I have a B18C1 swapped into my 96 DX coupe. Today when I drove over to my gf's I noticed white smoke coming from the engine bay. When I stepped out of the car, I realized that it was coming from underneath the car. I took a look to see what was happening and coolant was pouring onto my cat (which caused the white smoke). I tried to see what might have caused the leak. The rad hoses were fine, it didn't seem to be coming from the water pump, the heater hoses were fine....

I'm getting really depressed about this swap. Could it be the headgasket. I was told that when I hit Vtec, there would be a cloud of white smoke coming out of my exhaust. Would a headgasket leak cause the coolant to leak out of the engine?

 

generally when your headgasket is blown, coolant leaks into the combustion chamber and burns, it smells bad and the car overheats a lot. I suppose its possible it would be leaking out of the engine, but not as common.

Are you sure its not oil dripping from somewhere? Oil smoke is white also.

 

Double check all your hoses, super fine cracks can cause that. It did for me, twice. Once was the rad hose and once was another one somewhere else. Both times scared the hell out of me, but hey, it was all okay after.

 

I'll check the hoses at the back on the engine. I know there are a lot of small ones back there. Hopefully that's what it is. I don't think it could be anything else. What else is above the cat that could cause coolant to leak on it?

 

this happened to me. In my case the water pump failed (was old), which in turn caused my engine to overheat, which caused the head gasket to blow, which caused warping of the cylinder head, which required a new engine. Total cost: $2700. Hope you're luckier than me.

 

am in the same situation. My engine is overheating and im 100 percent sure is the headgasket. How hard is it to replace. Im going to try to replace the head gasket myself on monday. Wish me luck please

 

How much was the headgasket.

 

I've actually not yet done a honda headgasket, but I've done a toyota and saab one (both of which are supposedly more complicated than the honda job). The Saab one was about a seven hour job, all said and done (including head-swap), the toyota took a bit longer (the 7m-gte is a bastard motor, not easy to work on). I took my time with both. Its not very hard, just takes some time, patience and attention to detail. :thumbup: