96 civic si (canadian) blowing smoke

cobra_cs

New Member
Ok so here's the deal. I have a 96 civic si (Canadian). blew the motor so swapped in a motor I was told was good. installed it ran it, got the air out of the lines. ran great. let it run for an hour idling. did an oil change, and took it for a ride. drove around for about half an hour ( in winter), still ok. went to go home, started sputtering and billowing white cloud of smoke out the back. if i feathered the gas and got the revs up would run ok but a cloud of smoke. figured head gasket blew. check engine light was also on after about half hour or idling. reset and went back on. don't know how to check codes
just finished replacing head gasket, intake gasket, and timing belt this weekend. fired it up warmed it up running fine. got the air out of the lines, both rad hoses hot, perfect. took it around the block. did a lap and started sputtering and blowing smoke. pulled onto the yard added a cup of coolant running fine. took another lap. half way around sputtering and smoking like crazy, took it back to the yard. got back another cup low and now the bottom rad hose has cooled down.
Please tell me its not the head gasket again or a blown head. Anyone have help for me??? I'm going a little nuts now
 

xxBLOOD88SHOTxx

Surge Master
Registered VIP
Did you check the head for warpage when you did the HG?
 


cobra_cs

New Member
no i never did. I could barely afford the gaskets as i'm off work with a back injury. had a friend take a look at it and he said it seemed fine but that doesn't mean much I guess
 

the_7ucky

New Member
may be a dumb question, but did u check ur thermo.? I had similar issue before, due to thermo failing which caused my rad to overheat and crack. after which I noticed that with my engine overheating due to the lack of coolant circulation, one of the rad hoses had started to melt by the block and was leaking.
 


Trekk

New Member
Registered VIP
If its leaking that bad you might be able to just take the radiator cap off while the car is running and look for little bubbles coming up. Other then that your kind of forced to take it to a shop or buy/rent some testing tools.
 


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