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Head is still apart. I got my gasket pack and valve seals today. Need to consult the bible for the trick to getting them out- a set of pliers seems very wrong. So I get the valve seals out (the things with the spring around it) and this is where I have a question. Do I need to get valve guides as well, and anything else? How much do these guys run.
Seals
There's no trick to removing valve seals. Just grab them with a pair of pliers and pull em off. You will probably destroy them so make sure when you tap the news ones on you match up the intake seals on the intake side and exhaust on the exhaust side cause you don't want to hafta pull em off. When re-installing the seals just push them on evenly with your thumb and tap them into place by using a deep 10mm socket. Maybe use a little oil to make them slide right on.
Guides
My advice is to leave this to the pros. You need to change your guides if they're out of tolerance. This might be difficult for you to determine without precise measuring tools and experience. For example the valve stem to guide clearance for a D16 engine is:
So to check the clearance you need a dial gauge to measure the movement while extending the valve out 10mm. Do you think you can do this accurately? The machine shop I use has a set of stems all different sizes that they just insert into the guide to see if they fit. It's very simple and accurate.
Now guides are only a few bucks a piece so you might think, what the hell, I'll just replace them. This would involve heating up the head, rapidly cooling the guide, and banging them out. To re-install again you would heat up the head (in your oven), put the new guides in the freezer and put them in. When doing this you run the risk of warping the head from heating it up unevenly or having a seat fall out (cause they are pressed in as well). My machine shop doesn't heat up the head when replacing the guides, they use super cooled gas (freon maybe) to cool (and shrink) the guide and then they press them in or out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRIZ
Also I am thinking about pushing the install date back as well and picking up new valves as well. Comments on .5mm and 1mm oversized valves? Comments on the stainless/ vs coated
Oversized valves
I wish I knew more about the tradeoffs on oversized valves. Obviously, it will flow more air into the CC and that may or may not be beneficial or detrimental. You can get the same effect by swapping a cam with longer duration and you can always swap the OEM cam back if it doesn't work out.
Stainless vs Coated
The thing that I think is most beneficial here is the weight of the valves. Are the stainless valves lighter? The benefit here is that they'll be less friction. But I read that you will mostly benefit at high rpms and you may also need to replace your springs so that the valves don't float. Otherwise, I guess stainless does what, resist corrosion? resist carbonization? Stock valves are very good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRIZ
I'm looking for aprox. prices on what it will cost in parts for whatever else I need aside from the valve seals I already have, and the valves I will be getting. What else will be needed like valve angleing or anything that I shouldnt be able to do myself? Also whats this on the 3 or 5 degree angleing job? Prices on having the machine shop hook up the head to run the oversized valves as well would be helpful.
Valve seat cutting/angling
A stock Honda head comes with a 3 angle cut 30/45/90. A 5 angle cut would be an enhancement that is intended to improve the tulip shaped air flow around the valve head. By reducing the amount of cornering the air molecules have to do, the more volume and velocity can be achieved. However, the trade-off is that the surface area where the valve contacts the seat is reduced, thus reducing the heat transfer from the valve to the head. This increases the chances for detonation and burnt valves from overheating. My advice for daily drivers is to go with the 3 angle cut. Machine shops use CNC machines that do this very accurately eliminating the need to lap them in afterwards during assembly.
So, what to do?
I would strip the head bare and take it (or even ship it) to a machine shop that has experience with Honda engines. Have them check the service limits of the guides and replace any that are out of spec. I was charged $14 for the guide alone. Have them cut your seats to the OEM 3-angle specs. Then have them flatten all mating surfaces (intake/exhaust manifolds and block). Don't mill to add compression unless that's what you want. Then have them hot tank it. All of the above cost me $210 with 1 guide replaced (I broke it trying to hammer it out). Then you do all the reassembly. This will give you the satifaction of doing as much of the rebuild work that is practical while ending up with high quality results.
Other stuff
Get ARP head studs. Most guys use them to prevent head lift in high boost applications. But the other thing is that they don't stretch like OEM head bolts and therefore they can be re-used. This can come in handy in case you need to remove the head again after you install.
Go with an OEM head gasket. I wouldn't use any kind of copper spray or special gasket sealer.
Re: DIY - Valve spring/retainer/valve removal - VIDEO
Alright sql_civic, thats worthy of my rep any day.
So basically a guide is ~15 bucks - same price as an aftermarket valve. Thoes will add up to 500 bucks alone, expensive. *sigh* I guess I will give my machine shop a call and see what its going to cost to get them to check it out. I'll also call honda and see what they charge to make sure they are in spec.
