attempt to asseblem my cylinder head

[herms99gst]

So heres the thing. I was going to send my head off to mitsu graveyard but afer reading several reviews i decided not to. I will be doing the work my self minus the machine work of course. I will need the head resurfaced, checked for cracks and for warp, the cam bores checked, the seats cut for 1mm+ valves, and my bronze valve guides installed. i currently dont plan on doing any port work for money reasons. I just need to kow what tools are needed for assembly. I have noth chilton and haynes manuals and also a mic. What tool is used to meassure installed spring height? And should i meassure my old springs before i remove them? and if shims are needed where would i purchase them from? Any help would be nice. I would really like Bogus SVO to chime in on this.

 

[hurricanecris24]

i was gonna go the same route as you but now im getting both of my heads built by Strictly Import Motorsports - Import Performance Parts and Services they got similar prices than dsmgraveyard give them a call

 

[turboglenn]

That's something that if ya have not done it with some one guiding you that knows a couple times, just pay some one to do it that does it for a living, I know you're only talking about the cylinder head in your topic, but Let me throw this out there from some one who's assembled quite a few engines and dealt with many machinists before finding "my machinist"

If you do not know your machinist well enough to call him on the phone in the middle of the work day and ask him an off the wall question and BS with him for a while about off topic crap...PAY HIM TO ASSEMBLE IT.. most only charge 100 bucks and let me tell you why it's worth it

If you're assembling it and something is not in spec, YOU have to take it back and USUALLY get charged to resize said part... if he's assembling it and it's off, he just resizes it and that's part of why you paid for assembly, BUT and this is the BIG'OLe BUTT... IF YOU assemble it and for some reason it fails because something wasn't just right, it was YOUR job to find and have it corrected before running the engine, if they asseemble it and you follow their orders on oil and run-in a good machinist will honor and warranty that engine if it fails

Belive me, in the middle of stock car season i took my engine from a machinist who was supposedly the best arrround and he assured me it was fit to asssemble, well every 500 miles i was putting main beariungs in it because when he sized it for ARP main studs he didn't get it right and I didn't catch it cause he said everything was cool just put it together, so 3500 dollars later i'm ordering a JDM longblock in the middle of winter so i don't have to ride my motorcycle to work after fiddle-F*&king with a messed up engine all summer because i didn't wanna wait 3 more weeks for assmebly during stock car season.... had i paid him the 100 bucks to do it it would have had to been right or he would have been fixing or paying for it.

But no instead i had a 3500 dollar paperweight that he barely touched and charged me for the full works.. my new and current machinist actually worked and learned in that guys shop untill he was old enough to go on his own and said the dude would pull that crap all the time and just count on luck to hold the engine together trusting that an "import kid" really wouldn't be making any true high horsepower enough to hurt the engine anyway... now my new guy. he wrecked his van, personally chasing down and boring a completely different shortblock that he bought/picked up wihthout me knowing after i brought him 3 different cranks and the blcok i had wouldn't give him the clearnaces he wanted to see in order to let me have my engine and back it up with his word that it would last. ( i was trying to have him fix the block the first guy screwed up for me on my current build, but the originial guy butchered it so bad that the mains would have had to been cut down so far and re alignbored that Jeremey (my new machinist) didn't want to turn me loose with anything less than the best , and i got ALL of it for 180 bucks plus 25 dollars extra to hot tank some pieces for me

And he is still standing behind this engine and I assembled it myself, but the difference was the relationship between the two of us and the relationship i had with the prior guy were two totally different scenarios

I felt so bad about him hitting the dear with his van going to go get a different block in the middle of the night on his own time and then that he'd spent the whole night cleaning and re-boring the new one to be ready in time and work with all the other parts that iu already had given him and he wasn't even going to tell me (his co-worker told me the story of the deer and that it was a different block ) About once a month i still take him lunches, gave him a couple hundy extra when i got some money a few months later and do whatever i can to show apreciation for his efforts.. and the one thing I NEVER DO is second guess what he says.. if he says "i want .0025 cellarnace on the main bearings" I will NEVER open my mouth again and say "well so and so says .003 is just fine" because i did that during that build and i didn't know it but that really upset him and yet he still went out on a limb and did all this i've typed to get me my block in time for me to go to texas and marry my ex (this was 2 years ago, the day before christmass eve that i got the block in my truck to take home and build)


Now... if you bothered to read all of that and i made any sense you will know why i say that unless you have a good relationship with your machinist just pay them the 100 to 300 extra to put it together because although both guys told me my engine was fine to put together and i didn't even need to measure if i didn't want to.... the guy who i paid 3500 left me in the cold like a little bi***, where the guy that charged me 180 bucks and had me questioning him after taking him 3 cranks and him saying that he wasn't happy with the combo any of them gave on the block actually looked out for me on a far far deeper level than his job called for, and we were not "friends" we knew of each other and knew some of the same people before this all happened, but now he's some one i am proud to be able to call a friend and one hell of a machinist with one hell of a stand up reputation in my book and I would recomend him to anyone and if i move out of state, he will get my stuff shipped to him because i know he puts his name, pride and reputation on the line like it was a official nascar build with every engine he builds for some one , just don't ever second guess him and you'll be good to go I"ll give ya his number if ya want

 

[herms99gst]

welll i called strictly import performance and he gave me a good quote on some labor. So thats what i will do, let someone with experience build it for me. I built my block myself and all the clearances came out correct, but than again...thats two complete different parts of the motor. So i will leave my head in the hands of someone who i hope knows what their doing. In the mean time, can u guys tell me a decent set of cams i should be looking into to get the most top end power out of the motor? I know 280's and 288's are good for top end, but the guy at SIM said anything above a 270 WOULD have to be degreed, and i have know idea how to do that. But if i plan on dyno tunning my car anyway, could i install them straight up if i purchase cam gears for them? Any oppinions on brands...ive heard dks makes a pretty good cam, but im kinda interested in these sim cams...their also made by dks. Any suggestions?

 

[JacksonAuto]

Drop us a line, we can help you out.

 

[turboglenn]

herms99.. By "have to be degreed" i'm sure the guy was talking about not just installing them "straight up" according to the gear marks but going "straight up" according to the cam lift at a certain position. I haven't looked into the setup for degreeing in a set of dual cams to be completely honest as this set of DKS 264/272's is my first set of cams in the car and i put them straight up (on the gear markings only) and then retarded the exhaust by 4* and pulled the plugs and used a ore scope to check clearnace while rotating the engine by hand. with my 9:1's and these cams i'm sure i COULD make them kiss if i went to the extremes of the adjustment but these are just too smakll to be able to seem to go "too wrong" with them, a good set to use to experiment with degree adjustments and how they effect my car

 

[herms99gst]

I just need to understand how cams work a lil better thats all. I know that 280's a are for more top end. And really thats what i want. I wanna keep wheel spin to the minimal...which usually is a lot in a fwd. Im just wondering if i could install a set of 280' straight up...just lining the timing marks up...and i purchased a set of adjustable cam gears. Im going to have the car dyno tuned because i have a lot of money in my car so far and i dont wann BLOW all that money....no pun intended, . So if its being dyno tuned they can do the adjustments themselves correct? This is my first ever build so excuse the ignorance and lack of information if anything confuses you

 

[BogusSVO]

herms,

the best bet is it have it built, due to what all you want/need done

once the guides are changed, the seats have to be cut to the center line of the guide.

your doing right by checking with the supporting vendors, who understand the set up on the head.