SLracer

This is the next phase of my topic VTEC issues after Valve Work.

You can review that thread if you'd like but here is a rundown:
Live in Germany, 2000 US Spec AP1 with 75,000 miles
Winter 2012 overhaul including: Brake work, Brake ducts, retainers, oil pan baffle, oil jet bolts

Put it back together again go to Nurburgring, halfway through a lap feels like VTEC is kicking off under high load 4th-6th gears.
Bring it home out of VTEC and it seems to run just fine
Pull off VTEC solenoid, clean filter, pull valve cover and valve train back off. Very carefully reassemble to exact specs.
Go out and give her a run on the autobahn, VTEC issue seems fixed however car seems power limited now.
Pull plugs and inspect as well as compression test: 225, 230, 230, 230. Plugs look rough so I order new ones
Waiting on new plugs decide to check the oil jet bolts and baffle make sure all appears fine.
Drain oil find it kind of glittery, remove pan and find more glitter.
Now in the process of removing rod caps to inspect bearings.

Alright so I was only able to remove bearing 4 before running out of sunlight today but the picture is below. Any thoughts on any of the pictures from the process, the cam caps seemed oddly aligned I thought but they are definitely installed properly. I compared the bearing to the Clevite website and am thinking maybe there are slight signs of oil starvation issues. I will remove the remaining bearings tomorrow and post those up as well. I should be able to replace rod bearings with the engine in the car assuming the crank is good correct?

Billman250

Do yourself a favor and dont touch those bearings. They are flawless and so is your crankshaft.

As far as cam caps, #1 in the front, #5 in the back, and in order. Arrows point towards the front.

Oil jets are properly positioned? You torqued them with a 3/8 drive torque wrench?

Billman250

Last car I worked on with an intermittent unexplained power loss had a bad cat converter.

Your plugs look ok...they are very likely not the cause of your issue.

zeroptzero

some guys who run on larger road courses have reported oil starvation on high g left-hand sweepers, which can cause it to drop out of vtec. I would expect your baffled oil pan to help out with that situation though.

Billman250

Last time I saw a baffled oil pan, one baffle came off and got sucked against the oil pump, destroying the engine.

zeroptzero

Yeah those goofy trap-door baffled pans were badly engineered for sure.

OP give us a better description of the road/driving conditions when you felt the engine dropping out of VTEC, sharp conering, uphill acceleration, long sweeping corners, left or right ?

SLracer

The oil baffle is still intact, it is not that trap door design its simply a baffle positioned horizontally to prevent excessive sloshing. The dropping out of VTEC problem was going perfectly straight, I tried it once on the autobahn after I left the track just to see and it did it there too. Yes the cam caps have arrows pointing forward and are 1-5 front to back. Unfortunately I am nearly certain somewhere down there is a bad bearing, might just be a matter of me pulling all of them to find it. There is a pretty significant amount of glitter in the oil, I will see if I can get a picture of it tonight. All the shavings are really small but it still wouldn't happen without a bad bearing somewhere right?

Oil jets were torqued with a 3/8 torque wrench properly, although I will be rechecking those tonight and will post back with results as well as pictures of the other rod endcaps

SpitfireS

Glittery stuff in the engine oil = BAD by default!
Change the filter too before you start it again (but I think you should not start it before knowing for sure where the glitter came from), maybe cut open the old one to see what's in there.

Compared to a new plug, yours are "done" IMO.
But not the cause of the power loss.


I've been using a Spoon baffled pan for 2 years now, no issues.

SLracer

Yea, I knew the plugs are bad for sure. Just picked up the new ones from the post office, when I was taking those pictures originally I was thinking maybe they could give me the hint as to the power loss but once again like you said don't think they are the cause anymore.

I am right there with ya spitfire, just bought a hack saw and will be removing the remainder of the rod endcaps now as well as removing and hacking apart the old filter. I will also take the VTEC solenoid off and clean the filter again before running the car with fresh oil. Ideally I will not be starting it up again til I know for sure what caused this whole mess, as much as I would love to think fresh oil is going to fix this I am not naive enough to actually believe that... Looking at it last night it actually looks like this would be a fairly easy engine pull though once that top transmission bolt is removed, even with the car simply in a garage is that accurate? I have experience pulling other cars engines and have done 2 clutch jobs on other S2000's.

PS I apologize in advance for any pissy responses...my Bruins got eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night after I stayed up til 4:30am to watch live and my car is trying to eat itself haha

SLracer

Alright so here is todays progress. Pulled the remainder of the rod end caps and retightened all the oil jet bolts to exactly 12 ft-lbs. See the pictures for each bearing:

3rd Cylinder bearing: You can see some copper bearing in spots
[attachment=19727:P1060542.JPG]

3rd Crank Journal: looks fine to me
[attachment=19728:P1060544.JPG]

2nd Cylinder Bearing: Some definite significant spots of copper
[attachment=19729:P1060545.JPG]

2nd Crank Journal: again looks fine
[attachment=19730:P1060546.JPG]

1st Cylinder Bearing (1): Definitely looks like some signs of wiping here which the site says is early stages of oil starvation
[attachment=19731:P1060547.JPG]

1st Cylinder Bearing (2): This side was showing the most copper of all the bearings
[attachment=19732:P1060548.JPG]

1st Crank Journal: once again looks fine
[attachment=19733:P1060549.JPG]

I did notice specifically on cylinder 1 and 2 there was a very dark black liquid coating on the bolts and around the rod end. Below are a few more pictures including the oil pan and my attempt at showing the condition of the oil.

[attachment=19734:P1060552.JPG]
[attachment=19735:P1060554.JPG]
[attachment=19736:P1060555.JPG]
This was after wiping my finger along the channel to the drain bolt
[attachment=19737:P1060556.JPG]
[attachment=19738:P1060557.JPG]
This is after stirring up the oil
[attachment=19739:P1060559.JPG]

So here are my questions, does the bearing wear you see from the rod ends make sense compared to the contents of the oil? Could the bearing wear here result in a loss of top end power? Or do I need to keep looking for my real problem? Is anyone else running an oil baffle this style, could this be causing my problem somehow? Any other thoughts, where I should be going from here next? Going to pull the filter to cut her open and install these new plugs in the meantime...