Ok so I have a question and hoping someone can answer them for me. (And no I didn't sign a waiver before it was tuned) So I took my car to this shop that a lot of people reffered me to. I needed a clutch installed, injectors installed, and fuel pump (switching to e85.) Some other things were done that I didn't request, or was asked if I wanted them to be done; no big deal was small and minor. I had issues with my factory f20 that was in the car, previous owner stripped a spark plug and did not tell me. So I bought a wrecked ap2 with 6x,xxx miles on it; it ran and drove perfectly and have a close friend that vouched for the car. I pulled the swap out scrapped the car (even though it had a clean title lol) and put the f22 into my car. It ran, idled, and revved just fine in my car, I never drove it because it wasn't tuned for the 2.2. So I sold my injectors and got a set of id2000's. Everything was going good they put it on the dyno and then it made a sound. The allen head bolt that holds the top timing chain pulley snapped, and the intake cam ate into the cam rails. Okay no problem, I have spare parts sitting at my house. They fix it, and today I go up there to check on the car, and he tells me that the motor locked up at 7k and that it's not really wanting to turn over by hand.

So can anyone give me a guess at why it locked up? Could they somehow faulty installed that stuff?

What are my options really going to be? Is there a just put new bearings in the motor option?

Just wondering if I really should trust them to rebuild my motor, and let them tune it. Or bring it home, pull the motor and let my dad rebuild it.

And just food for thought, my friend had to sign a waiver when they tuned his car. Will they or their insurance cover it since I never was asked to sign the waiver? I'm fully willing to pay for it, but don't want to pay for it if it blew up by something they did.

 

There are plenty of questions to be answer well before blaming anyone if there is even someone to blame. Find out what failed you haven't even pulled it apart yet. Just because you didn't sign a waiver does not mean the burden falls on the shop tuning it.


With that said I think it would be very unusual for faulty tuning to cause a motor to seize. There are typically other symptoms/failures.


Are you sure the oil was serviced, and did you have an oil pressure gauge on the car? The fact that you just worked on the timing chain/pulleys also would indicate that may be an area to check for failure now as well.

 

I wasn't the one who did the timing so I couldn't tell you. They extracted the broken bolt, and also fixed it. Their supposed to be pulling the vc in the morning so I'll know more shortly. That's honestly what I was really asking, could they possibly installed something wrong? Like I said it was a decently low mileage motor, I wouldn't have expected it to lose oil pressure.

No oil pressure gauge, I've never ran one on a Honda since they're normally have such high oil pressure. I wasn't there while they were tuning it. The car has been there almost right at 3 months. I planned on getting the car and taking it else where since it seemed like they never wanted to touch it. But it broke 30 minutes or so before I got there. I'm not impatient and have been understanding but I keep getting it'll be done Monday response. :/

 

if the cam idler bolt broke then there was no oil getting to the head, and there would have been a ton of metal in the motor. at that point your options were fix the head and pray or pull the motor and rebuild it. with all the metal from the head in the motor there is no surprise that it knocked a bearing out shortly there after

Any 1/2 way decent machine shop can fix the spark plug hole on the 2.0L motor.. No need to scrap a motor just for that.

 

All I can say Is wow.

 

I hope you don't give up and everything works out for you.

 

Yikes! Sorry to hear about your issues.

 

Get an oil pressure gauge

 

sorry to here of your bad experience as wadzii said the plug hole is not an issue to fix. as for the cam chain sprocket bolt this is a known issue of inexperienced people servicing the head on an s. be it retainer swap or valve train upgrade this bolt has a very specific torque and not as much as the size would let on and it also is responsible for the oil getting to the cams and when they starve so does the bottom end not to mention the metal that is being forced through all the bearings I personal have seen this happen an it was due to a local shop over torqueing the bolt and after several heat cycles it shires where the bolt stretched and game over same thing shop thought they could throw another cam and carrier assembly in and be done and then on the dyno spun a rod bearing and the guy has dropped of the radar hope you stick with it good luck