I did my valve clearances yesterday for the first time since having the car and when I took the rocker cover off I noticed that the tops of all the valve springs on the inlet side of the engine appear to have some sort of cream/beige build up on the top of the spring near the retainers. The only way I can describe it is similar to that of a burnt spark plug or limescale build up inside a kettle. However, this isn't present on the exhaust side and the springs look as normal with a nice coat of fresh oil.

Can someone take a look at this pic please and let me know if everything is as normal or whether there is something wrong?



Thanks in advance for any help or advice

 

From my experience of B series engine building the valve springs are colour coded at the top of the spring. IIRC my Integra type R springs where Blue and Green.

Those look yellow. The intake and exhaust springs should be different colours so take a look to see if they are different. Maybe check the Helms manual to see if it mentions anything about colour?

I'm sure someone will clarify soon enough.

 

How many miles has your engine done?

It may be the photo, but the low-lift cams look a little scored.

Mine were absolutely 'as new' @ 35,000; it was just the flappy bit out the block that was an issue.

The white stuff is mayonnaise. it's a mixture of water vapour & oil vapour and it does tend to form in moist, wintry conditions. All cars get it to a certain extent, especially if they're kept outdoors/short winter journeys wtc.

Again, mine didn't, because it's garaged and invariably thrashed red hot when it's driven.

You might move to six-monthly oil changes, but it's only a problem if your oil & rad cap start looking like the underside of the lid of a Hellman's jar. Then it's deffo a blown HG!

 

I don't mean to offend with what I'm about to say Nick as I really appreciate the time you've taken to both read and reply to my thread and know that you have a fair bit of technical experience with the S but I think your diagnosis of HGF is way off.

The car's a 2004 04 and has just done 37k with no reliability issues at all during my ownership. There are no obvious signs of overheating, it uses about 1 litre of oil between services and there is no loss of water/coolant from the system at all. The car also feels very tight with no performance issues at all.

There is no white stuff in the oil which would indicate an internal failure of the HG and I've had 2 HGF's in the past with other cars so know what I would be looking for there. I am 100% positive its not an issue like that.

I do see what you mean though when looking at the picture in relation to the lower lobes of the cam although I didn't notice it when I had the rocker off and the pic makes it look quite prominent. I may check it out tomorrow though if I can.

The cream coloured coating on the valve springs is baked on hard and thats what I have no idea about.

I already change the oil every 6k and currently run it on Silkolene Pro S and there is no expense spared with what I do with it.

I suppose the only variable in all of it is I have no idea what went on with previous owners of the car.

 

I think you are correct.

 

Re the cam lobes, if the car has spent only a little time in vtec it may be just more wear on the l/lift lobes, they don't look "swcored" as in oil feed problems.?
Mayo would have wiped off surely, id paint would have been my guess.

 

Removed a couple of posts - keep it friendly people

Nick pointed out that his post had been misread and was not suggesting there was HGF.

Back OT please.

 

The cam's IMHO look normal.

 

Not the way I drive, its rarely off cam

Could have had a sunday driver of an owner for a while at some point though as it only had 15k on the clock when I bought it 17 months ago!

 

Did a quick search on here.

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showt...0&#entry4778576

Intake are YELLOW springs,

Exhaust are BLUE

No way it's head gasket failure!!!? It's easy to throw around diagnosis like that