hoof

If you're getting misfire codes, and you have compression issues, try getting a valve adjustment first before bringing out the heavy artillery. I had CEL light misfire code issues a few months ago. I had a compression check done, and my cylinders were a bit leaky. Initial guess was a bent valve, and $5000 worth of repairs (replacing the head). Since I'm out of warranty, and am attending graduate school, I cannot afford a $5k repair job. So on a hunch I requested a valve adjustment. Afterwards, my CEL light issue went away, and a compression check indicated no more leak. Waddaya know, a $90 valve adjustment fixed a problem initially diagnosed as a $5000 bent valve.

Give a valve adjusment a try. It can't hurt, and it will eliminate misadjusted valves as a possibility.

OneQuickS2K

Any CEL pop up? If so, fix the problem that the CEL is giving out.

I'd definitely do a leak down test to find out where it's leaking.

BenR

try a teaspoon of oil down the plug hole and crank it over. If it peps up the compression then its most likely to be your rings as a temporary seal is created by the oil.

If it doesnt spike the pressure, then you can go the leakdown to check if its the valves or the gasket.

spidermike9

I got help with a leakdown test and it was determined to be coming from a valve. We pulled the valve cover and one of the exhaust valves on the #3 cylinder had no play at all. We adjusted it and I've been driving it for a couple of weeks. I'm going to check the compression to see if it is any better.

yogi

Okay, did a compression check. 100,180,180,185. The compression tester is kinda crappy, so I think the #'s arae a bit higher than it indicated. After a scoop of oil in each cylinder it jumped a little bit to 120, 200, 200, 200. My understanding is that the fuel washes down the cylinder walls, so the rings don't seal properly. The oil helps seal it, so I'll get a small increase in the compression. But it's still at 120, which is way low. It's just really bugging me cause I shelled out $1600 (us military guys don't make that much $$) in KY to get it fixed and now it's back. Honda has said they won't honor a gurantee on the repair if it's a bent valve. I think I'll try to get the valves adjusted this weekend on my own. I just don't understand how it could pop up again after the repair, makes me think that something else is wrong. I was driving around yesterday and the CEL started to blink at idle I just can't win with this thing. Two days after I got back from Iraq I was backed up into by a huge hick-driven truck. F'ed up my passenger sidelight, fender, and hood. The body shop just repainted the hood instead of replacing/adjusting it. Anyway, so I get back here and am washing my car, go to lift up the wipers and scrrattch. The drivers side wiper peels paint off of the end of the hood . This is what I get for spending ~11 months in Iraq. I just don't get how after ~3000 miles of no CEL, it's back on again!

snowball

I also just got a #1 cylinder misfire. Compression tests gave 125, 200, 200, 200. The dealer took the head apart, and determined that it was not caused by over-rev, so Honda is footing the bill under warranty.

The current diagnosis is that somehow one of the valve guides on #1 cylinder became loose enough to cause the head to get damaged (from what I could understand), causing a loss of compression. It's going to take them a week to replace the whole head. The service advisor commented that he's seen the same thing happen to a few other S2000s, and since all they're doing is replacing with the same stock parts, there's no telling as to whether this could recur some time down the road.

Maybe I should get HondaCare in case this happens again.

On the flip side, Honda has been pretty stand-up so far in helping me through this problem. I'm pretty happy with the service I'm getting from the dealer (Hopkins Honda in Sunnyvale, CA). Even though I'm stuck driving a rental RAV4 for the time being.

Anyone heard or seen this problem before?

yogi

I had a similar problem, but this was after a fix from a botched over-rev. Maybe the guide at fault in your engine wasn't up to snuff and wore out too quickly, or wasn't pressed into the head properly. What I assume happened was that it allowed the valve to seat itself in many different ways, banging the valve seat flat. They should just replace the guide/valve seat/valve(maybe) and you should be good as new, but it's even better that they're replacing the whole thing! I would insist that the other guides be checked for valve stem clearance just incase. BTW, who did you deal with at Hopkins?

Squeezer

see this thread https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.ph...f=133&t=246892

yogi

Those are broken retainers, not guides.

snowball

My service advisor at Hopkins is Robert. He was trying to describe what was happening in laymen's terms, to someone (me) with no understanding of the engine internals. This is what I could gather from what he said:

Somehow the valve guide on #1 cylinder became either too soft or too loose, allowing the valve too much freedom of movement, which caused some impact damage to whatever it bangs against. He said that the valve in question can be easily wiggled around, where as the valves on the remaining cylinders were still "tight" with good normal clearance. It sounded like they're replacing the whole head, though I'm not too sure. From his description, it sounded to me like whatever the part was damaged was a single piece common to all cylinders (I thought this was the cylinder head), which is why they would need to replace the whole thing even though only #1 cylinder was affected.

Time for me to study the Service Manual to learn all the engine parts...