I recently bought a 2003 S2000. It's in great shape but does have 160K. Compressions are all within 220-230 and it runs very well. What is the life expectancy of these engines?

 

If I am not mistaken numerous members here have hit the 300K mark.

 

One owner, about 370,000 and all original. Still runs great!

 

I bought a S2000 for track use last year. Its been supercharged and tracked prior to me owning it. It has 163K miles on the unopened engine, and it runs like its new.

Its a Honda. A S2000 with 300+K miles doesn't surprise me at all.

 

Your motor compression numbers look great.

Do a leakdown when you get a chance to further assess the motor. For peace of mind.

A local s2000 owner’s stock F20c just let go and spun a bearing at around 200,000mi. His car was heavily tracked in the last couple of seasons and his issue occurred at the track.

Cause was oil starvation and one of the mains let go, so not really due to old age.

He also didn’t know anything was wrong until he couldn’t go into VTEC. He had no telemetry or anything. Oil light didn’t even pop on till it was too late.

I’d always recommend installing an oil pressure gauge if possible as the factory oil dummy light doesn’t really do much since it triggers as such a low PSI. Even on the street my F20c oil pressure stays pretty consistent from start up, cold idle, hot idle, and at different RPM’s. So when I glance over I can see the oil pressure is what’s expected during most driving conditions. Just extra peace of mind.

 

If the car is driving fine leave it alone.

Doing compression and leak down tests are an exercise in futility since you can't do anything about low numbers in either case as these engines are not rebuildable for less than the cost of buying a replacement engine or donor car.

This is not to say these tests shouldn't be done before buying the car.

-- Chuck

 

Good compression you are probably fine. But I’d personally do a full assessment since OP went as far as checking compression...which tells he wants to know from an assessment.

As an example Leakdown could potentially point to a leaky valve you can pull the head and get it taken in to be repaired down the line. It is far from a full motor rebuild which is what you are alluding to. This is common and reasonable in cost.

if anything an acceptable’ result provides a baseline for future issues to compare to down the line, since you compression numbers are so good I’d bet money leakdown is fine too. At least you know what your per cylinder leakage is here and now. I have had owners ask me to do it before and it took all of 20 mins and I just wrote it on a paper for them for safe keeping.

 

These engines almost always die due to oil starvation, keep the oil levels maintained religiously, and I mean much more than your average car as these cars do consume oil. It will have a long life if oil levels are properly maintained.

 

Indeed. Of course the best oil to use to guarantee long life is...................

 

I'm going to pretend I didn't see that ...

However - there is a member who installed an external oil filter system that uses a much larger filter then the OEM filter. If you asked him I bet he would attribute some of his engines very long life (over 300K I believe) to that external filter system.