Hey, I recently bought a 1995 Honda Accord 2.2L 5Speed EX, and it has about 200k on it. We just found out that the valve guides need to be replaced because of how it smokes when we first start it up. But I was also thinking of rebuilding the bottom part of it with a rebuild kit for $350. But have a machine shop take care of the cylinder head for another $350.

So that's $700 spent on the car. Would we be better off just buying a used motor somewhere? I saw a couple of JDM ones off of eBay for around $600. So I don't know what i should go with.

Any help(links to rebuild/replace guides)/suggestions?

Thanks!

EDIT: And if you do suggest just swapping out the motor, should i go for a different type of motor? I'v seen people swap theirs with a H22(I think). If so, links would be appreciated or just some websites.

 

Is the smoke purple or white?

200,000 is not that many miles, about mid life if its been maintained. regarding the head its not the guides its the valve stem seals, they control the oil from getting past the valves and into your engine.

If you want to find out truly if your engine needs an overhaul (bottom end repair) do a simple compression test. This will test the health of your engine. If you find bad readings, do a cylinder leakage test as that will pinpoint what is wrong with the engine (if its rings or valve, or a blown head gasket).

Its gonna cost more than 350$ to rebuild the bottom end, with machine shop visits, tools and gaskets and such more like 500-600$. Tools and equipment can cost a lot.

If you want to do that yourself why don't you just take the cylinder head off yourself (its not hard) and take it to a machinist to replace the stem seals? I had the machinist near me replace all the valve stem seals when he replaced 4 exhaust valves, cost me 100$ total, he also decked it too.

 

The smoke is white.

And alright, im getting things mixed up in my head haha. And the whole reason why I was going to rebuild the bottom part is because I'm planning on keeping this car for a good while, and if i get the cylinder head rebuilt and fixed, I don't want the bottom end to go out on me in like another 50k miles. So I would like to rebuild the whole thing.

I wasn't adding in the machine shops yet, because my father is good friends with someone who owns one, and he might be able to get me a good deal on it.

I am planning on taking the head off myself and bringing it down, so I can get the Valve stem seals fixed. And I got a quote from a local machinist, and he said it was going to cost me around $350 to fix it all.

 

If the car was well maintained a driven normally I wouldn't even give the bottom end a secound thought. As Adyingbreed said pop the head off let your machine shop take car of it the pipit back on good buy smoke and many more miles ahead before you think OD touching the bottom end...I have my 1st Honda and I am very impressed with both the engineering and durability of these Drivetrains....

 

The bottom ends of accords can go over 500,000 miles, its been done before. Was it cold when you saw the white smoke? That's completely normal. Its not the valve stem seals that are bad on your head if you saw white smoke, if it was the seals the smoke would have been purple.

Your bottom end is fine, don't worry about it going bad any time soon. I would only rebuilt if you KNEW that something was seriously wrong with the rings or the cylinders. If not you're just wasting your time and money.

If you are not losing any oil then there is nothing wrong with your valve stem seals. I have a feeling that your engine is perfectly fine and you are just being overly concerned about nothing. If the smoke is white then the seals are fine.

Have it compression tested if you think the bottom end is going bad.

Trust me I ran my accord for over 30,000 miles with bad rings. I had to put 1 quart in it every 200 miles. It was frozen oil control rings that caused the oil consumption. If you are not losing any oil, MPG's are good and performance is good, you should not be worried about any of this.
I did end up rebuilding that motor last fall. I discovered I had 2 broken exhaust valves and that caused 30 psi compression in 2 cylinders, thus very poor power and poor gas mileage. The oil consumption was caused by frozen oil rings... If you are not having any of these symptoms, you don't need to touch the engine, top or bottom. The frozen oil rings were probably caused by lack of oil changes or poor oil quality. The 2 broken exhaust valves was because of cracks in the exhaust manifold. The cylinder head I put on it was remanufactured, the valves cracked in less than 10,000 miles... If it's not broken don't fix it.

 

Well, sounds like you're about to spend $$ on a non-driveability issue.
If it were my car I'd wait until it became a driveability issue, and bank the difference.

 

It doesn't just do it in the cold, it happens all the time and stops only after about 5-10 minutes of driving it. Im going to go to a local shop and have them do a diagnostics on it, and if it is the guides or seals, then I'll bring it to a machinist. But I won't touch the bottom end, thanks for the help everyone!