment and i’m out of money, now i got a civic that will cost more than half i paid for it to fix. my parents are pissed they think i got taken, and bought a lemon… now the seller was very cool, liked him much dealt with his parents because he was in Hawaii. they definitly did not know anything was wrong prior to selling.

i basically paid $4,000 to drive a car for two months, talk about an expensive rental.

So that's where i'm at, i finally get a new car after three years of waiting and it dies within the first two months of owning it, and i babied the living hell out it.

So i think it’s time to cut my losses, the block, head, and tranny are already spoken for. if enough interest is generated i might part out most of the existing parts left on it including EVERYTHING. i may keep just the rolling shell if enough people want all the parts.

Post up here or PM me, assume everything is for sale other than shell, suspension, brakes, and dash.

Thank You for reading my depressing story.

-n8

2

A great example of why having only a modded car as your DD can be bad. Good luck getting it back together. You might be better off just finding a stock motor and dropping it in until you’re in a better spot financially.

3

Yeah good luck sounds like a shitty situation, hell you should just toss some cheap pistons in it and drive away happy.

4

if your in need of some stock parts im sure we can scrounge some up for ya. Oh, never use a 12.5compression motor as a DD. its just asking for trouble. I am constantly changeing my timimng to compensate for weather changes. you shoud probable throw some stock gsr pistons back in and be happy with a lower semi reliable dd. shit, even if you used stock ls pistons, you wouldnt have to worry about knock and your motor would be safer under lean conditions. Anything over 12:1 compression needs to be monitered constantly and you need to turn the radio down and listen to your engine because when you start to here knock you need to change your cruise rpm or throttle position(load), until you can tune it out.

5

hopefully you can get it back together in some way shape or form dude, shitty situation for ya

fixed

6

Sorry to hear man, the car ran quick…

7

had i known it was 12.5.1 static compression i wouldn’t have bought it… i was iffy about it being 11.5.1 as i was told… hence running either 93oc with booster or the 94 they sell at the pumps in pennsylvania plus i babied this car. there were days i drove it for hours without even engaging vtec, i picked it up at a steal and was planning on getting it retuned and some gauges to monitor vitals but it popped too soon… plus there were no signs whatsoever of issues, no knock, vibrations, smoke burning, NOTHING any sign and i would have had all issues minor and big addressed.

had the motor been built properly and had i gotten it re-tuned sooner or gauges to monitor it this might have been prevented… again i only drove it for a few weeks and all routine maintence had been performed there was no leaks, whistles, drips, drops, slops, grinds… i didn’t just splash cash down for a civic because it had a swap in it, i know my honda’s fairly well and what to look for…

but as far as a modded car for a daily, i mean aside from the pistons, it was only an I/H/E i know tons’ of honda’s running around daily with those mods beating the fuck out of it and no problems… i babied the car and it still blew it was builder error something i nor the seller knew about… the seller didn’t even want to let go of it he owned and drove it for a while no issues, he had moved to hawaii for a job and couldn’t take it with him and was in debt… again i only bought this because it was a steal and i had plans for it… considering the prior owner daily drove it and didn’t have issues and i couldn’t find anything wrong i figured if i took it easy on it that it’ll last a while. i guess i was wrong…

8

If the tranny deal falls through, pm me a price and condition of the tranny

9

it wasnt a builder error. it woulda blown up the first 5miles.it was a tuner error, hence probably no tuning. Most detonation accurs at part throttle between 3-5000rpm. since the scalers are setup for lower compression motors there is alot of timing at lower rpm setup in the maps. Since you decided to set cruise control at 80mph that threw you right into the danger zone at part throttle. You also probably running extremely lean at those rpms. Im not making this up, its what ive seen personaly on all the high compression motors i have built. your full throttle was probably fine, however part throttle is the hardest to tune and since you maintained it for a long duration of time on your road trip it was only a matter of time before it melted down.

10

not sure if you knew already or not but the car was tuned on the dyno and chipped (p28 ecu) with uber-data by jon (zer0 daze) @ innovative tuning.

also don found the intake cam to be degreed improperly as well. has to be another contributing factor.

stupid high compression NA cars.

i don’t want to say jon improperly tuned it, i’m sure there was more fine tuning that could have been done to make it run better… but then again you turbociv have built alot of hi-comp civic motors as you stated so i do not doubt your opinions.

i also don’t want to take away from jon’s reputation as a tuner. i definitly don’t think his tuning is the reason it went boom. i think alot of things could have went wrong i shouldn’t point the finger at people.

but again the car was someone’s daily driver for months before i bought it also seller didn’t want to sell, had to because of a quick notice move and couldn’t take it with him, so it wasn’t like he knew it was detonating and wanted to dump it. the car had remained unchanged essentially from the time he got it swapped and tuned till i bought it… it ran fine for months before that with more spirited driving than i did. so i don’t see why it didn’t blow up on him before?!

i’m so confused. bottom line is i’m in a shitty predicament and in my anger it’s easier to blame someone else as driver error was definitly not the case.

