OT: So much for Honda reliability

[goose]

North Carolina! Is that the new gold-rush?
City hall here can't mainain it's own properly, due to a quarter of the city is abandoned.
I have to do my own roofing, at my age, a professional job i$ beyound reach.
And there are tarps over a few roofs on every block now.

Sure I'll run out and buy a new car tomorrow!

Not saying buying a new car is a trivial expenditure, by any means.
What I'm saying is a $5000 car trade-in value is worth more (to me) than holding onto the vehicle for a few more years, keep throwing parts at it, and still ending up with a $500 car in scrap value.

[bob_s]

Just tore into my 30 year old Nissan this past week on an unrelated issue (L24e broken exhaust manifold bolts) and found that at 150+k miles the wear on the timing chain drive does not even approach the first adjustment setting.

Pleased with that, but not so much with gasket failure with the usage of extended drain period anti-freeze. Should have checked with the forum first.

[boslab]

Well i suppose the moral of the OP is, when the check engine light is on, you know the check engine light is working
Mark

[vpt]

Exactly. Older Hondas with timing belts used the VTEC system. (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control) Newer Hondas require timing chains in part because of the newer VTC system that changes the phase of the camshaft itself, rather than switching to an extra set of cam lobes on the VTEC engines.

Fords VVT and mitsubishis mivec and subarus do that very same thing all with belts.

[MotorradMike]

Well i suppose the moral of the OP is, when the check engine light is on, you know the check engine light is working
Mark

HaHa, yes, and;
Not everyone knows what the graphic means.
My wife told me there was a very oddly shaped light on, not everyone recognizes the side view of a big ol' V8.

[justanengineer]

Most often when a belt is worn out, it breaks or slips, no good on an interference engine. When chains wear, they reduce performance but generally don't break until long after a 'normal' person would have the engine checked out.

+1. JME as well, but if someone has treated their vehicle decently and it wasnt a POS to begin with, chains are like clutches and head gaskets - they should last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Personally I was never a fan of Honda cars, tinny rusted POS theyve always been, but Honda motorcycles I believe to be in a totally separate class.

[vpt]

+1. JME as well, but if someone has treated their vehicle decently and it wasnt a POS to begin with, chains are like clutches and head gaskets - they should last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Personally I was never a fan of Honda cars, tinny rusted POS theyve always been, but Honda motorcycles I believe to be in a totally separate class.

And honda generators, lawn mowers, pressure washers, water pumps, wave runners, dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, and jets.

[Bob Fisher]

Four cars in sixteen years? I'll stick with my AMERICAN cars, thank you. Never changed a timing chain in my life, and I'm no youngster at 78. Bob.

[Arcane]

If you're looking for a high quality oil try http://www.texasrefinery.com/

[MrFluffy]

Meanwhile... My mitsubishi 2.6 pajero threw its balancer shaft chain twice in my ownership of about 40,000 miles, which also happens to drive the oil pump.
Both times the engine was toast, the first one might have just been previous owners as it was within 20k of the change interval and the second might have been the garage botching the job of replacing it pre-emptively as it threw the second one 30k into having it, who knows. The second time I scrapped it out in disgust and bought a landrover which is actually working out quite well in comparison reliability wise and is certainly working out parts price wise in comparison. Its got a belt though...

[martik]

With Honda's less than failsafe tensioner design, it could be it just skipped a tooth or 2 and it's not stretched at all. Here's an improved version:

http://cms.skunk2.com/id/389/K-Series-Tensioners-The-Solution/

[Royldean]

With Honda's less than failsafe tensioner design, it could be it just skipped a tooth or 2 and it's not stretched at all. Here's an improved version:

http://cms.skunk2.com/id/389/K-Serie...-The-Solution/

So what was the milage on the car?

[saltmine]

We used to have timing chain wear problems on many American cars.....That was until the advent of roller tappet camshafts and distributorless ignition. Using high quality synthetic oil all but guarantees a long service life. I've never been a fan of variable cam timing. It seems like cheap oil and poor maintenance can render almost any VVT setup on the planet inop in no time at all, completely destroying any technological or environmental advantage it may have posed. K.I.S.S. Regardless of how many cylinders you have, or what configuration they are, you only need one camshaft to open & close the valves. Adding more cams and advance / retard doohickeys not only complicate the design, but add tons of frictional losses. BTW, I recall one car that didn't have or need a camshaft. It was the Tucker. When Forrest Tucker designed the first engine for his famous car, he proposed a rear mounted, liquid cooled, horizontally opposed, eight cylinder engine. The task of opening and closing the valves was handled by a hydraulic distributor and pump that used engine oil. Unfortunately, they were never put into production, due to air bubbles getting into the lines, disrupting valve timing.
The majority of the 50 Tuckers built were powered by a rear mounted, "Air Cooled Motors" six-cylinder helicopter engine.

[Guido]

Honda Indy engines

SIL managed a welding supply outfit in Valencia, Ca. His favorite customer was an engine shop around the corner. Yep, Honda V8 Indy engines from the git go. Ideas and designs came from Honda engineering, these guys assembled, tested and reported results.

The engine shop has three dyno cells. Interesting place to visit, if you can get past the front desk.

--G

[A.K. Boomer]

All these decades now that the honda V-tech system has been out and I have yet to see one related failure of this system, and that includes pure negligence of the owners running cheap lube and for long periods of time,,,

they are simply amazing to say the least,

mine kicks in @4,700 rpms and is computer controlled hydraulically actuated, then four spring loaded free floating pins slide sideways on a rocker arm connecting another rocker arm and it goes from having the stump pulling power down low to then coming on strong all the way up to 7,200 rpms.

so when im sporting around it means that just about every shift 4 of these pins are engaging and disengaging,,, yet @ 200,000 miles + there is no sign of any detectible wear where the rockers engage,,,

and if you think for some reason that it's some kind of a "gimmick" you would be greatly mistaken,,, I just have the D-1600 single overhead cam V-tech that controls the most dominant valves, the intake

The DOHC B-1600 controls both it's intake and exhaust valves,,, it engages its pins @ around 5,200 RPMs all the way up to it's box stock redline of 8,200 rpm's (but the rev limiter does not kick in till well after 8,500 and it's perfectly happy to set you back in the seat all the way through and past )

So back to the people who think it's a gimmick,,, they simply don't know much about engines --- the DOHC B-1600 V-tech hound dawg was the automotive worlds highest hp per cubic inch engine ever in mass production when it came out,,, normally aspirated of course,,, 160 ponies out of a NA 1.6 liter,,,
those that don't have respect for honda simply do not know much about honda's -- either that or it's too much excitement and they know they would just be soiling themselves behind the wheel...

Their not perfect --- and like so many car companies they are now getting further away from what makes up a good car,,,

now it's all about gadgets and gimmicks for just about everybody... I won't be a wrench too much longer...