When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I had a feeling last night to check my oil, I see oil all over my lower control arm passenger side & top of my oil filter. This photo was after wiping it up.
This morning I tried to figure out where it's leaking from. I noticed my valve cover gasket looking like this. The yellow in the photo is highlighter (edited to show you). I am wondering if there is oil in the yellow. It's subtle.
I cleaned it up a bit last night and it the morning there were no new drips. It's only dripping when the s2000 is running.
Look at the highest point of the engine where you see an oil leak. Is there a trail running down from that point to the lower points, which are oily? The trail may not be straight down, due to castings on the engine and wind passing while driving.
That high point is the first one I would try to fix.
Look at the highest point of the engine where you see an oil leak.
I was trying that idea. I think what I'm seeing is oil leaking out the top of the valve cover & moving down this
When I get home tonight I'll take the spark plug cover off and check. I could not find anything that looked higher up than the VVT Spool (VTEC), until this morning when I noticed a little something on the valve cover.
If whomever did your oil change is sloppy, they can make a huge mess in that area of the subframe/block. Did you recently get an oil change?
It's possible it's the vtec solenoid gaskets. I'll know more tonight when I get home and take off the spark plug cover.
I changed the oil July 11th. It was totally clean in there. I used the filter tool and torqued the filter correctly. It was totally clean in there Friday. Saturday night I caught the oil leaking.
Quick way to check vtec solenoid top gasket. Run your index finger under the TCT. If there is oil on your finger it's almost certainly the vtec solenoid.
for the initiated (if you know exactly how to do both jobs) its probably simpler/easier to replace the valve cover gasket and VTEC solenoid's gaskets+o-ring than to troubleshoot which one's leaking.
small chance it could be the timing-chain gear that turns the cams too as it would leak and bring oil to the corner that would eventually work its way back since the engine is tilted that way and pulled back during normal driving.
I got the job done. I have a Honda valve cover gasket and spark plug seals coming via post tomorrow & will do it too Friday. I wish I knew there was a 3rd O ring before I started this job. Maybe I should have bought the Spoon gasket kit that has all 3. However I believe that 3rd o ring should be good because this lower gasket looks like it just failed because it was pinched. It was not much less squishy than the new one but it was totally flat on one side and not fully intact.
My s2000, I might be the 6th owner (17,100 miles). The previous owner only drove it ~500 miles. He said VTec was not working so he cleaned the screen and put it back & since then VTec has been working incredibly well. 6000rpms it's immediately on//off.
This was the best I could clean it up. I don't know why the surface looks a little marred up. It wasn't anything I could clean off.
few questions however. In my video, when I was doing a visual check of the engine... I was wondering: is the side of the engine block where the VTec solenoid mounts meant to look that scratched up? I would imagine no?
Are these holes meant to have a chipped looking shaped to them? They're identical so I assume that's how it's meant to be.
^Why are the top and bottom bolt holes not full like the middle one?
Leaking oil from somewhere
