It would seem that the 'S' has suffered a case of moderate to severe detonation. I was driving with good spirit recently until I noticed some power loss. Nothing sudden or severe. In any case, I pulled off to the side of the road. The engine stalled as I let off the throttle and let the revs fall. Upon restart, the engine started more slowly and the engine had a strange noise to it. (Compressed air escaping) It was a whistling and was idling slightly rough. Aftercooler temps registered at 170. I drove it a short distance home.

I began by inspecting the plugs. Two of the four were damaged with the eletrodes seemingly burned/damaged. I'll attach pictures later. Also, the aftercooler water level was down so far that there was almost nothing in the chamber. (Another issue to investigate) My presumption was that the aftercooler stopped cooling the charge and IAT's rose leading to detonation. I didn't have the laptop logging so I can't confirm.

I'm going to perform a compression test tomorrow. I'm asking for everyone's thoughts. If the compression test comes back OK, would anyone advise of reassembling the engine and simply installing new spark plugs? Should I pull the head to at least get some visual inspection. (I don't see any damage to the pistons looking through the plug holes) I'm also wondering if this would be a good time to install a 2mm head gasket (or OEM) as I was planning to move to 12psi.

Car:
2003 Honda S2000
Comptech SC W/ 3.6" Pulley (~9psi)
AEM EMS for Tuning
IHE and other goodies

 

170 deg

Just for S&G, what was your ect if available?

1. Do a compression/leakdown test.

Pass

2. Replace plugs

Pass

3. Play lotto asap! - replace aftercooler


Fail test

Sorry



Just my .0002

J

 

You should have a leakdown done on the car.
I agree, the higher iat's may have been the problem but I would still make sure.

 

I was detonating for a while, I could audibly hear the pinging at high RPMS when the car was hot. It had top be detonation because as soon as I added Water injection the sound went away. anyway I HAD ZERO cylinder wall scoring (dunno if that would e detonation related), but I also had 240 on all4 cylinders, so Wouldn't panic just yet

 

the spark plugs were physically damaged. i'd say theres grounds for panic. good luck dude, my opinon is the head gasket is blown ontop of piston damage.

if yuo fail the leak down test, or even just compression test it to start, then its time for a built block

 

Does not sound good.

 

Compression results were not positive:

C#1: 215
C#2: 130
C#3: 195
C#4: ?

I couldn't get the results on the #4 cylinder because the fitting got stuck in the cylinder and I couldn't get it out.

My understanding is that I can determine if the loss in compression is due to the head gasket or rings by performing a compression test with and without oil to determine if the rings are part of the cause or if it is only the head gasket. Either way, I think the engine might be on it's way out of the engine bay.

 

What a drag I would suggest that once you get your motor issue resolved and your AC working again. Invest in a water/meth kit. If you had one it could have saved your motor in this situation of your AC failing for what ever reason. The water/meth works so well in fact that I am able to run 9psi as well, but with the factory CT fpr and stock injectors, stock timing map etc. Anyone running FI should have this INMOP. No reason not too.

 

Hoy...bummer. Hey, who tuned your car? Do you do any data logging? Can you look to see what your AFRs and what your knock sensor was doing at the time of damage? I saw you're fairly new to the boards. How long have you had the car?

Good luck! Usually high boost supercharged setups are a bit more reliable. Hang in there...

 

The car was originally tuned by a local shop for the previous owner. (Ultra conservative unfortunately) I upped the boost from 7 to 9 psi and retuned it conservatively myself using a local dyno and some street tuning. I've had the car for ~1 year now and it's been tuned at this level for about 4 months. I frequently monitor the AFR's (Wideband installed) and use the laptop to monitor/log knock sensor levels.

Unfortunately, I wasn't logging at the time but I didn't notice the wideband going lean at all. I could be wrong as I was more focused on enjoying the run. Previously, when I've been evaluating the tune on the street, the AFR's stick to about 12:1 under WOT and the knock sensor peaks at 3.3 volts around 8.5k to 9k. I did have a tune written to where the AFR's hit 12.7 but that was only a trial that I opted away from. Anyone know how to attach something, I'll attach a recent EMS log.