tarafied1
Well-Known Member
My son bought a 94 Prelude Si. I know this is a Mustang forum but I don't want to join a Honda forum! It was overheating and the PO thought it was the water pump. He began to disassemble the engine. He couldn't get the crank pulley off and for some reason felt he needed to pull the head so he cut the belt and several of the wiring connectors. When we actually pulled the water pump I didn't see any reason why it wouldn't have been working but did see signs of "stop leak" crud. I told my son I didn't think the water pump was the issue. Since it was apart we replaced the timing belts, water pump and of course the head gasket. Changed all the other belts too. The engine was full of water too. I wonder if it had a blown head gasket. I checked the head for flatness and the block. All looked good so we put it back together. We got most of the connectors figured out. To my surprise it ran. I still haven't figured out the Vtec wiring yet but it runs. Well it still overheated. I told my son I was sure the radiator was full of stop leak. His GF wanted him to take it somewhere so he took it to a shop that confirmed the radiator didn't have enough flow thru it. So we replaced the radiator. After all that it ran fine and didn't overheat so I thought they were ready to go. The controllers for the two electric fans didn't work and PO had billy rigged a toggle switch to turn them off and on but it was a mess. The morning he was supposed to drive up North it started but died completely. I put my battery charger on it because it acted like a weak battery. We got it running and I checked the alt output, that was fine. I rewired the fans with two switches and relays so he could turn them on and off independently. So I thought that was it. Well it did it again. So we put a new battery in it thinking maybe the battery had a bad cell and couldn't handle the load. Well it started right up and he drove it home. Next morning it wouldn't start. SO I towed it to my house and he went up North in a rental car. Now I got to sort out the issues and drive it up to him. Any ideas what to check? I thought it might be a bad ground but don't know why it would just shut off for no apparent reason. It also smells like an electrical fire or hot wiring somewhere. Other than the fans and some of the sending units not hooked up the wiring harness looks okay. We fixed the connectors that were cut. The motor is supposedly swapped in. It's an H22A VTec twin cam supposedly from Japan (not US built). I think that's why we couldn't find the wiring for the VTec (cam solenoids). Anyway, when it does start and run it drives fine. Everything seams to work, lights, heater, etc. But it randomly shuts off and won't start. Then for no apparent reason after sitting, it will start and run fine.
