I've always believed in Honda engineering and assumed the S2000 engine to be bulletproof, even at sustained high revs. Hell, I've seen a dyno of it at 8500 rpms with 25 hours logged, going for 350+.

But, I just talked to a performance shop and they said they've heard of a lot of complaints about the engine being weak. The rods suck, the pistons suck, the thing breaks all the time...and they have a busted bottom end in the back as evidence. They also mentioned something about ceramic cylinder walls. I never heard of that, and it doesn't seem right...is it true?

But anyways, what's the story? Is the engine that bad? I want to hear mainly from the people that redline every gear and race it, which I'm hoping is most people that own it .

Did Honda drop the ball on the S2000 motor? Say it ain't so....

 

that is totally untrue. Me and my friend have raced his stock S2K (motor wise) for 30,000 miles already. I mean race! like over 10 track events (laguna seca, buttonwillow, thunderhill, sears point) and the car is still running perfect! with exception from having to replace brake pads so often from track events, the car holds up just fine! Whoever told you its not reliable is just s2k envy or saw a lemon s2k.

 

I saw a Consumer Reports magazine recently, and sure enough the S2000 got a perfect reliability score.

Look what a friend of mine found this afternoon, though:

http://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthrea...ight=4+failure

Apparently Honda did a recall on something in the engine over in Europe....

 

My friends Mugen S2000 had the same problem with #4 and from what i know of is that Honda knew about this problem and fixed the S2k at no cost to the owner...

 

if there are reliabilty complaints against the s2k i'd say its not the motor, but more the transmission. that is definetly the weak link of the car. granted they supposedly addressed most of the issues in the 2002 car ( we'll see) but i havent really heard much against the engine

 

OH NO NOT A MAINTENANCE REQUIRED LIGHT!!! THen maybe you should take it for service, or just shut it off yourself.... CEL is on prolly cuz you didn't tighten the gas cap


[Modified by mr. skelly, 4:46 PM 6/21/2002]

 

maybe you got a lemon. but by the sound of it.. looks like you need to do a little reading from your owners manual. things like the maintenence required light is something you should know about.. panicking over that is pretty funny.

did you break in your car correctly?

 

I was one of the first people in Australia to get an S2000. I got mine in September 1999 and I have had no problems with it whatsoever. I drive it hard but I don't really flog the **** out of it. It still perorms as well as it did when I got it.

 

well honda's have always been known for their reliability. but i have heard a few stories about the s2k. due to its high reving/high compression nature, its to my understanding the head gasket and all 8 piston rings are the first to go. but i have heard one hell of a horror story. the place where we rented one on the vegas strip used to have a silver one (not the red one we rented) however, some idiot took it out was driving in 5th at 8000rpm and down shifted to 2nd. to make a long story short he blew a hole in the block!

 

high rev's are bad, but the engine is designed to take the stresses of high rev's, so it should be fine. and as said consumer reports gave it a PERFECT score, which surprised me cuz of the high performance nature of the car.

 

In 5th at 8k? How fast was he going? And you HAVE to be a dumbass to take it out of 5th to put it in 2nd even on accident, why would you take it out in the first place?
I can understand the popular from the top of 3rd to 2nd mishift, but 5th to 2nd is just stupid!

 

If the story is correct, He would have been going ~130mph if it was 5th at 8,000rpm. (5th redlines at ~145mph)

And no, its not likely he would put a hole into the block doing that. The F20C is an invasive engine, he would have likely damaged the valve guides, bent or snapped a ton of valves, and possibly damaged the piston tops. The likely hood of tossing the crank out the side of the block is fringe at best.

 

thats what happens when you trie to get all that HP out of a lil engine, I guess Honda need to do better.

 

Not always. Honda happens to have a reputation for getting all that HP out of a lil engine, and incidentally for some of the most reliable and durable products in the industry. That's also what happens when you try to get all that HP out of a lil engine.

 

All I know is my S2000 runs perfectly and i do autocross it, no problems what so ever...

 

Your "performance shop" probably doesn't know very much. Worldwide less than a 200 engines have suffered failures. Owner abuse accounts for 80% of those and includes running the car without oil and silly people shifting in 1st at a 100mph and so on. So that's maybe 40 failures out of 28,000 cars world wide. 14 of those from an imperfect #4 cylinder casting that would cause acute oil starvation. I challenge you to find a motor in its third year of production with a better record. PERIOD.

