Nice to see someone else gettin in the nitty gritty of that restriction we call a head.

I can't say that I like how you remove your valves, but thats comming from me who has a pneumatic spring compressor. Plus they're all ready bent anyway so I suppose it doesn't really matter.

Your getting in pretty deep, all I did was gasket match my intake, took out that 90 in the exhuast, 3 angle VJ, and ringed my intake valves. Cams and duel valve springs to top it off.

Good luck with everything

 

not so deep... 1/16"!

How much thickness did you take out of the elbow in the exhaust side?

P.S. I just spent 6 hours changing a timing belt, water pump, and drive belts and I'm about car'd out for at least a week or 2 so this is going to be a while lmao.gif

 

So how are you going to get the valves back in then?

That may work when taking them out but keep in mind it can damage the valves. Even with cardboard underneath. I paid about 50 bucks for my valve spring compressor and its a lot more worth it than bending/breaking valves or fighting them back in.

 

The exhaust valves popped right out with a gentle whack from the mallet. The intakes are 1/2 obviously bent and 1/2 possibly bent so they're likely to be replaced across the board; no worries about reusing them. The reinstallation is going to be less simple, obviously, but a brother at my church is a professional mechanic and I think he said I could borrow his spring compressor, or else my dad'll have one, or I'll just be forced to buy another tool! fing02.gif

America: where (car) problems are really opportunities (to buy new tools) in disguise!

 

What brand and where did you get yours?

 

OTC off ebay. Works perfect for our head.

 

I spent an hour last night hand-cleaning the head so I don't need gloves to pick the filthy old thing up. I also took some soft stainless tweezers to the carbon residue to knock it out of the small nooks and crannies. I was happily surprised that most of the dropout in the intake runners wiped right out. It seems to me that the intake runner entrances will all need minor widening to make them a hair larger than the intake manifold ports to prevent reversion... I'll have to do direct measurements on that to be sure. When it comes to the combustion chamber, well...

It's much, much worse than I thought. The carbon fouling was hiding the badness of the stock Beta head. I'm talking 1/16"+ thickness of solid carbon buildup. In the valve shrouding. There is an overhang on the intake valves, and the exhaust ports are a solid coating of junk from the incomplete combustion. I'm seriously considering putting the high compression pistons in at the same time this head goes on, because I'm going to lose a 1/2 point of compression just from deshrouding the valves. Plus, with the better combustion space it'll be more resistant to detonation. We'll have to see what the chamber volume ends up measuring. It's approximately 0.1:1 compression ratio loss per cc of volume removed and I can see removing 5cc just opening up the valve surrounds out closer to the cylinder walls.

The intake ports look pretty good, maybe a little reshaping - but not much - will be required. Maybe a little widening of the floor for more area on the short side radius. There is a very small amount of core shift and it's consistent across the length of the head, so cleaning that up won't be too much of a problem. The machining for the valve seats is just horrible. I'm waiting on either Random or VISIONZ to get me the cutaway photos, so I can see just what I'm dealing with on the exhaust side... it's hard to see in the dark around a right angle. Doh.

 

Post those pictures up here if you would.

 

I would! I will! I didn't! (take any last night)

It's not so clean for taking more usefuil pictures yet, just it's clean enough to comment on. Standby. Anybody have a hot tank I can use real quick?

 

i mean the cutaway pictures in particular. smile.gif i've got a half P&P'ed head in the garage that will eventually pair with the gasket matched IM in my car.