My 97 V6 2.7L accord that I newly acquired will not run for more than 5 miles before it smoke and kills the engine. When I wait about 15 minutes it starts back up again like nothing happened. I suspect it's the head gasket so I performed a leak down test with the harbor freight leak down tester but can't seem to make it work properly so I ditched the leak down and perform a smoke test on the cylinder instead. I placed the cylinder I suspect having a leak at TDC and plugged the smoke tester into the spark plug hole. The smoke started coming out of the other spark plug hole to the left of it. I performed the same test on the cylinder the smoke came out of and the smoke didn't come out of anything. Checked the oil cap, radiator cap, oil dipstick, throttle body and exhaust pipe and nothing. What does this mean? head gasket? What else should I test for?

 

Sounds like the cylinder was at TDC between the exhaust and intake strokes; rotate the engine 360 degrees and try again.

 

In that case wouldn't the smoke also come out of the throttle body or the exhaust if the TDC wasn't at the compression stroke? Aren't all the cylinder sealed from each other even at the TDC of the exhaust and intake strokes? What path would the smoke travel to come out of the other(only one) spark plug hole.

I had to google this video to understand the 4 stroke process I hope it helps other understand getting TDC on compression stroke.

 

Path of least resistance.

If the smoke was coming out of another cylinder, then you were definitely not at TDC on the compression stroke for the cylinder you were testing.

 

...unless the head gasket is leaking between the two cylinders.

Give the leak down tester another try. If the HG is bad between cylinders then you'll hear air leaking into the adjacent cylinder. A stethoscope - or even a piece of tubing held to your ear - put down into the spark plug hole is helpful.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, but geez, I've never seen a head gasket that far gone.

 

Mine leaked between at least a couple of cylinders; could hear it clearly when a cylinder was pressurized. Siamesed cylinders with not much meat between them.

OP: This has no bearing on your problem, if any.

 

I performed a compression test and all cylinders are at 120 psi except for cylinder 5 was at 105 psi. Would low compression on one cylinder cause stalling?

 

Nope, 105 is still plenty high, and even if it was zero it wouldn't cause stalling.

 

Is Check Engine Light on? Get codes if CEL on and post them.

good luck