I bought the car brand new exactly 3 years and a month ago and has just 40000km (25,000miles) on it. I change synthetic oil every 5000km (3000miles) and takes very good care of the car.

Last friday I went for some canyon carving with a friend of mine. We did a copule of runs and now there is a clunking noise coming from my engine. Showed it to a very experienced Honda mechanic and he thinks it is coming from the connecting rods. Haven't still opened up the engine. Last run was a bit intense downhill run in the second and it was near the redline for 2 or 3 minutes but never over-reved it. I thought the engine could take it. I topped it up with Mobil 1 before the trip.
How could it fail like this? There are no mods whatsoever and I am on street tires (direzza star specs). Could they generate enough G's to starve the engine of oil?

I still love the car. My friend drove his Evo-X and he is an experienced auto crosser. He asked me to take the lead, he kept up the pace but the Evo squeal the tires really bad through the corners. The body roll was immense. The S went through these corners at the same speed without squealing the tires and with very little body roll gracefully rotating it self at the apex. At one point we swapped the cars for the uphill drive and I was behind in the Evo. The S just looked beautiful, gracefull and majestic going through the corners. I am really impressed that the ten year old S could put a such good fight against a new car with a computer controlled AWD system and look really good while doing it. Just too bad the engine decided to give up so soon I guess I am just unlucky.

 

At least you're on warranty (;?

 

any chance your buddy overrevved it?

 

this is def sad news, hearing a failure from a owner who takes care of there car AND bought it brand new...sorry couldn't be more help but keep us posted

 

Very surprising. I beat on my used 10-year old AP1 like this on a fairly regular basis. I can think of at least 2 7k+runs for 5+ minutes when I still had original ap1 banjos and retainers....

I guess it is luck of the draw?

 

i used to beat the crap out of my old ap1 (6k+ rpm daily) but I kept up with maintenance and it never gave me a problem and I got rid of it at 70k miles. hopefully my new ap1 will treat me the same.

 

if you're luck it might just be the timing chain tensioner, they make some bad noises when they fail. Perhaps your buddy over-revved it, if you aren't used to driving an S2000 there is a good possibility of that happening. Though high rpms at high G's for a few minutes can lead to oil starvation issues in some conditions, it's not the engine's fault really.

 

it was near the redline for 2 or 3 minutes but never over-reved it.

thats the cause right there. no cars want to be near redline for that long. right when your at near redline, shift. I rather be in 4th gear at 40mph than 2nd gear at 40 mph.

 

brakes cost less than engine. engine braking at redline is bad

 

That is not true, there are quite a few of these things that see the track pretty frequently, and when they do they take a harder beating than that for twenty to thirty minutes at a time with no issues. Not to say that this could not have been part of the cause, but I would not call it out as a redflag.

IMO toasted bearings typically are going to come from oil starvation.