I'm a good mechanic when it comes to German engines, but I've rarely worked on Hondas. My sister has a '97 Civic Sedan, LX, Auto, with some random issues. Its only got 80,000 miles, so its damn near new , which makes me a little worried. Her boyfriend put on an AEM intake, but other than that its bone stock. It has the single-cam engine.

Main issues:

1. Oil leak. From left side of engine, at the top, near the distributor. Screams valve cover gasket, but want to know if it is something more serious.

2. Idle issue with A/C on. In traffic, with the AC on, the RPM will drop pretty low, the car will start to shudder, and the RPM will bounce up and down, from 400-800 RPM. Happened after the intake was installed. The car comes to the brink of stalling, and then the car compensates and the RPM goes on a constant bounce. It seems to me to be in need of a tuneup, idle screw adjustment, and a general throttle body cleaning. It could even be a vacuum leak.

I'm confident that I can take care of these things, but I just wanted to know if anyone else experienced similar problems and could lead me to the cause of these issues. Again, I'm a newbie to Honda, so speak newbie.

 

There is a an o ring gasket on the dizzy, its common for those to be replaced around the 100k mark. You may want to replace the VC gasket while your doing it anyways for good measure.

Check for vacumes leaks

 

Also replace the cam seal while you replace the valve cover gasket. +1 on the o-ring gasket on the dizzy. I had one break on me while driving home from tampa (1 hour drive) and I lost about 1 qaurt of oil just from that damn thing. Clean the IACV located on the manifold also and check for vacuum leaks along with reset the idle once you do all of the above.

 

Well, it turns out that low tranny fluid turned out to be the cause of the rough idle, I think, the car wouldn't run long enough to check.

Heres the breakdown:

Went to Autoway Honda, bought the gaskets. Took off the dizzy, and it turns out that there was NO o-ring to begin with. I then took off the valve cover and found the absolute WORST case of engine sludge I've ever seen. With such low mileage, the previous owner must have taken such shitty care of the car. Well, I wiped down as much of the sludge from the valvetrain as I could, I put the valve cover gasket on, changed the oil, added SeaFoam, and buttoned up the engine. Then, putting the o-ring on the dizzy, it didn't seem to fit, I just put it around the base and put it back on the engine to the best of my ability. The O-ring didn't enter the hole, but seated on the outside...which looked ok. I added enough fluid to make the level of the transmission OK and I turned the car on. At the start, the car idled fine, the crazy shaking was gone, and it was just perfect. As it got to normal running temperature, the engine began to shake worse and worse, until the shaking was downright violent. The RPM dropped low and the car was almost at the point of stalling again. I turned the car off, lowered it back to the ground, and upon trying to turn the car on...nothing. It would crank but it wouldn't start. I have no idea what its going on. My idea is that the distributor is on wrong somehow. Maybe the O-ring caused it to slip off of the cam, maybe I didn't mount it right...who knows. Does anyone know what this shit could be? I'm confident they're dizzy problems, but I don't know how to fix them.

Thanks!

 

O-ring should have went into the hole. You probably have the o-ring putting too much of a gap between the dizzy and the cam and its not making contact...I'll bet you ruined that o-ring if you had it squeezed in there and then torqued down the 3 bolts on the dizzy...nappa sells these o-rings for like 80 cents...I bought 3 last time I went there.

 

This car has attitude issues. I let it and myself cool down for a couple of hours, and I went out again to see what was up. I figured I'd crank it one last time to see if the car was OK, and to my surprise, the car started right up. Idled fine, no crazy engine shaking, no smoking, no knocking or tapping. Idle RPM was pegged at 600 RPM and did not move, sitting inside the car, you'd think that it wasn't even turned on. I let it idle for a few minutes, turned it off, and turned it back on, and it started with no issues. I went for a ride, the car has its power back, the transmission shifts smoothly, and even with the AC on, the car doesn't shake. It seems like a new car.

Apparently Hondas have special healing powers.

I'll keep a close eye on it for a couple of days, but as of now, everything looks A-OK.

Thanks a lot for the help guys.

And yes, the car no longer leaks oil.

 

there is also a seal inside distributor thats like a 8.00 seal. You have to dissaseble the distributor to replace it. Most people just replace the entire sub assembly. Jfyi. Its common for those to leak.

 

That was your problem. Seafoam should only be added to the car while its running...you have to keep the RPM's up to allow it to circulate through the motor. It will stall the motor out if you try to let it idle on its own. Also, you shouldn't have changed the oil until AFTER you ran the Seafoam.

The reason the car probably runs good now is the Seafoam you added (which I'm assuming you added through the brake booster vacuum line) dissolved which gave the motor its compression back. I'd pull the plugs to make sure they're not toasted as well as change the oil again.