My car is possessed, help!

[Jrock1442]

Hey guys this past Sunday my radiator broke while I was on the freeway. Me and a buddy replaced the radiator, upper and lower radiator hoses, thermostat, and radiator fluid. Before we fixed it I noticed that the startup was similar to if the battery was low. It was almost lumpy like the rpms were low. It just wasn't that quick and confident startup I'm used to hearing. So after we fixed it, it did the same thing only it went away when I started driving. But when I would come to stop at a light or to park the rpms would drop really low and sometimes it stalled I also noticed with the stall came white smoke that smelled kinda sweet not really the smell of oil out of the exhaust. Again it didn't do the lumpy idle or white smoke unless it was sitting still. I checked the oil dipstick and it was dark, radiator fluid is clear, running out of ideas.. It's 2002 Accord V6 J30

Any ideas guys?

 

[Brad2274]

miles on the engine? and how did you know the radiator was broken, was it leaking fluid badly or something?
check how much fluid you have in the coolant system now, see if it changed since fluid replacement. had similar problems when i blew a headgasket on my old j30, was getting like half power but consistently.

 

[Jrock1442]

miles on the engine? and how did you know the radiator was broken, was it leaking fluid badly or something?
check how much fluid you have in the coolant system now, see if it changed since fluid replacement. had similar problems when i blew a headgasket on my old j30, was getting like half power but consistently.

It currently has 156k miles. When it broke I pulled over and the car was too hot, I also saw smoke coming from under the hood, no fire it was just the fluid from radiator hitting hot things.after walking a half mile to the gas station I bought 2 gallons of water and when putting water in the radiator I saw it was coming out of a crack near the top of the radiator. .No major issues other than replacing a faulty PCM at the 100k mark. I took off the radiator cap and I could see the fluid near the top. Did it sound and feel like it was going to stall out when you first started driving and when it was changing gears from 1st to 2nd? I just drove it around my complex now and when I pulled back into the space it didn't seem like it was going to stall but there was white smoke.

 

[Jrock1442]

miles on the engine? and how did you know the radiator was broken, was it leaking fluid badly or something?
check how much fluid you have in the coolant system now, see if it changed since fluid replacement. had similar problems when i blew a headgasket on my old j30, was getting like half power but consistently.

Did it warp the head when you blew the gasket? Did you end up fixing it yourself?

 

[cmgreensr]

That really sounds like a head gasket as already mentioned. Just adding my .02

You won't know if the head is warped until you get it taken apart.

 

[xci.ed6]

compression check.

 

[Brad2274]

yeah compression check is the best way to narrow things down.

you could have a blown gasket between cylinder and coolant sleeve and it might just be burning coolant in there without leaking oil on the outside of the engine, that's what mine did, drove it home with half power and white smoke coming out.
since it was the back cylinder head and hard to get to, i just pulled the whole engine and put a spare in(theyre less than $400 anyways, cheaper than blocking head/block and getting new gasket )
found out later block and head were level enough to just install new headgasket, but i didnt wanna bother with it and scrapped the engine lol

 

[danmccormick87]

Not sure how the V6 is, but on the 4 cyclinder, you can get the coolant in through your IACV. My IACV is broke right now, and does the exact same thing with the idle as you described, so I unplugged it until the replacement gets here. Again, different engine, but similar issue. It'd be a small step to check first before possibly checking your compression. Unplug your IACV and see if it still bogs down. If it does, then I'd go with what the other guys are saying and possible head gasket issues...