(S2oooNvegas wrote...)
Ill start by saying if you havent heard of baker cylinder heads, they have many record holding engines around the globe. They have had and still have many record setting hondas doing what they do best in many different racing events. Steve the owner is a good friend of mine and does all my head work. And i mean he does it ALL. From lambos, to helicopters, to boats you wouldnt believe the stuff that other head shops send to him because they are scared of it.Im telling this because this is the guy who i ask for his opinion on anything i do that i am personally second guessing, and thats not much. And while i am not omnipotent, i rarely back down to anyone elses opinion. Cause most are full of it. Billman on the other hand has been on these forums as long or longer than myself, and has an equal/similar reputation of building s2000s. Im not him and hes not me, so of course we may disagree a bit and without being there first hand i dont know how many or how bad ass of s2k's hes built.
But i do know what i have done and seen.
Steve has measured and weighed every set of everything that i give him, thats just how thorough he is. There is nearly no difference in the ap2 retainer weight and the ap1 retainer weight. Now i will say i did not weigh them myself, so i cant quote exact numbers. But for steve to tell me that there is no issue at all running ap2 retainers to as high of rpm as i want, im gonna go with what he says. he builds heads for 100k dollar engines. Now the springs may not have enough pressure to NOT float up past 10k rpm, but thats not the point. A stock engine is just that, and wont ever hit that unless over revved. If you mechanically over rev it thats your fault anyways and you should expect damage.
To NOT replace exhaust retainers because you think that that is going to help keep from valves contacting on a mis shift, is splitting hairs.
Its not even good business in my opinion.
I back that up by the fact that the last 3 ap1 heads i have had apart, had wasted valve guides and the retainers were almost all micro cracked. ALL. the exhaust being the worst of the bunch due to the fact that the exhaust valves and retainers run near double the temp of the intake side.
I dont ever think to report this info because... what happens and will probably happen here.... a pissing match will begin.
I personally wanted to make sure i came in and passed this info around so that it can help others who may be in this similar situation.
Its my understanding that many other retainers sold for the s2k weigh as much or more than stock ones. So again... we are talking about micrograms here.
Every set i have replaced so far, whether its in the car or the head has had to be off due to bad guides.... has gotten ap2 retainers on intake an exhaust. Thats my way of doing it, with the blessing of the machinist doing the work.

So.... i dont really care who anyone "thinks is right".. this is the way i will always do it because its the safest way.
If the person mis shifts and lunches a motor.... its not gonna be the fact that the exhaust retainers weighed .0000000009 micrograms more than the originals.... trust me.

And again.... seeing the majority of the ap1 retainers cracked NOT enough to even notice a drop, but noticeable under magnification... is enough for me to condemn the part as the problem.

So anyways, if youve read my long winded reply thanks. I do enjoy thorough explanations. Bottom line is.... i personally wouldnt trust 100k mile ap1 exhaust retainers in my engine spinning 9k.
If its apart that far, replace them all.
If you think that having an extra 100 rpm before the valves contact is gonna save your life... then go ahead and replace the exhaust retainers with ap1 ones again.
I personally will keep on putting ap2 retainers on all the valves.

Dave

(92gli wrote...)
Here's the wizard doing mine yesterday. 6 out of 8 intake retainers had obvious cracks. One of them had cracks all the way to the thin part on the edge.

Once that was done Bill noticed one of the exhaust ones looked a little off. So he changed those too and three of the eight were cracked. Apparently my car was only the second one he's seen with cracked retainers on the exhaust valves. I really wish my car could talk, lol. There was evidence that the head was off the motor at some point. Our theory is that there was a major over rev years ago, bent exhaust valves were replaced but the morons who did the work didn't replace any of the retainers. Anyway, now she's running great and up to the task of 9k shifts without any worries.

(Billman wrote...)
Ok...2002, about 50k, 2nd owner.

Damage list:

-8 broken Intake retianers
-1 broken Exhaust retainer
-1 damaged camshaft (intake) this is a result of the retiners being so high up, they made contact with the roller rocker. The hardened particles from the retainer get transfered to the cam and etch it away like sandblasting.
-3 damaged intake springs. Razor sharp edge around the tops, due to rocker contact. Also due to retainer walking, due to insufficient spring pressure, due to cracked retainers that have walked upwards.

This car did have some SMALL symptoms. Idle would drop very low, and almost stall. It would also shudder at idle. Other than that, it ran fine and had no noise. This is not the typical "idle low/shake/idle return to normal". This car's idle was low, about 500, and was a little shaky.

This car is the 7th car I've found broken intake retainers during routine maint out of 370 s2k's, give or take a few.

THIS IS THE FIRST CAR I HAVE SEEN WITH A BROKEN EXHAUST RETAINER. All exhaust retainers I have seen (about 3000, 370 X 8) were never broken till now. Not even the slightest bit of recession. However, one exhaust retainer had SOMEWHAT recessed keepers. Sure enough I pull it and it was broken. The other 7 were fine. So I did new F22 retainers on the intakes and F20 on the exhaust. One used cam, 3 used springs.

Pics in a bit....