I posted in the itr forum, but thought I would show you guys as well:

Well I haven't driven my hatch in like a month because I've been thinking it's about time for me to change the timing belt (I like to change it every 15k miles or so).

This past weekend, I stopped by .RJ's to pick up a rollbar and help with his timing belt as it was slightly loose.

I was thinking I should check the tension on the one on my hatch as well - seeing as how it wasn't as tight as is used to be the last time I checked it..... So I removed the valve cover and upper timing belt cover and gave it a once-over.

Here's the pics (I haven't tensioned it since I installed it new 20k miles ago - zero deflection at that time). Look at it now:






And then I used the coathanger method shown to me by Willard and Jack:




tools of the trade (torque to 40ft/lb)




done




Ok, now I was going to do a valve lash adjustment but it was getting late so I decided to postpone. I gave the head a once-over and decided to look at the retainers as Jack had mentioned a while back to keep an eye on the Ti ones as they sometimes wear thin.....

Here's the pics - they didn't look thin, but they did look like little mice had been chewing the edges of about 8 of them:










Has anyone experienced anything like this before?

Things to be taken into account for this motor:

'00 usdm itr motor
all of the above miles have been on toda valvetrain, and toda spec B or spec C camshafts
rev limiter is set at 9500 although it has had a couple zings to 12k rpm...
These are fairly recent occurences for the retainers - within the last 5k miles or so (I will check my odo log book tomorrow)...

Thoughts?

I will email Tom Fujita and see what he says as well.

[edit]

I don't want to go back to stock retainers. It has been suggested to me that had I been running stock retainers, they would have cracked and broken whereas these have merely chipped.
I just don't trust stock retainers to 10k+ rpm reliably.

I know plenty of people who have broken stock retainers and it just isn't pretty.

I need a retainer that I feel will not fail under any circumstances.

If I need to cryo/ nitride/ treat, etc; I have no problem in doing so.


Here's what Tom Fujita has emailed me:

"--- info <info@portflow.com> wrote:
> looks like the rocker is hitting the retainer
> any mods done to the lost motion ?
> i have seen a customer that had H22 lost motion assy.
> and was hitting the retainer just like that
> or
> this seems to happen when the engine is at high RPM
> and the vtec is not working correctly
> only need to happen once
>
>
> "

[edit]

Mine haven't gotten thinner at all, visibly. I will check with micrometer calipers when they come out just to be sure.

But the chipping around the edges leads me to believe they ARE hitting the rocker arms at the cams greatest lift - vtec.

Perhaps those zings to 12k weren't the healthiest things to do for the motor.....?

[edit]

I have spoken with Rocket, and he says with his retainers and toda valve spring kit, it will be 1.350" install height .
I wonder what the portflow retainers put my install height at.....

[/edit]

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Black R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

But the chipping around the edges leads me to believe they ARE hitting the rocker arms at the cams greatest lift - vtec.


</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hitting the rocker arms under max lift during VTEC?? That does not seem correct because max lift is going to give you max compression of the spring so the retainers should be father away from the rocker pads. You need to check the Clarence when the spring is relaxed, so to speak, when the valve is closed. Please someone correct me if I’m wrong.

 

hmm, very interesting. If the retainers are tapping the rockers arms, now we know why Ti retainers wear out, because they rotate on the valve spring. However, this could also be caused the Ti being chipped off by high speed vibrations of 9-12k RPM. Ti, while stronger 1:1 compared to steel, itsn't it more brittle? Just throwing out ideas here.

 

eek, no more 12k tachometer visits please. Thats just so scary and so much force on the rotating assembly. Honda was saying how the stresses on the reciprocating assembly nearly double from 8000pm to 9000rpm. Perhaps the chips could be stress cracks from the retainer warping at such high load and rpms.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DavidR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Ti, while stronger 1:1 compared to steel, itsn't it more brittle? Just throwing out ideas here.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That depends on the grade of Ti. My older set of Portflow retainers were not hard at all. Hard=brittle and the Portflow retainers I had were not hard at all.
I did a hardness test on a few of them and I was surprised how soft they were.

If you ask me, the reason people have wear problems, is because the retainers are not hard enough. The next set I get I will have them coated to bring up the hardness.

 

It is the underside of the two primary lobe rockers that is hitting the edges of the retainer.

Big lift and big RPM can do this. Do you have cut valve guides or old valve guides as well?

One option for you would be to remove the rockers arms and grind off some material from the underside of each one. This will give youa rocker similar to WEB or Phantom grip. If you have TODA SPEC C's and smushed or worn out LMA's the VTEC rocker might not be getting a sufficient spring back and now he rocker pad is not coming up as quick as the valve spring is decompressing and bang you get a touch of rocker to retainer contact.

Great find by the way.- As I run to go pull my valve cover and take a look.

 

i dont think theres a reason to got up to 12k...does your motor make power up there? other than that...probably make sure the valves are adjusted properly...just my thoughts..good luck because i got those retainers too, assembled by none other than mr fujita himself

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by asubennett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It is the underside of the two primary lobe rockers that is hitting the edges of the retainer?</TD></TR></TABLE>

That is the consensus. This is happening on only about 1/2 of the retainers...

The head has never been removed from the block.

The valvesprings and retainers were installed using compressed air.

The 12k visits were purely accidental. But better a little retainer wear than a blown motor.

I will do a full blown check of valves and lash next - along with compression and leakdown. I did find it interesting, however, that the parts of the Ti retainers that were missing/ chipped aren't load bearing parts - so the car is still drivable (imho).

One other little tidbit of info that I omitted - I noticed shortly after installing the spec c's as 0,0 that the exhaust cam gear slipped and retarded a full 20 degrees...

Perhaps that might have to do with it - as the most worn retainers were on the exhaust side...!

 

Ouch minus 20!

Hopefully the leak down doesn't show bent exhaust valves.

Do your LMA's tick at all. I would think they would for sure lead to rocker to retainer contact once they start to give way.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by asubennett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Ouch minus 20!

Hopefully the leak down doesn't show bent exhaust valves.

Do your LMA's tick at all. I would think they would for sure lead to rocker to retainer contact once they start to give way.</TD></TR></TABLE>


With such low mileage (~35k on motor and ~20k on cams + valvetrain + timing belt), I wouldn't have thought the LMA would be a risk.....

 

20k on toda cams could do a number on a LMA. Those are some big lift cams.