jguerdat

Note that he said 80,000 kilometers, not miles. Assuming that was a typo (or he drives a hell of a lot) that translates into ~50k miles. If these were a true weak spot, we'd be hearing much more about these since many folks have well over that mileage.

Jason00S2000

No, I am a destroyer of cars

mxt_77

OK. But can you answer my question about forewarnings or indicators that you were going to have a failure? Were there any?

Dark_Sub_Rosa

Yea... I really would like to know or else I'll be pulling my valve cover doing routine check ups

Slows2k

DSR, I'd suspect some of the retainer failures have been on cars that have been "Mildly" over revved, or engines that have had an exceptionally hard life. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If it was a serious problem there would be many more failures.

Jason00S2000

I would say it drove fine, but MAYBE a little louder under the hood. My S2000 has always had a "loud" engine. I can't say I noticed it for sure, but after it blew I sort of thought that the engine had been a tad louder than normal.

Greenlight

I took my head off to do some cylinder head modifications and had 6 cracked retainers. I didn't hear any unusual sounds. Car had 18,000 miles on it at the time.

yogi

I had a lengthy talk with Joe Alaniz (the S2000 head expert) and the overall picture I got from him was that for most people, the stock retainers were fine. Anyone that has added additional stress to their engines, and/or drive their car hard, well they might want to consider it. He showed me a head that had a few hundred track miles on it and the retainers were fine. He basically said, the engines got a 9K redline, but that doesn't mean it's built to drive that way all the time. If you drive it that way, things will start to give.

Heh, I know that's a vague answer, but it's not a cut and dry sort of thing. If you're really concerned, yank off the cams/followers and see if the retainers are hurting (I'm not sure how useful this is tho). I wouldn't get it done, but I don't drive my car that hard anymore either.

I'm pretty sure you can change the retainers with the head still on the engine. All you've gotta do is apply a good amount of air pressure into the combustion chamber (through the spark plug port). This should hold the valves in place. And AFAIK there are spring compressoers that work with the head still installed.

Hopefully xviper can comment on this...

slipstream444

The retainers are the 'weak' link in the F20C. With that being said, They're still stronger than most. For note: the folks that modify their K20 (Toda cams) use F20 valve spring retainers.
Keep the engine within the RPM range and you won't have a problem. If you bounce off the rev-limiter all the time or experience the inevitable over-rev - you need to pay the piper and inspect/replace the retainers every once in a while. The inspection takes no more than an hour over a normal valve adjustment - if you know what you're doing. It requires you pull the cams and inspect the valve stem exposure above the keepers - basically checking each valve to ensure every valve has the same amount of valve stem sticking up above the keepers. If you over-rev your F20 or constantly beat the crap out of it, the retainers will eventually begin to 'dish', which in turn allows the valve to begin to slip down lower into the keeper - eventually allowing the valve to completely 'drop'. This is terminal.

slipstream444

Dual valve springs on an otherwise stock head = recessed valve (you need custom valve seats to take the stress - not to mention the 10,000 mile cam life do to the increased stress). Ti retainers tend to gall and are meant for engines that are torn down more frequently - i.e. racing engines.
For note: this engine WILL come apart ~10,800 or less - period. That is straight from a Honda S2000 model engineer. The stock valve train can take a momentary 10,200 RPM hit perhaps once (if the engine is in perfect shape) but will need the retainers inspected. The stock valve train will begin to fail at 10,400 RPM. The lower end will come apart at or before 10,800 RPM.