It seems like my 2000 Honda S2000 is a piece of shit...I should of stuck with my Silvia.

Anyways, I decided to jump into a S2000 from my Silvia because I wanted a reliable car, that I could track to my hearts content. The Silvia was heavily modified, making close to 350whp. Also, the mileage was getting high at around 190k. I wanted a car that was built to be run on the track, therefore I decided on the S2000.

My first impressions of the car wasn't great. I test drove a few of them, and wasn't impressed by the lack of power, interior noise and rough engine. The old 1991 Silvia was much better in all of these aspects. I still pushed on and purchased one, because I loved the handling feel of the car, and it felt like it has more grip than the Silvia.

Took it to my first track day. I was impressed to say the least. The stock brakes surprisingly coped well with the track abuse. The handling balance was near perfect, and the car felt like it had more grip on street tires than the Silvia did with R compound tires. I loved the way the car handled, but the lack of power was still annoying. Despite this, I decided to keep the car reliable, I would not modify the engine at all.

In order to maintain reliability, I decided to do a full synthetic oil change every 5000kms. I also changed the brakes all around as they were a little low.

Now this is where all the problems start. At the next track day, my clutch shattered. I don't mean that it wore out. The portion of the clutch that holds the springs in broke. This wasn't very encouraging. I would of been fine with this if it was simply a worn out clutch, but it was a clutch failure. Dropped almost $1000 getting the clutch replaced. Speedstar did a good job.

Now a couple of weeks after getting the car back, the only event I attended was an autocross. That went fine. Two days ago, the car started to idle funny. The check engine light came on. It ran well, even when ripping it, but struggled at idle. Scanned it, cylinder misfire. I checked the spark plugs, and oil was leaking into the coil packs. Thats fine, I replaced the valve cover gasket, and put in new platinum spark plugs. $120 for spark plugs! WTF! Started the car up after resetting the ECU and the car was still idling shitty, and the CEL came back on.

After scratching our heads, and testing a bunch of components, we decided to do a compression test. There is no compression on cylinder 3! Blew some air into the spark plug hole with valves supposedly closed, and it just blows into the airbox. Looks like the intake valves are stuck open, which means that they are probably burned. Did some research and found that the AP1 retainers are pretty weak. Mine didn't look damaged, so I'm guessing that the keepers failed or something.

Anyways, I'm gonna rip off the head this weekend and inspecting some more. I will need to buy a gasket set for the head and others, as well as replacement springs, retainers, and 2 valves I think. Anyone have any recommendations for these parts? There are some pretty cheap ebay gasket sets that include everything I need for about $100. Anyone try these out? Should I stick to OEM Honda or go with aftermarket? Same question for the valves, springs and retainers.

Any advice on what parts I should buy to prevent this issue again would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you do a compression test before buying the car?

 

that was my first question..

 

Ouch no compression in Cyl 3? Does this mean the engine is pooched or can the engine be salvaged with new retainers etc?

 

Bummer to hear this. As you know (cause you've seen with your eyes at PITL) you can get ones that go pretty quick, heavily modified and quite reliable.

I also think with one dead cylinder it's probably still quicker in autox than your silvia.

Anyhow your issues are atypical. Bad luck.

 

Did you over rev the engine at all?, it could be bent vales. The other common failure is due to oil starvation killing / scoring the one cylinder.

 

Yea I think its bent valves too. The s2k you bought it seems wasn't taken care of mechanically.

 

im gonna say cracked retainer. did the op look at some pics of how the cracked retainer looks from above

 

Yea, I'm thinking cracked retainers too. I don't remember over-reving the motor, but it is likely that it may have spun over 9000 on a downshift at the track or something. The retainers don't look cracked looking from above, but I am ripping the head off on the weekend and will do a closer inspection.

I called my local Honda dealership today and the retainers, keepers and springs are on back order. Can anyone recommend an aftermarket set, and where I can buy these from?

 

parts for these cars are always on backorder as they come from Japan, US sources always seem to carry them more than Canadian sources. Check with Speedstar ?

You know to change over to ap2 retainers, as they are more durable than ap1's.

2000 s2k's will typically have more issues than other years as many upgrades were made after that model year, but you likely got the car for a good price because of the year, so you should expect to put some money into it. It sounds like it wasn't taken care of very well either.