Need advice on a 95 civic... motor issues

I have a friend that is having issues with her civic and since I am not very familiar with hondas. I'm more of a subaru guy and well I'm still young... I have learned a crap ton about subarus and loved every minute of it.

Well my friends car is a 1995 civic ex... I believe it is a 1.6 L D16Z6
Well its got near 244k miles on it and her stupid brother in law tried fixing the timing on the car and screwed up the distributor and timing bad! It won't even start now!

What can I do for her? Should iwe do a motor swap?
What motor will mate up to the automatic transmission?
Tell me all the information you can give me about the motors and the possible swaps. Not looking for power gains, but we are looking for a reliable motor that will work!

But power upgrades would be nice!

Thanks,
Trevor

If he screwed up the timing then there's a chance that it may jump a tooth or two, or more, and screwed up the engine. If you're lucky it's just something minor and re-doing the timing will fix it.

If the motor is gone then you can swap in any D series from 92-95 into the car and not have to worry about other wirings.

Ok and is it difficult to adjust timing? Been reading up on it some and well it just looks like with a timing light it should be a piece of cake... is ther an immediate way to know wether or not the motor is gone? Is it even worth it to worry about it with that many miles on it or should she just invest the money in a new motor?

was he messing with the ignition timing via distributor?

Rickdaddy wrote:

was he messing with the ignition timing via distributor?

Not 100% sure! I know the distributor ended up off the car... I wasn't there when it happened... all I know is what she has told me!

seems like a mess. hopefully someone with better insight of Hondas can chime in.

L wrote:

seems like a mess. hopefully someone with better insight of Hondas can chime in.

That's what I'm hoping! I'm looking for some more local feedback instead of joining a honda forum... it seems to me we have some pretty knowledgable honda people here! Hopefully they can help me out.

Just be sure the distributor is on right and the wires are in the correct order. If it ran fine before, it's fine now. You can't kill the engine by removing the distributor.
:-)

I didn't think of that right away! If the wires are in the wrong order then it wouldn't start!why didn't I think of that prior! well we will try it and let you know if that was the issue!

put cylinder one to TDC. there should be a mark on the crank pulley that lines up with a notch or pointer on the lower timing belt cover.

next youre going to need to take off the top half of the timing belt cover to expose the cam gear. the should be three marks on the cam gear, two go horizontal and one is at a slight angle. its a pretty straight forward process. once you make sure everythings lined up properly all you have to do is timing it with a timing light and some adjusting to the distributor.

ill try to find you a write up on it... if you cant figure it out, let me know. i may be able to come by and help you out.

ok, so i took a picture with this crappy blackberry i have... Anyways, i outlined the three triangles in red, and with a stock cam gear, there should be three lines( i made them in blue). if the crank isnt at TDC when these marks are lined up, your friends friend messed up the timing and youre going to have to move the timing belt over a tooth one way or the other.

The timing belt isn't going to move from adjusting the timing nor removing the distributor. My guess would be the distributor being installed 180* out (I've seen it done) or the wires bring installed wrong.

Again, this is assuming the car ran fine before. Start with the easy, common-sense stuff before you start pulling timing covers, etc.

since your already having concern on the 244k motor, just order one from attarco. 675 i think somewhere around there. still its recommended to replace timing belt and water pump also with a engine swap. if the motor was runing fine before the person tried to replace timing then its worth the shot. to do major tune up on it. its just my opinion. but honda-tech. has alot of info too.

ill look into them..

also, if you give up on this engine: you can drive down to Torrance, i think it is. hmotorsonline.com has a warehouse down there. you can pick up a single cam engine CHEAP. or.. and upgrade, if you like

their engines are all from Japan so they have low miles, due to the laws over there. you may need to steal a sensor or two off the old motor, but that's about it. i've purchased three or four engines from them and have never had an issue. in fact, one of the ITR engines i bought came with a huge set of cams, springs, and retainers. i lucked out.