Well long story short, it was rod knock. The bearing went out and the rod started going into the side of the cylinder and scored it very minorly. I have to get a new rod and a new crank. The scoring on the cylinder wall is so minor it can just be honed out, or so I'm told. Along with all of the other parts that go along with a rebuild.

It seems that I caught it right in time, as the oil pump didn't pick up any of the huge amount of metal shavings that were sitting in the bottom. Also any longer and I would have been looking at a new block because of the scoring that was done.

Here are pictures. Scroll down a little but there are lots showing all of the known problems.

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.ph...&f=54&t=402951

 

Here are the pictures for the lazy ones

Thanks to spoonsports2k for the first four pictures and todd at 2nrwerks for the rest of the pictures.

 

Count your blessings.. what's the bill going to be?

 

this is not good to hear , I have a SLIGHT knocking noise but it doesnt show much, its a knock knock knock...etc. But its not as loud as in your vid. Now Im worried

 

I would say at least take it to a shop have them pull the oil pan and make sure everything's ok. It's better than shelling out a lot more replacing a block, and if you caught it early enough you might not have to replace the crank either.

I'm not sure on the price yet but you can take a wild guess at what an entire engine build + 700-800 dollar crank will cost.

 

Seriously, here in FL, its one blown engine after another

 

I just got my car back from the shop the other day. I had bearings that had wear.
As soon as I got a knocking noise I never drove it and had it flat bedded to the shop. Almost all my bearings had wear (rod and crank bearings). I caught mine early enough.
I replaced all the bearings for the rods and crank. Everything else was good, no cyl scoring or crank damage. It took my Mechanic 15 hours total labor to dismantle
everything remove rod bearings , crank cradle, and crank and put it back all together. I get a discount for cash So it was like 750 for labor and another 200 for parts for the bearing work. Mechanic said the cradle is heavy and sorta a pain to reinstall. He used a transmission jack to help himself out. The biggest Pain in the ass was the top starter bolt. He said that sucked. He completely removed my transmission. He had the header off also, not sure why...but I don't care. I just had to pay for the new gasket. He also disassembled the oil pump and cleaned out any fine metal particles. He also cleaned the oil pan, crank, and cradle....they looked brand new
He said my oil pump was in good shape. It did take 7 days for honda to deliver the bearings from the order date.

So caught early enough(even thought I had a noise) it wasn't a huge expense considering 4 new so2's cost close to 850 bucks.

He gave me all the worn bearings. I'll click some pictures and post them tomorrow.

Just for reference my mechanic worked at a Mazda dealer for over a 15 years he said the quality of the s2000 is far superior then the Miata.