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2012 SI Valve Adjustment Question

17K views 10 replies 10 participants last post by  scottyrocks 
#1 ·
Dealer wants $600.00 to do a valve adjust on my 148K mile Civic SI. I don't know a ton about valve adjustments but I know enough that 600.00 is pretty much robbery. I'm not afraid to get into the engine and do this myself. My question is does anything have the clearance numbers for my engine?
 
#2 · (Edited)
#6 ·
Talk the dealer down! I got the Glendale Honda dealership to perform my valve adjustment, oil change, and top off fluids for just under $400 out the door!! And Glendale is an expensive place to shop and live. Talk them down if you don’t have time to do it yourself.

And yes, our cars need to be dead cold �� when working on anything near the cylinder head. I have an 8th gen Si, but the work is essentially the same.
 
#9 ·
Is this an age of vehicle related maintenance as well as mileage? Was thinking about this the other day however my 13' only has 55k on it.
Time as perceived by humans is not a factor with regard to valve clearance... unless you want to make it a thing.

I checked the valve lash on my '12 EX a couple years ago at 31500 miles.
Only found one exhaust valve that needed adjusting, it was too tight, but not by much.
My service log notation says all other valve lash was at the max. allowable clearance; which is better than being tight.
Or, slightly noisy valves are happy valves. Though Honda recommends to adjust valve lash only if noisy.
(NOTE: we argued for years to remove the notation: adjust valve only if noisy, but Japan would not budge.)

The tight valve does not complain until the valve seat is damaged.

If you have kept the engine oil changed at recommended intervals. The valve lash on you engine should be ok for another 50k miles.
However, the only way to know for sure is to remove the valve cover and physically check them....
 
#8 ·
I have done it 3 times in the course of the last 238k miles. I may be a bit picky however...

Marko!
 
#11 · (Edited)
I've seen a really good video of a guy who shows the whole process on his 8th gen. Totally doable.



There are other videos that deal with this, but this one left nothing to chance.

And yes, the video deals with the R18 engine, but the process is there.
 
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