Yes I am dumb, blew my own motor at 19.

[TheMarkedOne]

Graduated high school and right before college I bought a used 2018 civic si coupe in red since I really loved the civic hatch my parents bought a bit ago. I have not kept up with payments too well since I was always out working and once I was done I went out, raced It and bought mods. had little over 20k on the odometer and It was on TSP with a sri, downpipe, frontpipe, bov and a stock clutch. I did not baby the car like I said before I abused it and went up to 145mph, sometimes north of 150. Doing tons of pulls past 100, one pull the porcelain from the sparkplug in cylinder 1 blew out and cracked my piston and cylinder block. The biggest thump I've ever heard but it still ran. I tuned the car back to stock and gave it back to the dealer. I told them after running the car really hard I heard a loud thump and the car was not running well. I might of blew my motor because during idle it was revving up and down for loosing so much compression. They asked me questions, saw the oil leak and excessive brake dust. Parents were not happy and the manage gave me an ass whooping too " You are young and dumb and you blew up the damn thing. At least you're lucky to be alive.". We have good relations with this dealer since my family and I have always bought vehicles there and were friendly to service. Covered the whole thing. I don't have the si anymore as I would not be responsible with it. But I still continue to use the regular cvt hatchback my parents have as a daily to college. Wish I still had the photo of the cracked piston, pulled motor and the horrible sound the engine made from the cracked cylinder block but, this was all I could find.

You guys can roast or give me your opinions and thoughts. I know I am dumb and don't deserve my own car for awhile but at least I can still learn. Maybe once I am out of college and financially free enough I can buy another car and not make the same bad decisions as before.

 

[gtman]

This is the perfect scenario for those folks who say "tuning is stupid, you'll 100% blow your motor". Well the fact is, that's a bogus comment. It isn't the tune the automatically causes failures, it's the nut behind the wheel.

Tuning is a tool. A tool that improves a car's driveability. But you have to respect that tool's power and treat it with the understanding that it does add some potential risk and added stress. So why do most folks who are tuned have success 97% and 3% have failures? (based on survey numbers)

It's because most people aren't pushing their cars to the limit at all times and treating it like a racecar. Aren't using blow off valves or continuing to floor it when knock control is at 1.09...

Having said said, I wish you luck OP. We were all young and wreckless at one time. Hopefully this serves as a painful lesson learned.

Mostly though, thank you for being honest. Most of the time, members with failures make posts about how they were innocently driving 35 mph" and she just blew". Leaving out all the details of earlier abuse. Your honesty helps the community.

Last but not least, I'm not going to comment on you returning to stock and the dealer covering this other that saying ... Damn! Take that how you will.

 

[zspeed]

You can get a motor from a wrecked Si.

 

[BoxsterSteve]

The loose nut behind the wheel wrecked that car.
Happy now?

 

[gtman]

You can get a motor from a wrecked Si.

You may have skimmed the OP..

Honda covered the repair.

 

[Zeffy94]

You may have skimmed the OP..

Honda covered the repair.

Not only that, but he doesn’t own the car anymore.

 

[Derek.]

Kudos for owning up to your actions.

 

[bugboy32337]

Life's best lessons are either Painful or Expensive.
Often times, BOTH.

I have the feeling that the young man will remember this for a long time ...
He might not take it any easier on his next car, but he WILL be more aware of how his driving habits can adversely affect the cars long term reliability.

Kudos for taking responsibility, and good luck!

 

[BrokenLimits]

Live and learn. I started buying parts to build an LSVTEC for my 2000 Civic Si. I had all of the parts and I had a chipped ECU in my Si. I was still waiting for some small things, but I was out driving and did a hard pull and blew up the stock B16.

I think I was 20. I built the LSVTEC and dropped it in and the car was never the same. I was always so worried about it. It drank a lot of oil, the compression was so high that it pinged a lot on pump gas.

Now, I am much older and just bought an Si again. Zero plans to modify it outside of maybe an intake. Just want to enjoy the car for what it is.

All part of growing up.

 

[ivanCivix]

PREMISE: i agree with almost everything @gtman said and i don't want to be polemic but only trying to understand!

Let's look at the elements:

The car (20k mileage) had TSP stage 1 with dp/fp and sri, which i would not describe it as conservative but many others run much more power with custom tunes and FBO.

The bov may have contributed to the damage and we know is not a mod to have.

The guy told us he did tons of pulls (from a stop or rolling ??? because it's very different)

Now I'm wondering what is the abuse we are talking about here? Who is to blame?

Someone could say these cars have low tolerance for more power IF this power is used. Because if i have 100 hp more after tuning but i'm never pushing the car there is virtually 0 added stress and wear.

Should we only use the tune for better driveability and not for more hp (or at least not more than a few dozen?

What do you think?

 

[BrokenLimits]

Bottom line, a lot of engineering and testing goes into the decisions Honda makes. Honda builds cars to handle abuse in its stock form. If you modify it, you are taking on risk. If you are unwilling to see consequences from that risk, don't modify the car.

 

[JT Si]

Interesting, I wonder if the cylinder failure caused the spark plug failure, or the other way around.

It would be a good motivator to check/replace your spark plugs at shorter intervals instead of assuming 60k means 60k no matter how hard you drive.

I drive my Si quite hard when I do, but it seems I don't even come close to how hard you're describing.

I can afford to toss $50 on spark plugs every 15-20k miles.

 

[disgraced.fk8]

Also important to note OP bought a low mile used Si.... Something could be fishy there as well. You never know what the previous owner did....

 

[BrokenLimits]

Take that shit to the track. Find a local drag strip where you can do that in a safe, controlled environment. If you don't have one, you definitely have an autocross club. Go do motorsports in a motorsports environment, and not with other drivers just trying to get to the grocery store before you get yourself or someone else killed.

Will second that. There are great track events around the country. Participate in those. Keep it off the street.

 

[BrokenLimits]

Sorry to kinda derail the thread but I have a compulsion

Do you still have that EM1? Are you going out to TNiA this fall at Harris Hill?

I wish. Among many things, I wish I had left it stock and still had it. Sold it in 2005.

I will look into it. I would be up for tracking the 2020 Sedan!

Sponsored