Niiice.

 

that looks ugly
thanks for the informative post cvc2nr

did hondacare replace the complete head?
did the broken cam holder scratch your old cams?
did any small debris get into the engine? how sure are you that the shortblock is not damaged?

 

You know there is four more to hold it in place. Just pull out the broken piece and put it all back together. It'll be fine!

 

..... looks like the bolt where the crack is wasn't torqued down. SO, the only mystery is was it like that from the factory or did someone fu<k-up?
Did cvc2nr say anything about the head being worked on prior?

 

ba-DAYUM! that looks like it hurt!

 

Honda Care did replace the whole head. The old head is sitting on a counter in the dealerships shop and the new head is on the car.

I didn't take a close enough look at the cams to see if there was any etching, so no real answer for you there.

They seem to be very meticulous in the whole process. The service guy told me that they replaced the head on an s2000 before and a little piece of something was sitting in the intake manifold. After they turned it on for the first time after replacing the head, the piece got thrown into the motor and screwed everything up again. So, I'm sure they took a good look at the block.

RT - I did say that it was worked on previously. The motor was torn down to replace a burnt valve while the car was still in the previous owner's possession.

 

Looking at the pics, makes me want to cryo treat my whole engine

 

I'd guess that whomever replaced that valve did not torque down the cam bolts correctly. Too loose, to tight or in the wrong order.

 

Bearing caps are not like head bolts in that the order of torquing makes a huge difference, but the under torquing of the center bolt in this case causes the span across the cap to increase two fold which the part wasn't designed to handle. It'd be like knock a center support out from under a bridge and expecting it to still handle the design loads.
It's clear as day, who ever did the previous work on the valves fu<ked-up, simple as that.

 

I've seen a cam break in half from tightening down the caps in the wrong order. I'm not sure exactly what the kid did, but I'm guessing he started cranking down the bolts on one end & apparently the cam didn't like being bent in the middle by the valve springs on the far end.

Anyway - I agree, the last person who worked on the car screwed up, and as you've said, likely under-torqued one of the cam bolts.