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I’ve had mine checked twice and no adjustment has been required. I wonder if the bikes with tight valve clearances were put together like that.

Oil checking is measured in cheese rolls....... 🙂 Cycling on saturday morning between 6-8AM is measured in sausage rolls... T'was kinda kinda foggy this morning..

Hey Grum. I can provide the 2nd example of that phenomenon. At 30,000 miles (50,000 or so km's), I checked mine and found all 8 VTEC and 3 standard valves to be way tight. At first I thought that couldn't be right for all the reasons normally mentioned, including only part time VTEC operation. I thought that I had to be wrong, that I'd made a mistake. So, I made no adjustments and put the entire thing back together. It ran fine, pulled and sounded as before. No issues. When the weather really turned bad and it wouldn't be ridden for some months, I dug in to it again (I was now faster as I was better at it). Same result. So, figuring somehow I was missing something or was measuring incorrectly, I got a friend, a 30 year A&P mechanic who's owned numerous Honda M/C's and wrenched on them personally, to come over and check them. I purposely kept quiet my findings and just told him that I was struggling with the check and if he would have a look. I didn't influence him in any way to be looking for what I thought was happening. I had cams in and pins out of the VTEC buckets so he'd have to do everything except strip the bike down. I left him with tools, pin latches, the procedure and explanatory working of the VTEC latches. I then left him for a several hours with some pizza and cold snacks. When I came back he had finished measuring, but the cams were still in and he hadn't removed the latch pins. I asked him "so, what did you find?" As he handed me the paper with his measurements he replied "your 8 VTEC buckets are tight and you have 3 of the others that are tight." Looking at his measurements, they weren't quite identical to mine, but they were very close and the other 3 he measured as tight were the same ones I had. I still do not know what could have caused that and it still seems counter intuitive. It's a very expensive fix as the VTEC buckets are over $250, significantly more if purchased at list price. The bike's back together and running, though I've had a hard time reconciling how owners have run them over 100,000 without adjusting the valve with no issues. I can't speak to anyone else's bike - that was just my experience with it.

Cos I sold the bike.

Thanks Cogs. That's a great story and fantastic having the mechanic backup your findings, it also reinforces you were most certainly doing things right, and I would never doubt your experience and expertise. I stand corrected, yours is now the second bike I've heard of where all vtec valves were tight! Cheers

Here in Oz we rate jobs by how many six packs (beer) you need to complete the task, looks like in the Netherlands they use the sausage roll rating 😂

Pretty interesting how engine design, oil used, etc. all has such an impact. I bought a CB-1 in 2020 with just under 12k miles on it. It has 16k intervals but I checked it anyway. 12 out of 16 were out of spec. My prior CB-1 wasn't out of spec until 32k, when only 7 were out of spec. (Shim under bucket.) My FJs would run about 1/2 out of spec at each 16k, mostly exhaust. The cars (screw type adjusters) get checked every 105k adn seem to be 6-8 out of spec out of 16 valves. I ride so little to what I used to do that I think I'll leave the VFR ones alone! No funny noises, smoke, or loss in power.