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I'm getting increasingly paranoid about this and wonder if there is anyone in the area who might be able to help me take a look and see if any of the valve retainers/cotters are bad. The car only has 43K but I am the 5th or 6th owner, so who knows how many over-revs it's gone through. I'm not sure what a fair amount of money/beer would be for someone's time for something like this, so let me know.
A cracked retainer is pretty easy to see as they will typically crack on the top (the part you can see). You pinch them between your fingers and rotate them. Inspect. Do a valved adjustment and make sure nothing's out of spec.
You can also do a compression test or leakdown test if want to know the health of your cylinders as well.
Sorry Hollywood, gots to disagree.
It's pretty involved ..... simply taking the valve cover off and looking is just going to keep you wondering even more since you really can't see what you need to see. To know for sure, you are going to have to physically remove the retainers and take a close look at the bottom side ID to see the cracks (unless the cracks are huge). Don't know what to suggest but I'm not sure I'd trust too many people that'd be willing to do this for beers unless it's a trusted friend or something. Sorry
Originally Posted by rice_classic,Nov 9 2009, 11:31 PM
A cracked retainer is pretty easy to see as they will typically crack on the top (the part you can see). You pinch them between your fingers and rotate them. Inspect. Do a valved adjustment and make sure nothing's out of spec.
No.
If the S2000 retainers crack, they crack on the bottom side, where you can't see them because the springs are in the way.
What you have to look for is the valve stem "sinking into" the retainer. Actually what is happening is that the retainer is slipping up the valve stem, but since you can only see the end of the valve stem, it looks like it is sinking down into the retainer.
Originally Posted by mikegarrison,Nov 10 2009, 12:46 AM
What you have to look for is the valve stem "sinking into" the retainer. Actually what is happening is that the retainer is slipping up the valve stem, but since you can only see the end of the valve stem, it looks like it is sinking down into the retainer.
Word.
I did some reading on this after I thought I money-shifted my car, and this was what the general consensus suggested doing. If you dig around, there are some photos of what you might expect if you have a cracked retainer. Look for posts by a guy named "billman (actualy user name might be slightly different)," he's done a lot of these jobs and put some good info on the forum regarding this.
tidbit: AP2's will bend valves before cracking retainers
^^
I'd have to agree with Ray. It is better to remove the retainers and take a look at the underside to be certain if the retainer has a crack/no crack.
From the conversations I had previously with owners that had this problem, it is common for the intake side retainers to crack rather than the exhaust side. So if you are using stock valve springs, just replacing the retainers on the intake side should suffice.
If you are planning to replace the springs and the retainers (what I would do personally), then replace both the intake and the exhaust side retainers as well.
Last time I spoke to Jerry P. regarding this issue, he recommended Zahntech as a reputable shop to handle the retainer issues. And for the cost of labor to "examine" the retainers, you might as well buy and replace the old retainers with new retainers (AP2) for the peace of mind.
billman posted this in teh tech section once a side by side comparison of the retainers that were bad and good. search for that its really obvious once you have seen it once that one is sitting lower than the other. i will say that im sure this is only true for more heavily cracked retainers
11-09-2009, 10:23 PM
Anyone Good at Spotting Cracked Retainers?
(btw, that's not a crack at 8:30)
