i have a 92 civic lx i been working on it for polly a week and a half now and its driveing me nuts. I went to do a head swap with a d16y8 vtec head finally finished putting it in just to find out the head was warped. so after ripping that all back down just to put the old head back on and getting that running just to find out that the new head gasket blew, tore it all back down again new head gasket torqued the head down and put it all at TDC, and running new oil through it now it is running really rough and over heating, anyone out there know what might be going on?

 

break down what other steps you took to take it a part, (everything) chances are something else happenedor was missed,(especially from all the off and on) as for the over heating... i think that is a seperate problem all together.

 

Sounds like the gasket is leaking again. Are you putting it together properly? The head and block gasket surfaces must be perfectly clean-- bare metal, no scratches, not even a trace of oil. DO NOT USE GASKET SEALER ON A HEAD GASKET! There should be alignment pins (cylinders) in two of the bolt holes. Put oil on the head bolt threads and tighten the bolts in two stages in the proper order. First tighten them all to 25 foot pounds then go back and retighten them all to 47.

Also a non-VTEC head needs the oil restrictor in the oil hole of the block, VTEC heads must not have the oil restrictor in the block.

 

Did you remove the distributor?
Off timing may explain why it's running rough. Or maybe a vacuum hose left off.