So late week tuesday (4/16/13), my car (MY02) broke down.

Was on the way home and on the backroads started doing a pull with my roommate. started in second and started pulling, at the top of second it started hesitating and I shifted at about 8700 rpm and then it hesitated throughout 3rd so i threw the car in neutral and costed. As the rpm's came down the oil light came on so i shut off the car and coasted until i could pull off the road. roommate went to go grab oil and top it off, was about 2.5 quarts low (i bought the car just over a year ago and since then its been burning just over a quart a month). started it back up and at idle with the oil warm the oil light would flicker. if i revved it up oil light will go away and then when it drops back down, it bogs down, shakes, and light will come up, then it'll go back to idle and light will flicker. limped the car home (about a mile away).

I posted on facebook and people thought it was my oil pump so i threw the car up on jack stands and drained the oil. i did notice that one of the transmission bolts that bolted onto the oil pan was cross threaded (was a pain in the ass to take off). i didn't notice any metal shavings in the oil but then again it was dark and i couldn't really see anything. i also ran a magnet through the oil and it didn't pick anything up. i then decided it was the oil pump so i got to work taking off the oil pan to take a look at the oil pump. Once teh oil pan was off, i didn't get a chance to check out the oil pump until i saw this.



I KNOW RIGHT?!

after that i haven't taken a look at the oil pump yet, i did take off the little pan right above the oil pump and there was more metal shavings there.

i went ahead and took off the valve cover to check things up top. there was a little bit of metal shavings on the intake cam gear and somewhere else i forgot, but in the little channels in the head i didn't see any metal shavings or anything in there. I also took out the spark plugs, they were not in there very tight so whoever owned the car before me didn't do a good job, especially plug number 3. They tops of the plugs were very dark and the tips on all of them were white. i only looked down into cylinder 2 and 3. 2 was very wet and 3 was very dry.

at this point im thinking i need to do a full motor rebuild or buy a new motor. I want to know what entails a full motor rebuild entails and roughly how much it would cost me with doing engine assembly myself with my friend who is a master mechanic, minus the machine work.

edit: some background, I have rebuilt my timing chain tensioner twice since i have had it.
edit2: the car did not tick or knock at all when this all happened even when i got home.

edit3:



Edit4:


I'll be updating this post with pictures as i go along.

 

***** RESERVED FOR PICTURES *****

 

***** RESERVED FOR PICTURES *****

 

Watching topic. Lemme know how everything goes.. n if u need any help w anything! This kind of stuff reminds me to check my oil morr frequently

 

updated with pictures of spark plugs

 

Sorry to say but your oil pan has a ton of metal in it. Highly unlikely that it is just rod bearing damage, it looks like a carbon copy of my oil pan when I lost my motor. I'm willing to bet you've lost your main bearings, in which case you should start looking for a new block. Check your vtec solenoid screen it is likely filled with metal too.

 

Updated with picture of vtec solenoid

 

As suspected you have metal up to the vtec solenoid screen. I would prepare to pull the engine out. Chances are the cylinders are scuffed along with the bearing damage. You should be able to salvage the head but I'm pretty sure the block is dead. I don't think your oil pump had anything to do with it, you just ran it too low on oil and it ran dry for a certain period of time. High rpms and high g cornering on low oil will kill this engine everytime.

 

Yeah I'm planning on pulling the whole motor this week and taking pictures of everything as it comes out. My roommate's said from the bottom it doesn't really look like the walls are scored but we'll find out when we pull of the head.

 

Sounds like a good plan. Good luck going forward.