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Since the part failed upon installation, I think your title is overly dramatic. It did not destroy your engine because your friend was aware of the problem before damage could occur. Quite simply the part was over-torqued. It is made of soft brass and will fail in exactly the manner pictured when tightened too much. I have one on my S2000 and F250, and they have been completely reliable and easy to use.
This is not to slight your friend. Even though I am on the board and am an experienced mechanic, I have also stripped and cross-threaded parts by accident.
Using the stock drain plug is no guarantee of problem free oil changes either. I have seen cross threaded and stripped oil pans. I would rather replace (or decide not to use) a $6 part than have to replace or repair an alloy oil pan costing hundreds of $$. And some mechanics don't bother changing the drain plug washer!
This was removed from a friends Civic who had been going to a local garage for oil change service.
Please let us know how Fumoto responds to your problem.
The corners of that bolt are NOT rounded off. How much torque do you think it would take to break this bolt?
I am going to believe philipf22 when he said his mechanic is well known in his area for his work on S2K's and has one himself. Any reputable mechanic, especially one who has experience with aluminum, the S2000 in particular, knows better than to over tighten the bolt in question. If it was tightened more than 33 ft lbs, it wasn't tightened much more. The metal that this bolt was made from is just straight up weak. The threads on the bolt should have stripped before it broke.
Well, I called YM International (the U.S. rep for Fumoto) and they offered to send me a new adaptor before I could blink. Good for them! Quality customer service.
They agreed that over-tightening is an issue with their 107-series adaptors since they're so small (12 mm), but haven't had too many 106-series adaptors come back. The adaptors have more of a problem than the valves do, since the adaptors have a more significant portion of their main body hollowed out. Their solution (which should be added to their webpage shortly at my request) is to strictly hand tighten the adaptors, NO torque wrenches. The guy I talked to said these will stay tight without nearly as much force due to the plastic crush washer they include with the adaptor...just hand tighten it snugly.
I didn't even bother with replacing the part becuase I'm not comfortable with the product. I'm sure they would replace it.
I was being a bit overly dramatic in the title . I wanted to post this so people are VERY careful when using one of these. Hand tightening may be a better recommendation however I still won't be putting the part on my car.
When dealing with these soft materials, I'm not sure what would happen first. Would the pan normally strip out or would the bolt break? The pan was not stripped out so the bolt obviously gave first. I personally don't think that the wrench marks on the bolt are that out of line for this material.
In the interest of science, it might be interesting to get a replacement and using a torque wrench, see where the bolt gives (not in my pan of course).
At any rate, I have the valve for sale if anybody is interested
CoralDoc is dead on. Assuming a typical allowable for brass (50 KSI), and a cast aluminum oil pan, this part will ALWAYS fail in tension. With the hole in the middle, you never get near the shear strength of the threads before it fails in tension. (i.e. you never trash your oil pan installing it.)
I'd like to know what installation torque Fumoto calls out. I ran some rough numbers based on "eye ball" dimensions, and the numbers say the max torque is ~22-24 ft-lbs. So 33 ft-lbs sounds excessive.
Originally Posted by CoralDoc,Jan 10 2005, 06:33 AM
Since the part failed upon installation, I think your title is overly dramatic. It did not destroy your engine because your friend was aware of the problem before damage could occur. Quite simply the part was over-torqued. It is made of soft brass and will fail in exactly the manner pictured when tightened too much. I have one on my S2000 and F250, and they have been completely reliable and easy to use.
This is not to slight your friend. Even though I am on the board and am an experienced mechanic, I have also stripped and cross-threaded parts by accident.
Using the stock drain plug is no guarantee of problem free oil changes either. I have seen cross threaded and stripped oil pans. I would rather replace (or decide not to use) a $6 part than have to replace or repair an alloy oil pan costing hundreds of $$. And some mechanics don't bother changing the drain plug washer!
This was removed from a friends Civic who had been going to a local garage for oil change service.
Please let us know how Fumoto responds to your problem.
or just do it yourself and use a torque wrench and there's no guessing
the one advantage the valve would have i think if you have the nipple version with a tube it would be very clean.
i still dont believe that its perfect though. someone posted that theirs leaked a little,not alot but still did.
01-10-2005, 02:33 AM
. I wanted to post this so people are VERY careful when using one of these. Hand tightening may be a better recommendation however I still won't be putting the part on my car. 
