Hello All:
My Acura 91 ran very well till last week ( 130K miles).. One fine day it just would not start.

It is cranking and seems to have no problem with Battery. I took it to the mechanic and he tells me that it is a timing belt problem but could be much more than just timing belt.

he says that because of the kind of engine that Acura uses, some valves would have been damaged when I cranked up trying to start the car and it would take about a $1500 to fix these valves and timing belt. The problem gets even more complicated as he can not for sure say if the valves are damaged until he puts on the timing belt and only then can he say if there was problem with valves.

Please advise what I should do with this. I am actually thinking of discarding the car if I have to spend this much of time and money on this.

Thanks
Easy Guy

 

I feel your pain, Dude. Here is what I think. If you really like your car, have the guy put on a new timing belt and see if it runs. But make sure you don't pay him too much for this job. It shouldn't take more that 300 bucks (that's what they quoted me on my 93 Infiniti J30, and my J was a V6, so your job should be even less than that).
If it does not run with the new timing belt after he puts it back together, I say forget about the car - put it in the paper as not running and you'll still get some money from some freak who wants to mess with it.
I used to have an 89 Ford Probe GT Turbo. Neat machine. I overheated the engine. Took it all apart, the whole head and all nine yards.... (big job). It never ran fine afterwards. I sold it as not running for 650 and the car was worth about 1500-2000 (only 109k). I didn't want to pay any more money on guessing what the problem was again.

Good luck
Chris

 

There is an easy way to see if the belt is broken. Remove the 2 10 mm bolts from the black plastic cover (middle timing belt cover)on the engine (the ones by the drivers side engine mount) Remove the cover. When you have it off, take a look at the belt. is it broken? If so, you can remove the plugs and look through the holes at the pistons to see if you see any signs of them hitting the valves. Have the mechanic put a new belt on the car, see how it runs. Chances are there may not be ant bent valves if the belt broke while the engine was being started or at low rpm. Even if the engine is gone, you could get a low mileage 160hp b16a engine and computer from a japanese importer to put in the car. It could be done for well under $1500. Dont despair, the 2g integra is a great car and an engine fatality can be the start of something good!

 

Let me tell you something, mechanics are pricks........even if your valves are not damaged, he wil say they are just so he can get more money...My advice, have someone check this out that you know will not gyp you ( a friend, etc. that knows about acura). One more piece of advice....I had the same thing happen that you did, but it ended up being that I needed a new distributor, cap, coil and rotor. Make sure you check this out before you go and do anything drastic.

 

I sort of had the same problem with my parent's car. I was told that for some reason LS motors tend to "jump timing". Not to sure if that's true but here's the deal. My cousin and I popped off the valve cover and for some strange reason, the markers on the cam gears were off and the belt seemed a little loose. Well, my cousin put the car back together and it still didn't run right. The car kept on bogging. So I got fed up with it and checked the timing again.. And it was still off since he didn't check the marks on the cam gears. So after I set the cam gears right, the car started up and was fine. But here's food for thought. My uncles '88 Honda Prelude doesn't start. I checked his timing for hours and it still kept on slipping. I've heard of Ludes having bad tensioner bolts. So I concluded that was the problem. But instead, some people are saying it's the fact that the Lude has a bad water pump which is causing the tensioner bolt not to work right. There's food for thought..