I think I'm good on the headstuds for now. They should be good for three head removeals. Just gotta wonder what the honda delership has done to it. Hmm..
I let my boss know I wasnt getting enough hours yesterday. Def time to get another job.
Need a new thread for the valve questions I guess. I got the stage 2 cam thats supporting this build- so that will come into play. Need some more well versed members who can speak from experience.
I think I'll skip the angle job unless someone comes through with a little more convincing story on why it'll be better for me to get it.
Anyways, you have my rep! We'll see what other questions come out of the build. Thanks.
Oh, how much head rebuilding experience do you have?
Re: DIY - Valve spring/retainer/valve removal - VIDEO
My friend is in the process of tearing apart his B18A1 block to clean it up and whatnot. He decided to do this since he pulled the engine anyways after his tranny blew up on him. Anyways, he couldn't find a valve spring compressor attachment that would work with the B18A1 and he wanted to replace the valve seals and our results: holy shit. lol.. we got them done, but our fingers hella hurt now.. lol.. and we went through a lot of zip ties to help get the keepers back on.
Anyways, what we did to get the seals off was going to sears and picking up one of these. sure, it gave us potential to eat up the head, and yes, it did mangle up the old seals, but it worked. Just using this to work at it from side to side to pull it up and finally using a set of pliers to get it the rest of the way. We started out at about 15 minutes a valve (which included removing the keepers, retainers, springs, valves, and seals, replacing the valve seal and putting it all back together), but then we finally cut our time down to about 2-5 minutes a valve.
Re: DIY - Valve spring/retainer/valve removal - VIDEO
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRIZ
Alright sql_civic, thats worthy of my rep any day.
So basically a guide is ~15 bucks - same price as an aftermarket valve. Thoes will add up to 500 bucks alone, expensive. *sigh* I guess I will give my machine shop a call and see what its going to cost to get them to check it out. I'll also call honda and see what they charge to make sure they are in spec.
Well a guide in my neck of the woods it was ~$15 for a supposedly "better than OEM" guide according to my machine shop. Things in general are more pricey than the rest of the country. I wouldn't sweat it until you know if they're in spec or not. I seen heads with 90k miles on them still in spec.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRIZ
I think I'm good on the headstuds for now. They should be good for three head removeals. Just gotta wonder what the honda delership has done to it. Hmm..
Gee, I don't know about this. Honda head bolts were designed to stretch and I don't think they can stretch more than once. ARP studs are only around $100. Here's a worthwhile article.
"Check bolt lengths. Make sure you have the correct length bolts for the application and for each hole location (some holes require longer or shorter bolts than others). Bolts should also be measured or compared to one another to check for stretch. Any bolt found to be stretched must be replaced because (1) it may be dangerously weak; (2) it won't hold torque properly; and (3) it may bottom out when installed in a blind hole."
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRIZ
Oh, how much head rebuilding experience do you have?
I'm not a pro. My father and Uncle were mechanics. I've done about 4 Honda heads in the last year or so. But my first was a 72 Vega (POS) back in the late 70's.
Re: DIY - Valve spring/retainer/valve removal - VIDEO
Well, TRIZ explain why you think that bigger exhaust valves are "better". There seems to be a general notion on forums like these that seem to promote the idea that improving air flow means increasing the size of all the air passageways. More air is more better cause it brings in more combustible oxygen. In other words more volume improve performance. But when it comes to engine performance efficiency and air flow there's a balance between volume and velocity. Think about this for a second. A given volume of air flowing through a straw must travel faster than through let's say a 1 inch tube. Velocity plays an important role in improving performance by evacuating combusted gas from the cylinder when both the intake and exhaust valves are opened at the same time (provided by cam overlap). Do you have any idea on what the net effect will be on your engine by having a "straw" on the intake and a "tube" on the exhaust.
Now on the exhaust side, restrictions in the flow (back pressure) actually help performance. Again, during overlap the back pressure keeps fresh feuled air from flowing in the intake and right out the exhaust. This balance has been engineered into your engine by Honda. So my point is that changing the exhaust valve opening may not have positive results.
Re: DIY - Valve spring/retainer/valve removal - VIDEO
That actually depends on weder er not you were N/A or boosted...
if you were boosted, that would significantly improve your performance, as turbo applications do not like back pressure... hence why its best to upgrade to a 3" exhaust after going turbo, and most n/a exhausts are 2-2.5".
If you were to increase the size in exhaust and ARE boosted, id recomend also increasing intake side as well. Moving to a 3" intake piping, 74mm throttle body and better intake runners, matched up with a 3" exhaust will give you around 50-60hp gain on the d17a with on avg 8-12psi.
