esracer

Simple question maybe, are cracked retainers always caused by an overrev? or be caused by hitting the rev limiter? My car has been denied by honda care to be fixed, I had one valve drop into the cylinder, but all the other valves are fine. They didn't inspect all the retainers i believe, so i need to know how to fight this.

s2kBryan916

You can also have problems cracking the retainers downshifting too hard and incorrectly. (ie. downshifting to second by dropping the clutch and instantly bringing the motor to high rpms) I dont think long life and or daily driving will actually crack a retainer to the point it lets a valve go.

Billman250

Hitting the limiter will not cause a broken retainer.

A mechanical over-rev will, as explained by bryan.

The car was likely over-reved in it's lifetime. An s2k can go 10k-30k (this is an estimate based on my experience) with a cracked retainer and show no symptoms at all, not even noise. The first one I found was broken so bad, the retainer was hitting the roller rocker.

It too showed no symptoms at all. We saved it before the valve dropped.