Fucking Shit. i still want to know exactly why what happened did. shit like this bothers me…

11

was the knock, o2 or any other sensors disabled when it was tuned??? if the car is running in open loop then it needs to be constantly adjusted do to the changes in the air temps, humidity etc. im way more prone to knock and run leaner lately since its been colde outside. Ive actually been considering hooking up all my o2’s and knock because its seriouysly annoying. The tune john gave you during the summer which im assuming was for peek power output was maxed out for those conditions, now with the change in weather your previous tune is too radical.

Nobody ever believes me when i say how hard it is to tune N/A for everyday driving. Just outta curiosity what was your total timing??? I know my motor is setup at a very conservative 25degrees total. And i still get knock occasionaly depending on where i put load at certain rpms.

Seriously though, it takes a good trained ear to realize what detonation is. Most people just dont kow what to listen for unless you have heard it before.

honestly, i dont think that its anyones falt that it blew, just some misinformation and beginners mistakes. Ive done waaaaaaaaaaay more damage to my motors on my stupid mistakes then you could believe, buts thats how i learned. There isnt exactly tons of NA civics rollin around. Atleast fast ones that is.

12

Even if a car is tuned by god it can only withstand so much for so long…when it’s been beat on lol Nothing is bullit proof. I don’t care what they say.

13

I am surprised you never checked the timing when you did the tune up. It also surprises me that it was tuned without knowing what the mechanical timing was set to. Although, I could understand if the original owner told the tuner everything was kosher, and to just tune the car.

Lastly, if you paid Hybrid xxx.xx to diagnose your problem why didn’t you just spend that little bit more to have new pistons put in if that was the only problem? Credit cards are a good tools to get yourself out of a jam if you dont have the cash for a problem like this.

14

jon (turbociv) makes very good point (btw, there is a “h” in my name) :slight_smile:

na is a sob, and we didnt spend all that much time on the dyno, and i know that it was never tuned on the street, and it didnt have an egt or anything. i was also told the same compression as you, and if i remember correctly we only spent an hour or so with wot. we (mike and i) questioned the low numbers, but were under the impression the engine was just built and everything was timed properly.

but if you’re crusing at 4k 4.5k and the engine is heating up, detonation is bound to happen.

my suggestion, sell the parts, and buy a d16 and make the car a dd.
if you want it to be fast, boost it… build a b18 yourself, or atleast make sure you know whats going in it when its getting built. and do not skimp on tuning. expect to spend 3-4 hours on the dyno (it may be less, but it could be more… depending on the setup)

15

is this the “n8” that stopped into classic pizza where i worked and was looking for rob?

16

sorry to hear about this, shitty situation. if ur interested, i have a d15b8 sitting in my garage, i will get rid of it very cheap, its out of a 92 hatch, might get ya back on ur feet for the time being. pm me if ur interested

17

christian, yea it’s me rob’s friend…

thank you for the support and idea’s at this point i’m scrapping the idea of driving the civic for a while, buying a completely stock DD and going to just put a k-series with I/H/E and leave it alone…

for the record i never wanted to go the NA route like i said i picked it up cheap with the intention of not beating on it and then selling the motor to go boosted anyhow. boost is much safer when properly done.

i just seem to get dealt the shittiest hands… took me 3 years to get a new car i wanted and death in a few weeks, my parents are convinced that i bought a piece of shit got ripped off and refuse to float me cash because they say it’ll just break again because the car is worthless and i overpaid blah blah blah… i paid $3750 with a cd player and 4 brand new blizzaks mounted on steelies… that is a fricken steal.

18

ha sounds exactly like me…only yours will cost 50% what you paid for it to fix it…i paid 150% what i paid for the car initially to fix it…even though what i did wasn’t just fixing…

and sorry to hear man, wish we coulda got that re-run in…but probably woulda been a bad idea for both of us seeing that you had a fucked up motor all along, and mine’s recently been discovered to be fucked up too…

good luck in the future with whatever you choose to do…

19

when it comes to detonation, your only going to hear the most severe vesion

using a sacle of 1-10, a “3” is enough to ruin an engine in pretty quick order, but your not going to hear anything less then a 6 or 7, so you can very very easily have detonation that blows an engine, without ever hearing it

20

dude just throw some stock GSR psitons in there … i have a set of brand new GSR pistons laying around … woulden’t take long at all to swap them out and drive it again … i mean blowing a piston sucks but it’s not the end of the world. just take a few hours pull out the rods and pistons left throw some new ones back on and volia’ driving again.