marcucci

I have to say that I was as shocked as anyone to see this. I've long thought that the cracking only occurred in extreme overrevs or was merely internet hype. This is now the second car that I've seen in the last two months that actually had cracked retainers. I haven't done them yet on my 2001 and I think I'm going to make it a priority now.

As for price... the retainers and new valve locks I can get for $95 for the full set. Valve cover gasket is $25 but may not be needed if yours is in good shape. I charge $200 labor, so $320 total if I do the work and source the parts.

I am glad we caught these in time!!! What's really frightening is that NO cracking was visible from up top, and I swore there was no difference visibly in how the valves/locks sat in the retainers. I thought they were all at the same height.

s2kobsession

You can't do a retainer inspection correctly unless you remove them. Unless they are actually that close to absolute failure it's it not noticable by just removing your valve cover.

S2k_MoZo

Glad you got it out of the way John.

I am super paranoid again and being so far far away from Todd is not helping at all

I need to drive down to Dallas one of these weekends to get this done, I have overrev'd my car once at tollway almost 18 months back and checked the retainers but I know you can't tell if they are cracked or not.

Todd, please save a set of retainers and keepers and whatever is needed for me, including the gasket and a set of oil jet bolts and I should be there soon to get this done. I hope the car will be okay for the 18 hour drive one way?

On a seperate note, if I don't drive it hard, just drive around 90 to 100mph at around 5K - 5500RPM for 18 hours to make it to Dallas, I should be fine, right?

If not, then I will rent a UHAUL and tow the car to you Todd, I just can't sleep at night anymore, nightmares every single night about all this crap

LMB2000

I think what it boils down to is that if you are a typical normal driver, this should not be an issue, or Honda would have put stronger parts in... But if you start abusing anything enough, it's bound to fail.

Jspd

Zo,

I think you would be okay to drive here, but can understand the concern of doing so! I had been keeping my shifting to around 4K and stayed out of VTEC the entire time I waited to get this done. I drove like this for approx 3 weeks and then skipped the auto-x.....and thank GOD I did.

Definitely get this done bro. I was freaking out when we started seeing these retainers all cracked. The pictures are good but when looking at them in person you can see how BAD they really are.

Come on up to Dallas. I'll take a PTO day and we can get your car all taken care of!

PilotSi

With that much cracking, wouldn't the collets be seated improperly from up top? I'd imagine that the collets would sit much lower than the retainer. Also I would think that valve lash would be way off spec as well...

I would guess these are two ways to check without actually removing the retainers. Well, looks like this will be on my list of to-dos since I live and breathe at redline.

Jspd

^ Nope the keepers were still holding tight up top while the bottom was cracking and spread apart. They just had not sunken down yet (worst case scenario) but could have dropped the valves with just a little more stress

Also I was able to have my valves adjusted without there being an issue since they had not become recessed and there was not any play in the seating of the retainer.

Those can be common identifiers of this issue but there were really not any symptoms that were recognizable

S2k_MoZo

I found this post by SC_Highlander from https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=748305:

S2k_MoZo

This has been a common problems with AP1s, that is why they changed the retainers in AP2 and everyone gets AP2 retainers for the intake side in AP1s.

Better be safe than sorry!

Jspd

Actually the car was never abused, simply driven as Honda had designed it to be driven. I am quite meticulous with service and maintenance. It is also quite common for people to downshift accidentally into the wrong gear but catch it before failure occurs. Possibly Honda had a batch of retainers that were installed where the fatigue/stress levels were less than par.

This also begs the question: Why do AP2 motors have a much different retainer design?

Lesson here is spend the money and replace them as an insurance policy on your motor.