The rods are titanium and good for 550hp, the pistons are perfect, and they probably have the busted bottom end from some Turbo experiment. Did they actually tell what was wrong with these components? I didn't think so. The cylinder sleeves are a carbon fiber composite not a ceramic. The engine is very over-engineered and has won a bazzilion of awards for some reason and its not because some body's friend in some ghetto aftermarket hack shop which sells more headlights than piston sets said it sucks.

 

You seem like you're pissed/ annoyed at something. I don't know if it's with the "performance shop" or myself, but keep in mind that I didn't take this "performance shop's" word for it but instead went online to get other people's take on the situation before I lost all respect for Honda.

I didn't take their word for it becasue in fact they do sell more headlights and super-spoilers than piston sets. As of my stance on the subject right now....if I had the money I would go out and buy an S2000, and redline the engine on every given occasion without thinking twice.

 

I don't think any engine is gonna take redlining every day and still be in goodrunning order after too long...

 

I redlined my b16 not every day, but every chance I got. I would break the speed limit by an extra 10mph just to redline it (then I would slow down). I would even downshift on the highway to redline it, just for the hell of it. I did this for over a year. In that year, I put around 30k city miles on it including 100+ timeslips at the track and pizza delivery for 3 months. This on top of the supposed 30k it had when it was imported from a Japanese junkyard. None of this is an exaggeration. Then, the car was totaled.

I also watched at my work an S2000 motor log 25 hours at 8500rpm. Honda told them that at ~350 hours a rocker or something would break. 350 hours at close to redline was what that thing was designed for. After reading replies to this post and my experience with Honda engines, I don't doubt that it could do it.

People need to lose their fright of redlining an engine. That's ideally what they test the things at before they slap a warranty on it. If I was afraid of redlining a Honda engine, I would have gone with Chevy or Ford a long time ago.

BTW, I now drive what used to be my mom's car, a Mitsubishi Galant automatic. It's a mind-numbing excuse for a car, but it's been getting redlined for the past 7000 miles.


[Modified by Lsos, 6:45 AM 7/3/2002]

 

Its been a rough day and I've seen way too many posts with an inaccurate or subjective tilt lately. I understand that these were the opinion of the shop and not your personal views. I'm just letting off steam and trying to nip it in the bud. People actually email me with questions and refer to threads like this without reading them completely. They see "crappy rods" and suddenly its gosphel...

I seriously have a vendetta against bad info, so keep in mind where I am coming from.

 

exactly.. how many of those shops have even worked on S2000s? it's always "there's this 'performance' shop that i went to that heard that the S2000 has a weak motor" blah blah...

weak motor?
-9000 RPM redline
-FRM cylinders
-aluminum main bearing support w/ cast iron bearing inserts
-forged aluminum pistons
-heat-treated forged steel connecting rods
-11:1 compression ratio
-compact, two-stage cam drive w/ silent chain & autotensioner

the shops that are saying it has weak pistons or weak rods probably think that it has a weak distributor too (distributor-less).. just plain stupid. don't look to morons like that to give you advice or work on your car. talk to S owners if you have a question about the S. i know that i'd be willing to answer questions if someone was interested.

 

Have any of you experienced problems with the differential or the motor consuming too much oil?

-kenji

 

If you abuse the car with RPM clutch drops or hang your tail out every turn, the diff will fail in due time.

Oil consuption is normal during engine breakin. I won't get into the technical reasons unless you are just dying for me to put you to sleep with a long story. Most owners will see consumption for the first 10,000 miles. Less if you drive the car pretty hard. Oil consuption is around 1-2 qts for the first thousand miles and then less and less. If you are using less than a qt every 1,000miles and you have over 10,000miles on the odo you are pretty normal. High performance engines use oil, its a fact of life and a characteristic of its design.

 

First post so go easy.

My S2000 has been more then reliable. So far only oil changes and tires in the first 20,000 miles.

I will go out on a limb and say at least 50% of the failures are due to oil consumbtion problems early in the breakin period or due to overrev. The rest oil starvation and sparkplug breakages. Due to the high compression and design of the motor it has created a unique situation of a timing colitions happen with a overrev. In effect the valves smack right into the pistons. A 5 to 2 shift in a S is real easy to do becasue the shifter is so smooth, and not everybody who can afford a sports car can drive perfectly.

Other then that it's all good.

On a side note my car consumed about 3 quarts of oil over the first 1000 miles. Now not a drop, I still check every gas fillup but its all good. Just be carefull on your break in and you should be fine.

 

I have about heard this issues with the early S2000's regarding the #4 piston oil starvation and spark plug miscues. And it kind of worries me becuase I have a brand new '02m S2K. But I think with proper break-in period, proper driving techniques, and proper maintenance this should not bea problem indicative to every S2K engine.