I've just had the 120,000 kms service and the valve clearances just set.

since then the car has been running great, but its developed a bit of an odd noise after 4k rpm. The sound is similar to a band saw on low speed going through a piece of wood, TRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, but only in the background it can be heard so it is not a really hardcore loud noise. Another noise it might sound like is a bumble bee flying past your head. Other times at around 4k if i'm just cruising i can hear a faint tick tick tick tick about a few every second in frequency just like the 'card in the bike spokes'.

the sound seems to appear on and off when I rev the car in neutral over 4k, or when i'm accelerating moderately or heavily. it seems to follow through all the way to 9k. The car is driving fine apart from that, the noise is just pissing me off.

I guess i'm not sure if the issue is caused by a bad valve clearance adjustment, from a faulty cam chain tensioner or something else. So far i've whacked the map sensor and all that crap.

I've had a few minor overrevs in the past, and i've checked the retainers and they are all cool apart from a few which where the keepers were slighly pushed in. Could it be something like a slightly bent valve?It has made this sound a few times in the past intermittently but it has always gone away.

The shortblock was replaced by honda 50,000 km's ago but retained the same head/camshafts etc. The car has 118K on it.i've checked the oil it is all fine. No CEL's being pulled, unleaded 95 fuel being used.

Perhaps clutch buzz? OEM clutch put in around 2000 km's ago.

At idle the car sounds fine with the bonnet closed. Standing next to it you can hear a few ticks. With the bonnet popped up you can then hear ticking much more which seems to be coming from the injectors/valve area. tick tick tick tick. The car appears quieter when started from cold, and the ticking more louder/prevalent after a solid thrashing. There does appear to be a few ticks; one at the top from the injectors TAP TAP TAP, then around the valve cover there is ticking, then a different sort of tick coming from down where the TCT is.

should i get a compression test ? replace TCT? chase up honda about a bad valve adjustment? I have NFI.....

Can anyone suggest anything else?

 

when i had my base RSX, i swapped a type-s head on to it...i set all the valve lashes to specs, but once i drove it, i got ticking up the a$$...it turned out the specs were off once the car warmed up, so i had to set them back to specs and it went away.

so yea, i think you should start there and get them checked again. if anything, ask them "how" they are doing the valve lash and to what specs, i'd hate to say they dont know how to do it, but u never know...

tony

 

well the noise magically disappeared last nite, car is running fine now. Perhaps it is the clutch buzz I was experiencing.

In regards to clutch buzz - i've read heaps of threads about it, but how long can clutch buzz go on for? Is it just a quick intermittent buzz here and there or is it something where once it starts buzzing it can go on for 10km, including multiple power on power off cycles of the car before vanishing again?

I'm well and truly sick of the s2000. Its got so many faults, notchy gear box, TCT, noisy valve train, weak diff rah rah rah.

 

The S2000 is known to have a race car feel. Very loud and very connected to the road. It is what it is, a real sports car.

I dunno about faults, you're probably the 1% of S2000 owners that are not happy. The other percentage is happy.

later