Justin Stern

They checked the oil, looks good!

I will check the oil pressure lighting up momentarily, but I think I would notice it. I am very in tune with the car.

No oil light turns on while driving-never.

I appreciate it. Hope they at least figure it out.

Justin Stern

Dropped car off, and also added in the shop to do an oil change for good measure.

engifineer

Yeah valves are not making that noise. They should be adjusted if never done. Tight valves will cause damage to the valves. But any shop telling you valve adjustment or a "Tune up" will fix that likely has never worked on a modern car

It does sound a lot like what a bad mount can sound like. The mounts we are talking about are both on the bottom of the motor. There is not a top mount. If they are torn, they will have oil on them if torn recently. But if torn long enough they can appear dry. OEM mounts are oil filled. When they fail, you basically get all sorts of vibration throughout the car and in bad cases odd stuff can rattle against things due to the movement. But the shop can tell pretty quickly if the mounts are bad.

Justin Stern

He is not saying the valves are the noise. He is saying b/c it's off that it's causing the engine to not idle and vibrate. Regardless, we are not finding what the cause is, certainly not obvious to pin down.

Anyhow, Tony just called me and said cylinder 3 is low compression and needs to be rebuilt. Mentioned won't really know until it gets taken apart and most likely would be valve guides. Wondering if that is what I am hearing/feeling. Who know?!

He also said mounts look great.

Here are pics of everything:

B serious

So...valve guides don't affect compression...

Valve seats, did he say, maybe?

What is the compression on the rest of the cylinders and where is it escaping?

These guys should maybe check the endplay at the crank. This sounds like a bad thrust bearing.

BTW....don't rebuild the bottom end of this engine, bruv.

When did all this start? Like...what incident lead to this noise? Or did you buy the car like this?

Justin Stern

he said guides, maybe he meant seats.

the rest of the cylinder is at 220ish.

I took the car off the hands of my gf's father who does not drive it much. I noticed the noise right away. He said he didn't even notice or didn't care enough as he puts 500 miles a year on the car.

I will mention bad thrust bearing. Is that a known thing to go out on these cars?

He is quoting 1800 to take it apart and fix whatever the reason for #3 being low is.

I assume I am safe to drive it, just might be down on a little car.

Justin Stern

Sorry for the typos and whatnot. Still can't figure out how to edit these posts once I reply.

Justin Stern

I could throw mounts on there just to see if the new mount fixes that noise when letting off clutch and whatnot. He does not think it is a clutch though.

Right now, I am just wanting to make sure I am not causing more damage by driving with low compression.

B serious

Depends on why the compression is low.

No offense meant by this at all.

If these guys are the premiere S2000 shop of LA...then why are u getting advice here? You're paying these guys to figure out the issue definitively. Not do a $1800 experiment.

THEY should be answering your questions.

Did they even give u a print out of what they want to do to the car?

Thrust bearing issues can come from running the car low on oil. Or a clutch that's WAY too heavy with an owner that has a habit of keeping the pedal pressed down at stoplights and stuff. Sounds like the former on this car. Maybe he just ran it low on oil once.

You should take it to a place thats going to actually properly diagnose the issue.

The cylinder has lower compression than the others. WHY?

The car is making noise. WHY?

Know what I mean?

$1800 dollars for "whatever fixes the compression" isn't confidence inspiring. I don't think I'd pay $10 at a restaurant if the guy told me he was gona bring me "whatever to make you not hungry".

Unless they did tell you and you just aren't articulating it?

B serious

Anyway, I'm not saying that anyone on this site is unhappy to help you.

But...this place should be giving you better answers before asking for $1800.

I'm just some bloke on the internet. If a cylinder had low compression, I'd leakdown test it to find the leak. Maybe its just a tight valve. That's not a $1800 fix, is it? If its the bottom end...wtf are you gonna fix properly for $1800? Nothing. That's what.

If the car was making a knocking noise and had low compression, I'd check crank endplay.

Duh (not duh for you...but should be elemental info for a premiere S2000 workshop).

Shit maybe I'm the dummy and I should be charging money for this SAGE advice.....

Anyway....

Tossing the mounts on to eliminate them from being an issue isn't a terrible idea.

Couple things you can try at home:

Motor mounts are an easy check. You sit in the car manipulate the clutch and find another person to look under the hood/under the car and watch for something moving too much and making the rattle. Look for excessive engine movement under load.

Try isolating where you feel the vibrations from this noise.

Do you feel these vibrations in your clutch foot only?

Or do you feel them through the seat? steering wheel? etc...