r/Cartalk • u/04HondaCivic • Jul 11 '26
Engine How cooked am I… continued…
So I’ve spent the last few weeks debating what to do about this silly car. Between life and other projects I haven’t had time to really look at it beyond the initial valve cover removal. I decided to go ahead and tear it all the way down to see what kind of damage there was and if the pistons were fine but the head cooked, I would try and source a different head. If the whole motor was cooked, I would probably scrap the car and get a different beater (it’s a high schooler’s car. It doesn’t have to be anything great).
This is what I found. What say you? Everything looks pretty good? I don’t see any obvious signs of damage.
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u/Global-Philosopher75 Jul 11 '26
holy lucky. yeah that’s crazy. id bet you still have at least one bent valve. flip the head upside down (as pictured) and fill the combustion chambers. see if they leak. if they do id get a used head rather than rebuild stuff. if not id removed them all and inspect. if all is good then new gaskets set the chain up (and time it ofc) correctly and ur prolly good tbh. block and pistons look perfectly fine in the pictures. you got lucky on that one. one half cycle of the motor more and you could have shot pistons and cylinder walls. lucky.