One of my coworkers is special needs and we are his only family (his actual family disowned him, the berkheads) and his crappy old 3.8 T-Bird finally died of terminal head gasket. Anyway, we helped him get this 89 Civic LX from one of our customer garages. It had been abandoned when a borescope showed a burnt intake valve.
So now I have it and the head is off and at the machine shop. Trevor doesn't have much money, and doesn't need to leave town, but we still want to make sure it's fixed up right (I mean c'mon, we work at a car parts store!). Anything I need to do while the head is off? How susceptible are D15's to killing rings once an intake valve goes?
Thanks!
would you be better off to get another top end off CL or wreckers, that one looks toasted. i had a 88 CRX with a d15b2 and i blew up a few racing and over revving, in my stupid teenage years.
i've picked up complete blocks for $100
oldsaw
UltimaDork
11/3/14 11:04 p.m.
Based on that pic, I'd get a used head and do a refresh. Valve guides are a point of concern as they wear pretty quickly and allow for a lot of smoke and oil consumption. Bottom ends are fairly robust but you always consider that the relative condition of the engine/car may indicate neglect.
I've got over 180K on my D15B2 with about 40k of that after a major refresh.
The machine work is being done gratis by our semi-retired machinist who retired after 35 years with our store. 
The car has ~230K IIRC, but everything on the motor says 97 on the dates. It's in really, really good shape, minus the 6 months the last owners had it. I'm thinking it got a factory rebuilt engine in 97. The interior is damn near perfect!
