LS What?!

I've had my '00 s2k w/67,000 miles for 4 days. I love the car but was disappointed in the power. My previous car was an '06 RSX-S. I would swear it would have destroyed the s in straight line performance. I've got a buddy with an RSX-S and he's driven several s2ks as he was a mechanic at a Honda dealership. He drove it and we kinda decided that my s was too slow to even race against his rsx. The next night we decided to do it anyways. I put about 4 maybe 5 lengths on him. We couldn't believe it. I also couldn't believe I went from third to second at 8800 RPM. I immediately shifted to fourth and kept on. When I came to a stop the engine light was flashing and it was missing at an idle. I went ahead and limped it to the house. The light went off as soon as I started accelerating. It was smooth as silk the whole way home. As soon as I came to an idle though it started missing again.

I pulled the valve cover this morning and sure enough it has several OBVIOUS cracked retainers. I'm pretty sure it has a few on the exhaust side. I ordered all new retainers and keepers. Hopefully that's the only problem.

Looooong story short... Just wanted to say thanks for the great site! I got the part numbers for the ap2 intake retainers and the diy pics were a great help in identifying the cracked retainers. Hopefully parts will be here by the weekend. Im gonna pray until then the retainers are the only problem!

zeroptzero

I'd be willing to bet you have some bent valves, that kind of downshift almost guarantees engine damage. I think the cracked retainers are a symptom rather than the cause of the bad idle, if your buddy is a Honda mechanic have hime check the valves with a leakdown test or pull the head.

LS What?!

It is possible however to have damaged the retainers in this process causing the valve to not properly seat... Correct? A bent valve would cause it to miss the entire range I would think. Due to it never seating properly.

zeroptzero

good luck with the repair.

slipstream444

You have bent valves if you have cracked exhaust retainers. If you shifted from 3rd to 2nd when you were near the redline in 3rd - you can bet you have bent valves, cracked a lot of intake retainers and probably cracked a number of exhaust retainers as well. You were just under the ~10,800 threshold where your engine would have come apart. In an AP1 over-rev, intake retainers crack first (~10,200 RPM), and then the intake valves will bend (10,300-10,400). Once again, if you over-revved to the extent to crack exhaust retainers - there is a lot more damage than just the retainers.
They don't call that the money shift for nothing. Sorry to hear about your missed-shift - I hope the repair isn't too expensive.

LS What?!

A leak down test would be worthless right now I think. I know the valves are leaking. I just hope it's the retainers causing the problem. Thanks for all the info guys! I'll keep you posted.

slipstream444

Cracked retainers will not cause the valves to leak (unless they have completely dropped the valve - and then your motor is done). Leaking valves are due to bent valves.

LS What?!

So if the retainer is cracked and riding higher on the spring than it should it won't affect spring pressure?

Jstone_ap2

it could have depending on how bad the crack is

LS What?!

I pulled the cams and rocker assembly today and it's not as bad as I thought. All the exhaust retainers are in good shape. I've got 4 intake retainers that are cracked though. Both on #1 look like they were ready to come off! I've ordered ap2 intake and ap1 exhaust. I figure I better go ahead and change them all. Thanks for all the replies!