dammitjim

Sorry to hear about the motor trouble, I believe other people have found loose spark plugs. Search on that and you should find more info.

I plan on checking mine along with the retainers at every oil change.

CKit

To the OP: how often do you normally check the oil? Are you the first owner?

chris_barry

When the plugs come loose the heat transfer to the head is reduced and the nose of the plug can overheat, melt and drop off. Once its in the cylinder it starts trashing the bore/piston/head surfaces.

shalbleib

hecash: why would I get another leakdown done?

ckit: I was told I was the second owner but think in actuality I am the 3rd. There was a lady that owned it before me. I bought it w/ 26k miles on it and have had it regularly serviced. No oil checks in between though.

More info if this helps: The noise didn't appear until I revved it past the Vtec. it then subsided minutes later. I went ahead and drove it back towards the dealership. I revved it again (in nuetral) and the noise reappeared. I drove it approx. 1 mile to the dealership and it continued to make the noise and stalled twice on the way. noise was gone by the time i got there of course. the dealership stated that the first time they drove it they could not reproduce the noise. not sure if they replicated the noise before they began diagnosis.

thanks again for any and all info!

josh7owens

I would pulll the valve cover and see if the valves have dropped into the cylender

shalbleib

thanks for the clarification hecash.

Update from service master tech:
I spoke w/ him in person today. He said the plugs being loose caused the problem. He said the car is running lean and the noise coming from the engine is is the fuel igniting. (this makes no sense to me since it sounds like metal rattling around).

I also spoke w/ a friend in another Honda dealership's parts department. His first question to me was whether I had any issues when we had some flooding here a few weeks back. I told him I had stalled the car out in a large puddle on an on ramp (4-6 deep - my guess). He thinks I got water up the air intake (I do have an AEM intake) and that's what's caused the problem. The good news being that I would probably be able to claim this on insurance.

would be interested on everyone's thoughts on both of these scenarios. thanks again!

rob-2

sucking water into the motor causes a range of problems.

What's it look like inside?

shalbleib

don't know. i haven't opened it up. my friend suggested draining the oil and seeing if it looks like coffee.

street_ruler

the metallic sound form running lean would be detonation. sounds like two solid metal things hitting one another. no resonance just a click or a whack sound.

as for the water i dunno. depend son the amount it sucked up.

Seattle2k

Is the AEM a long, cold-air intake? One that snakes down to your fender-well?

Did the car stall because of the water, or because you can't shift?

I would guess you would have noticed immediate problems if enough water had been sucked up the intake. Take note that you would've had to have submerged most of the air filter to actually suck up any water. A small amount of water in the engine would be fine.