Broken valvespring

[D1sclaimer]

How common of a failure is this? It just seems weird as my car is stock except for a header and test pipe. Stock cam and everything else. It does have 234k miles though.

A few days ago I got some knocking noise. I originally thought it was piston slap as it'd get better as the engine warmed up. Well, I did my timing belt, water pump, etc today and decided to do a valve adjustment. This is what I found. All of the other springs look fine.

[92smokeaccord]

yeah stock 20 year old parts tend to break......word of advice dont start it up till u fix it.....those retainerclips come loose and bye bye motor!

[D1sclaimer]

yeah stock 20 year old parts tend to break......word of advice dont start it up till u fix it.....those retainerclips come loose and bye bye motor!

Well, yeah, but valvesprings?

[92smokeaccord]

Well, yeah, but valvesprings?

yeah deff...u ever see a suspension spring snap?almost every car iv swaped springs in had atleast 2 coils snaped....ur valve train takes one hell of a beating...my guess is that a prev owner did the valve lash to tight..

[D1sclaimer]

Yeah, I found the valve lash was way too tight before I adjusted it.

[92smokeaccord]

Yeah, I found the valve lash was way too tight before I adjusted it.

well there u go!stupid prev owner!

[HondaFan81]

Valve spring fracture on our F22ax engines are not common. I've worked on various with well over 200K miles and have not seen this to date. However, with very tight valve lash, you could get this and is what seems to be your case.

I'm not saying that valve springs will never fracture, but I have not seen one and my bro's 90 EX has about 380K miles on it now (most miles on F22ax I've worked on).

Put it this way, if I were putting together a cylinder head for higher RPMs or aftermarket camshaft, more than likely would supplement with new aftermarket valve springs. Although tested good condition, lower mileage stock F22ax springs are fine with milder regrind camshafts.

[D1sclaimer]

I finally got to replace the spring today and had to drive the Accord for 400 miles since I found it broken. UPS failed me again and decided to ship my hose to connect the compressor to the spark plug hole halfway across the country in the wrong direction so it took a long time to get it. I swapped in my f22a6 cam while I had it apart tonight.

Heres what she looks like off of the head.

[F22HB]

Holy hell this is the first I've ever seen on a stock F22.

[old honda tek]

if you swapped to a a6 cam i hope you bought new a6 valve springs ., they are stiffer than a1-a4 springs...........

[D1sclaimer]

if you swapped to a a6 cam i hope you bought new a6 valve springs ., they are stiffer than a1-a4 springs...........

The cams are minutely different. I see no need to swap out all the springs for such a small change. All of the springs looks fine. People run Bisi stage 2 cams and Delta 272 cams on stock f22a1 springs with no issues.

Telling someone to swap out all of their springs for such a small change would just waste their time.

[xkjnboix]

The cams are minutely different. I see no need to swap out all the springs for such a small change. All of the springs looks fine. People run Bisi stage 2 cams and Delta 272 cams on stock f22a1 springs with no issues.

Telling someone to swap out all of their springs for such a small change would just waste their time.

not necessarily, the a6 springs are different from the a1's. glad you found the problem and got it fixed w/o great trouble or expense

[foamypirate]

not necessarily, the a6 springs are different from the a1's. glad you found the problem and got it fixed w/o great trouble or expense

He knows the springs are different. What he is saying, is that the cams are so minutely different, it's not worth the cost and effort to swap out all of the springs.

[wed3k]

i think what i found it was that it may be 5lbs stiffer on the seat. the a6 also uses different lengths valves so everything may be compensated.

maybe the spring just got hot and lost its elasticity.

[D1sclaimer]

i think what i found it was that it may be 5lbs stiffer on the seat. the a6 also uses different lengths valves so everything may be compensated.

maybe the spring just got hot and lost its elasticity.

Well, I'm 90% sure it snapped right during a cold start as thats when I noticed it and didn't notice it before. It just got cold again a few weeks ago for winter so I don't know if temperature and overall wear and tear played a part.

I also just did a parts lookup versus a 93 SE verses my 91 DX and the part numbers for the valves are the exact same. This was on Majestic Honda. Are you sure the lengths of the valves are different?