00-03 HONDA S2000 AP1 OEM FACTORY ENGINE LONGBLOCK ASSEMBLY F20C 2.0L #3183 | eBay

Good compression and leak down, and a straight swap, not to mention less mileage than the motor you currently have. If you don't like the unpainted valve cover you can swap in your current one. Best part is you can part out the engine and recoup a fair bit of the cost of the new engine, or at least use it as payment for the swap as I know plenty of people that will take the old engine as payment.

If the crank is in good shape you can pretty much name any price south of $900 and people will buy it quick, ditto for the cam caps. If the cylinder bores aren't scratched up that will fly as well.

 

did halfassjack help you inspect with the borescope?

You have good compression. the car runs good. oil analysis was fine.

if the borescope inspection checks out fine, you would essentially be replacing the engine because it's noisy.

why not just continue to run it as it is with the noise.

something tells me a proper borescope inspection might not check out okay.

any updates on that?

 

Can valves that don't seat right cause noise?

Also to OP, final stab in the dark you mentioned the engine was rebuilt, what are the chances you're missing one or more lost motion assemblies? Those are the springs that are under the rocker arms.

 

the paperwork shows a 6 month warranty on the rebuild, i'm guessing we're past 6 months?

maybe they will do some sort of goodwill, or at least find out the problem without charge?

 

No point and going further short of tear down. Trust me....it don't sound good. Best conclusion would be replace with lower mile used oem. Valve clearance/lash was out of spec. Adjustment made little difference. My main concern was it had been "into". Also check out receipt for rebuilt motor. How many parts do you see listed? How many would it require to rebuild motor?

 

Depending on what's wrong with it, if it's something silly like a few missing LMA's probably worth fixing as they're not expensive. If it's something serious and there's a broken skirt, or scratched cylinder bores, or the rods or mains are knocking, then yes probably makes more sense to just drop in another engine.

 

I'm not sure where the lost motion assemblies are and how to tell if any are missing... I feel as thought after the 120+ mile journey to halfassjack's that the noise has gotten slightly worse actually, leading me to believe it is something internal definitely on its way out.

 

Considering this engine, it is a JDM spec with only around 39k miles on it. If I could get ahold of it for at or under 3000 shipped I feel like I'd be getting a pretty good deal, and I can sell on my transmission with new clutch as well. Only a little bit worried about investing 3k in an engine that has to spend a couple weeks on a boat..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/192104072183

 

That one has very low miles, I'd still want to get a compression check before pulling the trigger on it. If that checks out go for it. If they ship it most likely it'll come either strapped to a pallet, or in a crate, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

The lost motion assemblies, are springs that take slack out of the rocker arms. The things you adjusted to get the valve clearance correct, the LMA's are underneath. However, if the noise is getting worse I'm inclined to agree with you.

 

Stay local. See in person. Buy from wrecked car. There are several to choose from. EBay has no warranty worth the screen they appear on.