feel like an *** for asking but what does this do...

 

regular maintenance.

 

A certain gap needs to be maintained between the rocker and the valve stem to ensure that the valves open the proper amount as the engine rotates. Since metal to metal contact causes wear, the gap must be reset from time to time. Many/most modern cars have self adjusting lash. I'm not sure why we don't.

 

When do you do this? Just at the regularly scheduled service intervals? The service maintenance schedule states that it can be done anytime. What is loud? i.e. when would it be loud enough to do it before the scheduled time?

I can tell the engine noise from the valve cover is louder than when it was brand new but you can only hear it when the hood is open and listen. Just Curious.

FYI, I have just over 40,000km the last 5k with turbo.

 

30,000 miles normally, maybe a little more with turbo

 

Depends on how hard you drive I think.

 

Eh, I wouldn't think so. No matter how hard you drive, the load isn't really changing at the point where the rocker meets the valve stem.

 

that's arguable, but it is very near irrelevant to this end though. 30k miles should be good. like I said before turbo would make me want to check it more often; too much additional heat.

 

Thanks for the infor. Little leary of getting my dealership to do it b/c of some of the stories I've read on here while searching. My car is running great right now and I am scheduled to adjust the valve lash in about 6000 kms. I think it does need it but at the same time I would hate to get it back with a screwed idle or something like that.

 

this gets easier each time I do it.

I will say that I don't recommend the mass adjustment method in this thread to anyone with cam work done.

I did a "quick" adjustment, checking them all and changing the ones that were way off, before the dyno and I did it the long way this weekend because it had been ticking ever since. There is a big difference between having one cylinder at TDC and adjusting everything you can move and doing each cylinder at TDC.

If you look at the cam gear you can see the four spokes as you rotate the crankshaft. If you put those spokes perpendicular to the head one piston should be at TDC, adjust them one piston at a time and you won't have to worry if your additional duration messed with your adjustment. This is by far the easiest way to do the adjustment. If you are unsure which to adjust have a friend move the crank and adjust the one that just finished intaking.

 

Exactly, this is how i did it last night, if you take the t-belt cover off you can see the notch in the pulley for absolute TDC, then its a simple matter of rotating the crank 180* and following the firing order 1-3-4-2. from start to finish it only took about 30minutes, couldnt have been easier this way.

 

I have to adjust mine again.... I really hate it.

 

ok newb ? but what is tdc? I should know better

 

top dead center

 

I just called a few shops to ask if they could do a valve lash adjustment and they all said no. So, I called the dealership and asked how much it would be to adjust. He called me back and said that the mivec engines don't need it he said only the 2.0's do. So now i'm confused, almost all RA owners have had this done and the dealership is telling me that you don't need to on the RA? I thought It was vice versa, the 2.0's don't need valve lash adjusting.