Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
#1
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Car: 90 Formula / T-tops
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Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Short story - injector went bad, need to replace. while in there, why not put new valve seals. well, i've gone this far, why not pop heads. gives me a chance to access heads and loosen exhaust manifold bolts for future header install, or maybe even go for it now. engine has 60K on it.
Any good reasons not to move forward? my thinking is that it will take me less time to pop heads and re-install -vs- fiddle around changing valve seals while heads on car. any thoughts, suggestion appreciated. thx guys!
p.s. I'm thinking I can pop head and exhaust manifold as a unit. Is this possible?
Have also read of a guy who mentioned leaving rocker arms tight, so when head bolts loosen rockers/springs force head off block, but this seems like it could bend push-rods??
Any good reasons not to move forward? my thinking is that it will take me less time to pop heads and re-install -vs- fiddle around changing valve seals while heads on car. any thoughts, suggestion appreciated. thx guys!
p.s. I'm thinking I can pop head and exhaust manifold as a unit. Is this possible?
Have also read of a guy who mentioned leaving rocker arms tight, so when head bolts loosen rockers/springs force head off block, but this seems like it could bend push-rods??
Last edited by LiquidBlue; 03-09-2019 at 12:15 PM.
#2
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
With only 60k on the engine,i would just replace the valve seals and leave the heads on-very easy to pull the heads for that job too,heads will just pop right off with a big screwdriver stuck in an intake port.
#4
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
just a little "originality" and you will have to buy head gaskets on the positive you can get a good look at cylinder wall condition and the valves.
#5
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Biggest advantage of pulling the heads is, you get the chance to port them. Which if you do that, DO NOT succumb to the temptation to "hog em out"; rather, concentrate on (1) cleaning up the weird angles and steps and whatnot where the factory jammed the cutter into the port; (2) eliminate any casting flash or other irregularities in the ports; and (c) smooth out the guides a bit, to make them sort of an airfoil or teardrop shape. DO NOT lower the floor of the ports; DO NOT mess around with "gasket matching"; DO NOT remove any more metal than is absolutely necessary. A good home port job is all about SMOOTHING the flow, NOT increasing the size of the port.
Some other little details you can work on that will help out include: get the decks levelled; clean up any sharp edges in the chamber, especially around the edge where the chamber meets the deck; radius the "margin" of the valves (the angle where the face meets the seat). The 1st requires a machine shop, the others you can do yourself.
I STRONGLY recommend replacing the valves and springs at the same time. Doesn't take too much $$$ to do those. I'd suggest Manley street valves and Comp 981 springs with the matching retainers & keepers, set up at the correct height of 1.70 - 1.75". Do away with the exhaust rotators, add about .090" of shim to take up that space; use the Vortec (96-2000) head seals, which are the "positive" type and usually fit older heads too.
Don't get all fancy with the gaskets. Just pick up yerbasic FelPro HS7733-PTx set.
The flip side is, it's ALOT more work to pull the heads, and at your low mileage, they're probably not worn out or otherwise in desperate need of "maintenance". At some point you have to decide for yourself what your goals for this project are. If all it is, is to get rid of the puff of smoke at startup, and you're completely happy with everything else like it is, then you can just change out the seals. If on the other hand you want to renew and improve it, pulling them is the only way. Only you can make that call.
And no you can't leave the exh manifolds on the heads. There's a row of bolts underneath them that you won't be able to get to. They gotta come off the heads first.
Some other little details you can work on that will help out include: get the decks levelled; clean up any sharp edges in the chamber, especially around the edge where the chamber meets the deck; radius the "margin" of the valves (the angle where the face meets the seat). The 1st requires a machine shop, the others you can do yourself.
I STRONGLY recommend replacing the valves and springs at the same time. Doesn't take too much $$$ to do those. I'd suggest Manley street valves and Comp 981 springs with the matching retainers & keepers, set up at the correct height of 1.70 - 1.75". Do away with the exhaust rotators, add about .090" of shim to take up that space; use the Vortec (96-2000) head seals, which are the "positive" type and usually fit older heads too.
Don't get all fancy with the gaskets. Just pick up yerbasic FelPro HS7733-PTx set.
