Since early this year I had a funny arytmic knocking sound coming from the top of my head and started THIS THREAD to find a possible solution/reason since it was getting louder and louder.

Guesses were bad wrist pin, what I could not believe on a 20000miles car being boosted for the half of it on 8psi.
I was still convinced the sound comes from the head and took the car to Honda (what I never do because they just screw it up) and my valve clearence got adjusted and the main machanic asured me there is nothing wrong with the head and it also cannot be a bad wrist pin, because the sound does not go away or change after disconecting a spark plug on each cylinder. So the told me to drive it and not worry.

Last week the arytmic knocking sound changed into a repeated click very similar to a valve totaly out of spec. So I drove it slowly back to my garage and took of the valve cover my self, just to find this




What I think is:

The "ring" on the exhaust rocker arm on the non VTEC side just cracked and while the cam lobe was moving it around, it did knock on contact and did not knock while the crack was on the oposite side. The crack was overseen by the mechanic and the non-VTEC lobe was not damaged yet. Once it cracked again and that piece of metal fell out of the "ring", it changed to a periodical click and the valve was not even opening anymore.That's why it was hitting all the time.

Luckily I found the missing piece in the head and I have a very cheaps replacement comming in by today.

Now someone please explain me how the $%& could that happen?

 

Wow, Thats something. Hope there is no other dammage.

 

That "ring" or roller that cracked.. isn't that a roller bearing?
If so.. are you sure non of the bearing balls or rollers are missing?
I could not find any specs about them in the service manual.
There is no inspection they mention of those rollers / bearings, just the diameter of the hole where they pivot on the shaft.
(sorry if that is not the proper technical term)
They do mention to swap them out in 3-pairs, if one is worn.

 

There are no bearing balls in stuff like a F20C head, but thanks for the suggestion. It's all metal to metal contact, it's call bearing but is just metal to metal, no balls beaing used like in conventional bearings.

 

Looks like good old fashion oil starvation. Have you had any close calls? Oil filter coming loose for example?

I know you are Lovefab'd... do you have an oil pressure gauge? I have found that a lot of oil cooler's drop oil pressure quite a bit sometimes (bigger is not always better!). I can't comment on Lovefab's specific oil cooler... just what I have seen with other cars.

 

The "click" was there before the oil cooler, but I had a low oil close call once to be hondest. Might have been the cause you are right. Usually I check every week.

 

[QUOTE=RWD_RCKT,Oct 14 2006, 06:01 PM]Looks like good old fashion oil starvation.

 

wow... ur lucky that was found in early stage..

i would think it's cuz by bad valve adjustment? gap between cam & rocker got long enough to hit the rocker harder enough to crack?...

if the mileage is not too long, i would complaint to the dealer and call the honda headquarter.

 

^ I visited them yesterday, all they said was "We don't know" and looked to the side. I will never buy a Honda again, will keep maintaining the S on my own from now onwards.

 

Can't really blame Honda for this one...