2012

Okay so first off, yea this is my first posting... I've been doing work to a 99 LX Civic that was overheating and blew a head gasket. Well I did a timing belt, head gasket, rod bearings and ect job and accomplished everything very well. I work on motorcycles mostly so some good engine knowledge is here. Anyway I got the car put back together and she ran better than ever. Car went 120 miles and broke a camshaft somehow, machine shop was surprised it happen also. So I got a new camshaft and installed it, quick inspection and put everything back together.

Ran the car again and developed a knock, I was presuming rod knock due to what just accrued, so I pulled the oil pan off and ect and did my plastigage testing and came out alright, still looks like new bearings. So at this point I am not sure what the knock is.

I took the head back into the shop and had the valve job done, nothing was wrong with my valves, so they cleaned and installed new valve seals. So I am still trying to figure out where the knock is coming from. Well I got it back and put the cam back in and put on rockers and torque down correctly by service manual while the head is out of car and when I go to turn the cam its very tough and springy to rotate around for adjusting valves. (This is my first time adjusting valves out of car) Right now if the cam is #1 TDC and I turn counter-clockwise it kinda hard like compression stroke and then it springs fast to #3 TDC and so on for every 90 degree turn.

But I am starting to think maybe it was a spark knock.. I am hate my self if it turns out to be.

Any other positive and helpful comments please feel free to share.

It is the right can from another D16Y7 engine.

Fabrik8

Breaking a cam is usually a bad sign obviously. If there is some weirdness when you rotate the cam, you can start narrowing things down by removing the rockers and distributor so you're just rotating the cam by itself. If that appears to be fine, start adding things back one by one until you find the problem.

When you've been rotating the cam, are you doing this with the timing belt removed?

2012

The head is out of the car. The cam turns fine with out the rockers, But when you put on the rockers it wont turn right. I just had a valve job done everything went together before that. They where done by a shop!