The flip side is, it's ALOT more work to pull the heads, and at your low mileage, they're probably not worn out or otherwise in desperate need of "maintenance". At some point you have to decide for yourself what your goals for this project are. If all it is, is to get rid of the puff of smoke at startup, and you're completely happy with everything else like it is, then you can just change out the seals. If on the other hand you want to renew and improve it, pulling them is the only way. Only you can make that call.
And no you can't leave the exh manifolds on the heads. There's a row of bolts underneath them that you won't be able to get to. They gotta come off the heads first.
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
#7
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
I don't like the idea of snowballing from a simple job to some kind of crazed metal shaving mess etc...
so I am going to go ahead and say that if the job you started out doing can be done with the heads on the engine safely
to just do it and move on and forget you ever got any crazy ideas from the internet,
of 'that time you decided to port the heads of your perfectly good low mileage engine and XYZ happened'
just caution talking
so I am going to go ahead and say that if the job you started out doing can be done with the heads on the engine safely
to just do it and move on and forget you ever got any crazy ideas from the internet,
of 'that time you decided to port the heads of your perfectly good low mileage engine and XYZ happened'
just caution talking
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Don't look for easy ways of doing things like letting the valve spring pressure pop your heads off. Get used to the proper sequence, you will make many fewer mistakes over time. Perfect example leaving a bolt untouched somewhere and breaking the parts, costs much more in the long run. As far as doing it in the car, it's no problem it can be done, you just have to weigh your total job, how much you save in terms of time, you have to know how much more accessible everything is with the engine out. If you don't have air, it's not that bad pulling the motor....
#9
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
I’d only pull them if you plan on resurfacing them, like milling down for more compression and then doing a good valvejob. It will pick up some performance
also put in new valvesprings. Esp now if you plan to cam anytime soon, else throw a decent stock replacement type deal or manley 22410’s. Good sfiff singles
basically overhaul refreshing the heads. Couple hundred bucks
if you dont plan on doing that leave it alone
also put in new valvesprings. Esp now if you plan to cam anytime soon, else throw a decent stock replacement type deal or manley 22410’s. Good sfiff singles
basically overhaul refreshing the heads. Couple hundred bucks
if you dont plan on doing that leave it alone
#10
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
That mileage i would go no further than valve stem seals. You don't want to open a can of worms.
#11
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Car: 90 Formula / T-tops
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Thanks for your responses guys, didn't realize there was a row of head bolts under the exhaust manifolds. That definitely puts the brakes on a bit. My 2 biggest reasons for wanting to do this was to loosen up the exhaust manifolds with heads OUT of car. (lot less chance of breaking off bolts if you can get it to the bench)
The other big reason was to refresh the heads and port them. Not sure if 081 heads are worth porting other than the basics that Sofakingdom went over???
The other big reason was to refresh the heads and port them. Not sure if 081 heads are worth porting other than the basics that Sofakingdom went over???
#12
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
For the cost to freshen up heads with port work, valve grind, springs etc, it can be a lot cheaper to just buy a set of replacement heads.
#14
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Car: 90 Formula / T-tops
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
just ordered a endoscope. gonna have a peek in there and see how things look. that is, if a $35 endoscope is worth a damn. always wanted one anyway.
#15
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Perfectionist at play, cant help myself. And ya, so far I pulled out cyl #1, exhaust. bottom seal no where to be found, top seal 3/4 of it was still intact. I don't think the factory seals from 1990 were very stout. I wasn't burning oil, but was a small bit of smoke on startup. i think the fact that the car was not run regularly for 23 years has a lot to do with it too. they just get old when they sit there.
just ordered a endoscope. gonna have a peek in there and see how things look. that is, if a $35 endoscope is worth a damn. always wanted one anyway.
just ordered a endoscope. gonna have a peek in there and see how things look. that is, if a $35 endoscope is worth a damn. always wanted one anyway.
#16
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
My race engine isn't a high mileage engine. I don't use valve seals.
I had a 91 454SS for many years. RH plugs would always foul up. Eventually I replaced all the valve seals and the plug fouling went away.
#17
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
#1 intake now done. surprisingly the seal was in good shape. broke tami g it off
#18
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
thanks for the progress picture
more pictures pls
more pictures pls
#20
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Re: Your thoughts on pulling heads off while engine in car
Wow haha. In my experience the closer you look at something the more you will find wrong with it.
Don't get carried away rofl just remember nothing is perfect
Don't get carried away rofl just remember nothing is perfect
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