I just did a valve adjustment on my 2006 and set the intake to 0.010 and the exhaust to 0.011, where the next larger size feeler won't fit, but each of the respective .010 and .011 will fit, but had drag. I torqued the adjustment nut to 14 ft lbs after rotating the engine until the valves springs were compressed and validated the lash multiple times after turning the engine over by hand each time. I got everything back together and the car ran perfectly and was super smooth until it got warm, at which point the idle became super rough (enough to shake the exhaust heat sheild very noticably). I subsquently let the car cool, pulled all the coils, used a little dialetric grease and reseated everything. I turned the car over and again the idle was super smooth until it got warm and the idle dropped. I unplugged the coil connectors one at time and each time it was obvious that it dropped that cylinder.

I'm kind of at a loss here, anything else I should do / check before I pull it all a part again and recheck the valve lash?

 

You may be a bit tight for an AP2 engine.

 

Just to be clear, you rotated the engine and THEN tightened the nuts?




I'd redo the valve adjustment and follow the instructions in the service manual. I have never heard of having to compress the springs before tightening. After you get the right lash adjustment for all the valves for cylinder 1, you tighten the locknuts then rotate the crank 180 degrees to do cylinder 3. Then repeat for cylinders 4 and 2.

 

Use my 180 away method.

1. Throw away instructions
2. Rotate engine, cw only, until valve to adjust has cam lobe pointed up, 180 degrees away from follower
3. Check current clearance, record
4. Adjust that valve
5. Torque nut, double check clearance
6. Repeat until all valves done

This avoids all the difficulty and associated risk, messing up timing marks or degrees of engine rotation.

 

Just to review:

1. On this car the valves must be adjusted when the engine is COLD. Under 100°F (38°C). Just bringing the car into the garage will exceed that temperature.

2. Set the valves to their MAX tolerance: Intake 0.010" and exhaust "one thousandth over" to 0.012". This has been strongly advised for 2006+ cars for almost 20 years especially since the valves tighten in use.

General rule is if you can't hear the valves clicking they're too tight.

Valve adjustment is a simple but back breaking chore. Lifting the front of the car will take some pressure off your back. Put the hood in the max open position (gotta move the hood strut). I've found it better to adjust all the intakes THEN all the exhausts at one time or vv. For me this means just one set of feeler gauges at a time. Take that massive 20-blade feeler gauge set apart and just connect the two you need with a short string or little key chain.

Don't forget to take the car out of gear before trying to hand-turn the engine!

-- Chuck

 

I think you need to go through each step again and set the exhaust to the .012 as specified above. Also when you are doing the drag test with the feeler gauge it really needs to be just when you barely start noticing the drag. If it becomes tight at all you are compressing the enough to change the measurement. Also make sure to verify after you have tightened the nut that you it didn't change the measurement. Even then I still don't know how it would give you a rough idle unless somehow the measurements were WAY off.

 

Looks like I missed the boat on the exhaust setting. I'll go back and redo it based on the looser tolerance on the exhaust, but the engine was 100% cold as it wasn't started in weeks. Chuck, you're spot on, my lower back is definitely feeling it, but good call on jacking the front end up as I didn't do that the first time, will do that on the 2nd pass.



Thanks for input, I may have set it too tight as I still had some stronger resistance on both intake and at exhast at 0.011 and 0.010, but could not get the next size in with out it being very noticablely "stuck". I went back and re-validated all cylinders at TDC that the measurements didn't change after the initial adjustment and torque. What you point out is what is most conerning to me - even if it ended up on the tight side, I'm confused on the rough idle once hot. Some of the exhaust valves were really tight before adjusting, down to 0.006 or 0.007 and I didn't have this issue.

 

I used the valve adjustment tool to turn the adjustment screw and snug down the nut while each cylinder was at its respective TDC (cams at 11 & 2 and per the TDC marks). Then rotated the engine until the cam lobe was pointed down to do the final torque for both intake and exhaust. I had followed what shown in this video around the 46 minute mark in terms of the cam position to torque down. I guess I was under the impression (wrongly so) that if torqued while at TDC the lash would tighten.


I did recheck myself multiple times, by rotating each cylinder to TDC and revalidating the lash after torquing. I think you're right though with redoing, which I'll plan to do this weekend.

 

Yes, the drive-by-wire AP2 engine's exhaust valves require more clearance than those of earlier AP1 engines.

 

Sorry, I'm not 100% following, are you saying to not have the cylinder at TDC? I know some other Hondas are adjusted with the cam lobe pointed up, but I thought the s2000 has to be at TDC and the cams at 11 & 2? Not refuting, just trying understand..