turbo b18c backfire then wont start

as the title, my mate has a problem with his civic.

going down the road shortly after turbo conversion the boost gauge didnt go over 10 psi and was only half throttle till 4 - 5000 rpm and had a big backfire then struggling to stay running and eventually stopped. shortly after stopping it attempted to start then made knocking noises and coughed and spluttered then stopped as a nice puff of electrical smoke came out of the engine bay...

thinking maybe ignition system or something shit itself

now will not start... fuel pump is priming and there is no huge puddles of oil so ofcause it hasnt thrown a rod or anything.. will crank fine but no attempt at all to try to start.

any advice would be appreciated my mate is very keen to get it going again.

Stupid question. But by "turbo conversion" did you guys just bolt it on and drive or did this include a tune.
Hondas arent like nissans where you just up the boost and you can drive off. Hondas dont run airflow meters.

Give more specific info. Thinks like that happen because of human error.
Couldve been a plug wired up the wrong way and shat it self. Who knows. And also. An engine failure is not always "throwing a rod". There are MANY other things that can cause engine failure.
IE. Spun bearing. Snapped piston rings. Snapped belt and plenty more.

no tune just added fuel all round running a wideband for so was not going lean and not reving past 4 - 5.

will have to pop off the valve cover to see if the timing belt is still in 1 peice or hasnt skipped a tooth and will try to get someones compression tester to see if the rings are still alright.

but as i said there was a distinct electrical smell although will definatly check compression etc.

As you have already mentioned to yourself, check ignition & cam timing.

EDIT: Hope that it wasn't electrical smoke, maybe grease / gaskets / n shits burning off or wearing in.

his mechanic told him that hes almost certain that it sounds like a timing belt snapping, which sounds better then a full rebuild or ignition system to me. just hope to christ it didnt bend a valve...


hes going to check this afternoon if this is the case, if it is i guess its just unlucky timing with installing the turbo kit

not timing belt.. all still in 1 piece and still lined up at tdc.

although i did discover a very very faint high pitch buzzing noise coming from behind the engine / under the intake manifold.. and at 1 stage it did make itself loud like a crook relay or something? it wasnt a clicking noise but was more of a buzzing / whine gyroscopic instruments in aeroplanes if anyone knows that noise.

and yes definately electrical smell in the engine bay

Another question too.
Did you by anychance change your MAP sensor?
OEM does not read past 1bar/1atmosphere (in tuning terms. Does not read past 0) . Find the map sensor and check continuity. If there is no continuity there its fooked. And it may have caused damage to other components.

sounds like your dizzy, check for spark yet?

checking spark tonight. i thought stock map can only read up to 10.** psi?

1 bar is about 14 PSI

Hey I'm not sure if it's similar to my car... but this quite possible be something to look at if run out of ideas (wasted 3 weeks to get it fixed). Anyways I just rebuilt my H22A and it started up fine and ran for a night and a morning. Suddenly in the second's afternoon I drove it out of the block and it just cut off - loss of power to engine and refused to start after that. We towed it home to look at it, it was cranking fine but just wouldn't start.. so we had a look at the ignition - sparks and all... we ended up changing the distrubutor thinking the sensor inside of it was screwed but that wasn't the case and it still didn't start. We got some other opinions but they were useless and I ended up towing it to honda. They checked everything and after a few days they RECKON no fuel is pumping and they told me that the THINK it's the ECU and sent that away to SOMEONE ELSE to check. A week later the ECU came back and they send there was a crack in one of the ECU's plug -due to being old. And yer so have a look at the ECU if you run out of ideas ^^ hope that helps

thanks thats 1 thing for me to think about.. but the boost gauge didnt peak over 10 psi so i think that it just hit 10 psi and the map sensor didnt like it and blew to hell? auto electrician is coming tomorrow to check it out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limbo

1 bar is about 14 PSI

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yeah i understand that. but in "tuning terms" which omgjai was mentioning 14 psi is the standard atmospheric pressure, in other words 0 boost 0 vacuum. almost certain you would already know that. but i read on hondatech on a few ocasions that the stock map will read <10psi boost


either way if its blown to hell im going to upgrade to a 2.5 - 3 bar one anyway.

generally the stock map does have trouble reading above 10PSI, i don't know why.
Map sensors don't normally bust for no reason, especially when its not going over 10PSI.
I'm thinking you've got ignition problems more than anything else, just that it could be almost anything.

When my car stuffed up i changed all sorts of things but it ended up being the dizzy dying

yeah thats why im troubleshooting now. will get expensive if i start randomly replacing stuff in hope to fix it.

good luck with it all dude...........

however my stock map sensor was fine on the dyno while we were tuning on 12psi.................so i doubt u have blown a map sensor...

auto electrician found a fked coil, replacing that tomorrow hopefully she will purr again

You may want to find what caused the coil to blow aswell... it could of just been the weakest link in the circuit of whatever the actual problem was?

Check then check again.

was the coil my mates stoked to drive his car again lol time for a tune

thats a common prob with honda's as the coil is internally located in the distributor so too much heat, too old........u never know........
good luck with tune

yeah thank god it was something easy lol