If you take your car to a shop, especially a dealer, and ask them to do a valve adjustment simply for "peace of mind" (ie. it's not making noise and your odometer is below the recommended maintenance interval), then they are likely to just take your money and do nothing. If you're lucky, then they will perform the "inspection", and adjust only the valves that are outside the rather large OEM spec. However, if you want it done right, with clearances that are equal on all cylinders and at the tight end of spec for better performance ... do it yourself.

 

Its takes 1-2 hours, I think Honda actually calls for 1.2 hours of labor. It can be done much quicker with practice. However, If you dont know what too tight or too loose feels like on the feeler gauge (properly) or have someone that can show you, I dont recommend you try to tackle it yourself. You dont want it to come out worse than it was before and potentially damage something. Labor varies from $80-120/hr at most shops.

Yikes! what kind of dealers do you guys have down there in texas? I've never had anything like that happen at any of the Honda dealerships I've used.

 

I googled and found some DYI: https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/245...ve-adjustment/

There are some videos on youtube as well.

 

I know a guy that isn't too far from me that's done it many times on the s2k and I'd trust doing mine but I had never actually asked him how long it took or what it would cost.

 

not a good idea, this causes burnt vales/seats. Your better to be a bit loose VS tight.

 

Since valve clearance increases as the engine heats up, it would be very hard to burn a valve due to tight clearances. You would have to have less than zero clearance when cold, which would prevent the motor from starting. The OEM spec is huge, in order to achieve a 100K maintenance interval. If you check your clearances every ~20K miles, it's totally fine to run them tighter. I've run my exhaust valves .001" titghter and my intake valves .002" tighter than spec for a combined 95K miles between 2 S2000's with great results.

Note: the short block failure I had in my current S2000 had nothing to do with valves.

 

no no. im pretty sure i like 'em tighter instead.
sorry. ill just keep walking by...

 

For anyone concerned about their valve clearances, I strongly encourage anyone to just DIY. Like others said, if you bring it to a dealer or even many small shops, I highly doubt they'll be very meticulous and get them spec'd exactly where you want them. If the shop is reputable and will do a top notch job, I'm sure it won't come that cheap. If you can afford it, go ahead and pay someone.. but if you are cheap and anal (like me), then just go ahead and DIY. If you can do an oil change, you can do a valve adjustment imo.

There's tons of info out there about doing a valve adjustment, but essentially it breaks down to removing the valve cover, removing the spark plugs (this is optional, but makes rotating the crank easier), setting a cylinder to TDC by rotating the crank, adjusting the valve clearances for that cylinder, repeat until all 4 are done, and putting the valve cover back. The #1 concern is simply to make sure you don't overtighten/torque anything, as you can break valve cover bolts/studs, and the locking nuts. You just need a set of feeler gauges, and when the feeler gauge drags with a little/slight resistance, the clearance is set.