When you open up the motor, you're going to find a missing intake valve. That's the only way those metal shavings would get pushed back into the intake manifold.

 

do yourself a favor and have your mechanic upgrade your retainers to AP2 retainers lol....

since you owned the car 2 years prior to the failure... id guess chances are the failure was your fault ( misshift ect ). to avoid another failure... get ap2 retainers


or get MOGI! or U.S Fidelis lol....


good luck with everything though, hope all goes well and cheap


* also regarding a previous post you had, just because s2k has a 9000 rpm redline, doesnt mean its meant to hit that everyday (although alot of s2000 owners will argue it does lol) ... ask anyone in the business.... its ment for "occasional spirited driving" and nothing more, as with any production sports car. you cant be baingin off the 9k limiter driving to work every morning just because the redline is 9k lol.

 

Yeah we already pretty much figured out an intake valve broke. However, the retainers are all in place, and none even look in the least bit deformed.

I never overreved this car. I learned from a mistake with a previous car how to shift properly to avoid misshifting. Since then, I might have misshifted, but always into a higher gear.

If this statements ends up being true, then I will never again buy a decent car. I can't be asked to check a list every time I hit redline. Maybe in some POS grocery getter, but not in this car, especially since the engine is practically useless at low rpm. If I have to worry every time I want to accelerate, for me, it defeats the purpose of the car. I might as well go back to my '91 crx...at least a spare engine is cheap.

 

Hey man, sorry to hear about your engine. That really, really sucks. Also, I apologize for all the people who were dicks to you and kicked you while you were down.

So the mechanic determined that one of the valves broke in half and was still attached at the retainer? That's wacky. I haven't heard about that happening yet.

I too am pretty disappointed in the number of cases of catastrophic failure I've seen posted on various forums. I've seen a bunch that happened to original owners who never over-revved, so who knows.

By the way, when you said it was running poorly right up until this happened, did it ever throw a check engine light?

 

So how many days out of the week is it ok to hit 9k? Is like Tuesdays and Thursdays with every other Saturday ok?

 

one of the worst/most mis-leading posts i've read

 

Thanks for kind words, man!

I'm not really sure how he determined that the valve broke, but that's what the mechanic told me had happened. Now that we took the engine off, and see parts of the engine splattered all over the inside of the intake manifold, it looks to be consistent with an intake valve failure.

But, looking at the top of the head, everything seems to be in place. I didn't see anything that would imply a valve had broken. Nothing from the springs, nothing from the retainers.

Check engine light? Yes, actually it did. It was on for a while due to 2nd oxygen sensor having been sheared off by the catalytic converter. I ended up putting a test pipe in its place, but couldn't get the code to go away. In hindsight, it's possible that eventually another code did come up. If that's the case, and my ignorance to it resulted in the destruction...well, I actually hope that's what happened. At least there'd be a proper explanation. I'll ask mechanic to run the codes.

Although, I can't imagine any code that would say "imminent intake valve / engine annihilation"

 

I think the code would be like P1399 for random misfire and P0303 for misfire cylinder 3 or something like that since you were saying it was misfiring.

 

One person you might want to check in with is: Billman250(?). He's probably the most knowledgeable mechanic on this site. He's done alot of work (and analysis) with our engines, esp. for valve train failure. If you take pic's of the engine (retainers, underside of the head, cylinder bores, and pistons), I'd bet that he can give you the most accurate opinion of any of us about what caused your engine to fail.

I also disagree w/the comment about 'Occasional high rpm use'. In my opinion (shared by XViper and others), the concerns of driving at high rpm's in our cars are:
#1. Making sure the engine is truly warmed up b4 going to redline. This means waiting until the OIL AND THE ENGINE are truly warmed up. I don't believe that our engines are 'at temp' when the temp gauge says so: It's too early. I typically wait for about 10 miles of driving before I go past 6,000 rpm. After that, anytime I want to go to 9,000, I do.
#2. Keep the oil level up, and the oil clean. I have a 2002 also and we need to check oil levels on a regular basis (you already know that I'm guessing).
#3. Don't CRUISE at 6,000+ rpm's for long intervals (like highways,etc). This puts unneeded wear on the engine. That said, I'll drop down a gear (or two) when I'm in the mountains, or waiting to pass someone so that I'm at 6,000+ to get the hp and action.

Finally, as others have said, replace your INTAKE retainers (if the engine you bought is an AP1) with AP2 retainers. Billman250 swears by these on an AP1 engine.

BTW, my 2002 has 77,000 miles and is still tight, sweet, fun and likes 9,000 rpm.

 

But the deal is that if you redline with ANY proper motor and it is "misfiring" shut it down and figure it out. This is NOT a failure prone motor by *any* standard (WTF), but it is not magical.

Check the retainers again, I'll bet one is slightly dimpled. Non-S2k experts miss the overrev damage, but there are many pictures on this site discussing the difference.