S2000 Under The Hood S2000 Technical and Mechanical discussions.

Running engine low on oil

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Old May 11, 2015 | 11:18 AM
  #11  
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I had something similar happen to me but no odd noises. I forgot to check oil and saw oil light for half a second. It's been 4-5k miles and I'm still ok. I was low about 3 quarts too. Hope everything is good.
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Old May 11, 2015 | 11:35 AM
  #12  
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^ yeah my oil light never came on that I saw so maybe that's in my favor. Now we just pray to the honda gods it's all we can do now. I'm gonna send my oil out today I'll post back when I get the results back thanks for all the input
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Old May 11, 2015 | 02:46 PM
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Good idea to send out the oil for analysis, if you see high levels of lead and copper then you might have something to worry about. The thing about events like this is that the damage can manifest itself later down the road usually when you don't expect it and not even under hard driving conditions. A ticking time bomb is the best way to describe it. The potential for damage really depends on how you drove the car while the oil level was low, if you kept it out of VTEC and out of high g-force cornering conditions you might have been spared.

Hit me up once you get used oil analysis results, I'll see how it compared to my engine's results just before it grenaded.
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Old May 11, 2015 | 11:39 PM
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Zero, tell me more about what happened to yours? Hopefully I'll have my results in a week or two and the car will still be running. I did hit vtec a few times but didn't redline it, but im not saying I didn't drive it hard either. I checked my vtec solenoid and there were no shavings in there.
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Old May 11, 2015 | 11:40 PM
  #15  
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I also picked up tons of spare quarts of oil so there's no more excuses
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Old May 12, 2015 | 03:43 AM
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Originally Posted by JayJones
Zero, tell me more about what happened to yours? Hopefully I'll have my results in a week or two and the car will still be running. I did hit vtec a few times but didn't redline it, but im not saying I didn't drive it hard either. I checked my vtec solenoid and there were no shavings in there.
I never really found out the cause of my damage - the engine was likely run low on oil some point in the past and it takes some time to manifest itself. Fuel dilution might have also played a part but I didn't have any real proof of that. The last used oil analysis I had done showed elevated bearing wear. I dropped the oil pan and everything looked okay. I changed the oil and buttoned it up, then on the very next drive the engine expired - with the main bearings being shredded.

I think the key sign is to look for elevated bearing wear, so your used oil analysis will be a good indicator. Shoot me your results when you get them in and I can compare them to my numbers. I only had metal material in the vtec solenoid screen once the main bearings expired, there was a ton of metal floating around in the oil pan at that point.
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Old May 12, 2015 | 03:54 AM
  #17  
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Good to hear. Just please don't go trying to sell your car to some poor guy without disclosing something like this. Because unfortunately for him there's probably nothing he could do in the sale to know anything was wrong. I bought my AP2 thinking it was running great and no need to do a compression test but did one a few months later just because (I didn't drive the car hard or anything) and found a severely burnt valve on #3. I paid the guy pretty well for the car and felt like he may have known. Sure, I could have done a comp/leakdown before buying so that's on me I guess. But there's probably nothing a buyer could do here with your car.

I'm sure you're not that type of person but felt like I should mention it
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Old May 12, 2015 | 05:09 AM
  #18  
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Originally Posted by zeroptzero
Originally Posted by JayJones' timestamp='1431416382' post='23609665
Zero, tell me more about what happened to yours? Hopefully I'll have my results in a week or two and the car will still be running. I did hit vtec a few times but didn't redline it, but im not saying I didn't drive it hard either. I checked my vtec solenoid and there were no shavings in there.
I dropped the oil pan and everything looked okay. I changed the oil and buttoned it up, then on the very next drive the engine expired - with the main bearings being shredded.
Hmm, I have heard this story before, but never heard this detail. I know it would be difficult for some to acknowledge and I am by no means pointing a finger, but do you suppose there is anything that could have happened during the process of actually dropping the pan and checking things over that could have caused the failure? Depending how far you went you are right in there close to some really important stuff.

I know your lead and copper if I recall correctly were elevated prior indicating something was going on, but they were not out of this world high. You dropped the pan and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, shortly thereafter you have a pan full of bearing peices.

Anyway not really the proper venue but an interesting detail none the less, especially considering my 9ppm and the 4ppm lead results the last two rounds of sampling.
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Old May 12, 2015 | 12:54 PM
  #19  
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Originally Posted by bgoetz
Originally Posted by zeroptzero' timestamp='1431431012' post='23609807
[quote name='JayJones' timestamp='1431416382' post='23609665']
Zero, tell me more about what happened to yours? Hopefully I'll have my results in a week or two and the car will still be running. I did hit vtec a few times but didn't redline it, but im not saying I didn't drive it hard either. I checked my vtec solenoid and there were no shavings in there.
I dropped the oil pan and everything looked okay. I changed the oil and buttoned it up, then on the very next drive the engine expired - with the main bearings being shredded.
Hmm, I have heard this story before, but never heard this detail. I know it would be difficult for some to acknowledge and I am by no means pointing a finger, but do you suppose there is anything that could have happened during the process of actually dropping the pan and checking things over that could have caused the failure? Depending how far you went you are right in there close to some really important stuff.

I know your lead and copper if I recall correctly were elevated prior indicating something was going on, but they were not out of this world high. You dropped the pan and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, shortly thereafter you have a pan full of bearing peices.

Anyway not really the proper venue but an interesting detail none the less, especially considering my 9ppm and the 4ppm lead results the last two rounds of sampling.
[/quote]


I put the car away for winter storage after the last drive of our driving season. I always send out a used oil analysis of that season's driving oil (one oil change per season is all I need for about 3,000 miles of driving max.). When the UOA results came back the car was in winter storage. My wear numbers increased significantly from previous runs. I dropped the oil pan expecting to see metal in the pan, the oil had a fair bit of shimmer to it, pretty sure it was all suspended metal wear, but there were no chunks of metal in the oil pan. I simply reinstalled the oil pan and filled with new oil. Four months later I took the car for my first drive of spring and the engine started running rough after a few miles, and the oil light would illuminate at idle. I was about 2 miles from home, turned around and drove home, the oil light would turn off as soon as the rpms were above idle, but I knew the engine was toast. I drove into my garage dropped the oil pan and it was full of metal, lots of chunks. My rod bearings looked decent, the main bearings turned out to be quite thin, surprisingly smooth considering they were spitting out chunks, but very thin. Even Billman250 was surprised to hear about this as everyone says that the rod bearings will fail first. 100% sure the damage was caused before I dropped the oil pan, there wasn't anything I could have done to cause the mains to fail and the fresh new oil was fully topped up for Spring. The high bearing wear in the UOA was the telltale sign, bearings can manifest their damage a time of their choosing I guess.
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Old May 12, 2015 | 12:57 PM
  #20  
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Bottom line, it is eiher leaking or burning. in your case it must be burning, and you well know it's not normal to use that much oil, more than a quart every 1,000 miles or so. This means, keep adding oil and ingor the problem or get it into a shop, do a compression test, etc...your car is not behaving normally in the oil drinking dept. it's not rocket science, ignor it at your peril.
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