windhund116

I adjusted my exhaust valves to a loose 0.011 inch play. Prolly closer to 0.012. Here's a good link to follow, for you or your mechanic.

DIY Valve Adjustment.

Birdi

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone knew a decent mechanic within the west london area who know their stuff about honda s2000's and who have worked on the car before?

I'm begining to lose faith in my mechanic, and I am thinking of doing the valve adjustment myself but missing two tools, the feeler gauge, and the adjustment tool, but i'm afraid I might make a cock up on it all confidence issues

thanks again.

Birdi

windhund116

Have you ever done a valve adjustment before? It's appears to be similar to Honda's other DOHC VTEC engines.

Jub

I had a misfire on Cyl. 4 a month or so ago. My CEL did specify cylinder 4 and it was the second time I had gotten it in 5k miles. There's a longer story to it that I won't type out again unless desired. Anyways, I found I had a burnt exhaust valve on that cylinder. My head has been refurbished and I've put 500 miles and 1 autocross weekend on it. The head builder recommended I check them after an autocross weekend so I did. They were within range but not as perfect as I'd like. I did rush the shop to get it done and they were in spec so I can't complain.

I just completed my first valve adjustment on the S2k. The process itself is not at all complicated or questionable. I worked on it for 2 hours as it was getting dark yesterday and was not completely confident in my feeler gauge prowess. I only got done two of the cylinders. I looked at a few videos last night and took some tips on feeler gauges which made me feel more confident in my adjustments. I was within range last night and would have been fine but I did fine-tune further. I set my intakes to .009 inches and exhaust to .012 as perfectly as I could and feel very confident about my adjustments.

Short and good description of feeler gauge feel - probably the most concise and useful.
Long but if you skip through, they're very particular about the feeler gauge feel and it can help
Explains some of the theory of valve adjustment

In your particular instance, I'm not convinced it's valves for a few reasons but this shop doesn't seem to be doing a great job here. I'd also recommend using OEM coil packs for sure. Look up Evans tuning's tuning guide for S2k's. He recommends Civic Si coils (k20) from a specific year which I don't remember. I believe it's 06. They're cheaper than F series and apparently a little bit stronger. Honda plugs are pre-gapped and are a safer bet too.

Birdi

Hey Jub,

What makes you say your not convinced it's the valves?,

My mechanic just only told me in last few hours that he only swapped one coil pack, so not sure if he will need to change all the coil packs and hopefully the misfire will stop.

The only reason why I'm thinking valve adjustment is because I thought, the mechanic has changed all the coil packs. so my assumption is that.

But i would love to hear what you think it could be?

regards

Birdi

engifineer

I seriously doubt all your coils failed at once. Sounds like he is throwing parts at it vs troubleshooting further and that is going to cost you 3 more coils you may not even need. Coilpacks are not a typical failure point on this car and the odds that all 4 went bad are insanely low unless someone did some strange stuff to your car.

Jub

Well, I'll start off that my car is an 06 so maybe the misfire detection is different. However, my story is that at 106k miles, I threw a misfire Cylinder 4 code on hot start at an autocross event. I cleared the code and ran the car. It did just fine. I was suspicious that valves were my issue. Afterwards, I had the valves checked and a few were tight. The coil pack on cyl. 4 was also covered in oil due to a bad spark plug tube seal. I replaced all gaskets + coil packs, valve adjustment and went on my way. I figured the oil soaked coil pack was likely the culprit and if it wasn't my CEL would come back to tell me so. I autcrossed a few more times that season with no light coming back. This year, at a test and tune where I get a bunch more runs than a normal autocross event, the Cyl. 4 misfire light came back on a hot start again. I'm now about 110k miles and hadn't had the light since 106k. I was even more suspicious this time of valves but I cleared the light and ran the car. It ran pretty fine or at least didn't have any obvious lack of acceleration or issues. When I got home, I compression tested the car. Great results cyl. 1-3 and cyl.4 100 PSI off the others. I don't have the tools to do a leakdown so I had a shop do it. 80% leakage found on Cyl. 4. We removed the head and one of the exhaust valves was ghost white. Obviously burnt valve. Head was refreshed to OEM from InlinePro and now runs so much smoother than before and top end power is noticeably better.

The reason I don't think it's that for you is because of the behavior you describe. I had an obviously burnt valve and my light barely came on except at events where I was pushing the car. My CEL also pinpointed the cylinder spot on. My other cylinder's valves weren't burnt. Your random misfire code (p1399) seems out of line with my experience of a badly burnt valve. Again, maybe your 00 ECU reads differently than my 06. Also, your note of really bad acceleration after the light makes me question it. My car performed pretty fine. I was still competitive in autocross against some good drivers/cars. Mine didn't obviously bog. Hindsight, acceleration was impacted but not to the point that made it obvious. It's possible that the P1399 code starts pulling timing. I had a code reader and cleared my light instead of running it so I didn't experience if my ECU pulled timing based on the misfire light or anything. A bad exhaust valve with no light did not destroy my acceleration.

I definitely suggest still checking valves. It's free or cheap to do so and definitely important. The behavior of your car just seems out of sync with what I experienced. I am a use case of one person in a different year car, so don't take what I'm saying as 100% right by any means.

Birdi

Hey,

Well we changed the spark plugs and just one coil pack, the car idles but misfires and when you rev the engine a little it misifiers.

So trying to figure it out what else it could.be.

Birdi

sam_spider

Dirty/bad fuel injector can cause the same codes/issue as well.

Birdi

I'll let him know about the fuel injectors may need to be cleaned out..

S2000 are beautiful motors besides these problems

Birdi