Camshaft timing findings

Cylinder #5 and #7 all looks good except I don't know about the finish as first time with nikasil coating and trying to learn.



#1 and #3 cylinder



#5 and #7

Will get to the other head tomorrow after I eat my Wheaties for breakfast.

[tomtom72]

Craig, thanks for answering my Q's.

I'll try to keep my Q's out of here as I'm sure I'm disturbing your concentration with my distractions. Sorry man. You have enough to do without holding class!

Hey Frank, thanks for the link on the cam timing! I'm gonna go study that one.

Craig! Here's hoping that this turns out to be just a case of bad cam timing & no broken expensive parts!

The combustion chamber pictures seem to show no valve hits, just carbon build up?

Originally Posted by tomtom72

Craig, thanks for answering my Q's.

I'll try to keep my Q's out of here as I'm sure I'm disturbing your concentration with my distractions. Sorry man. You have enough to do without holding class!

Hey Frank, thanks for the link on the cam timing! I'm gonna go study that one.

Craig! Here's hoping that this turns out to be just a case of bad cam timing & no broken expensive parts!

The combustion chamber pictures seem to show no valve hits, just carbon build up?

Tom,

No problem and I don't mind, I am just not one you want to get advice from being a novice myself.....but I'll surely share what I do know or experienced with this tear down. Thanks for your wishes and I'll see when I get to the bottom half. Either way, I'm going to freshen it up with new bearings, pistons, rings, balance, etc. while I'm in here with all the plenum and head work too. Figured I might as we do it right so in goes the 4:10s with new ujoints and beam plate as well as the fidanza flywheel and clutch. Hopefully I'll be able to drive and change oil for awhile after that. Well, let me work on the other side and get that head off.

[flyin ryan]

Hey Craig, been gone racing my Stingray on a short road trip the past couple days. Pistons & cylinder walls look good from what I can tell/see. At this point not sure what the root of your smoking is coming from? It's something, just need to dig a little deeper. What were your pumping compression numbers?

Originally Posted by flyin ryan

Hey Craig, been gone racing my Stingray on a short road trip the past couple days. Pistons & cylinder walls look good from what I can tell/see. At this point not sure what the root of your smoking is coming from? It's something, just need to dig a little deeper. What were your pumping compression numbers?

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for helping out and I appreciate your input. The smoking was a wide open throttle only and I don't exact color but it appeared to be blue when I could try to look behind. Complaints from people following complained about the smell on the freeway with Corvette Club convoy.

My compression numbers were:

1 = 175
3 = 190
5 = 187
7 = 185

2 = 205
4 = 215
6 = 215
8 = 220

Second time for left bank:

1 = 190
3 = 185
5 = 185
7 = 185

Thanks again, I'll post the pics from the other head removed today.

So I finally got the right side head off after getting some help from my neighbor that build VWs. I guess the left side yesterday stole all my energy because I could not do this side by myself and the bolt were a bugger.



Cylinders # 2 and #4



#6 and #8



Cylinder #2 and 4. What is up with the different color valves. My spark plugs had this same color and Marc H said someone else using Royal Purple had the same color too. So it this a Royal Purple thing? I will be using AMSOIL from here on out.



#6 and #8. The head gaskets were a surprise and look almost like new.

So the next step is to take off the only pan, girdle and inspect the bearings. First I have to prep the heads to ship off to Greg Van Deventer to let him work his magic. I can really see how the port work in heads and top half makes the LT5 come alive after getting this far into the motor.

[tomtom72]

http://www.4secondsflat.com/plug_chart.html


I know I'm outta my league here but I thought I post this link for you Craig....like you don't have this one already!

I am proly way wrong in using a plug chart to interpret the color of the deposits on the combustion chambers and their valves. I was comparing the plug colors on that chart and trying to match those colors to the colors on your heads.

I just want to apologize in advance if I should have kept quiet. It's just that it seemed kind of logical to me if the plug color matched the chamber/valve face color that maybe you could figure out what's going on in each hole?


Tom

Originally Posted by tomtom72

http://www.4secondsflat.com/plug_chart.html


I know I'm outta my league here but I thought I post this link for you Craig....like you don't have this one already!

I am proly way wrong in using a plug chart to interpret the color of the deposits on the combustion chambers and their valves. I was comparing the plug colors on that chart and trying to match those colors to the colors on your heads.

I just want to apologize in advance if I should have kept quiet. It's just that it seemed kind of logical to me if the plug color matched the chamber/valve face color that maybe you could figure out what's going on in each hole?


Tom

Tom,

No, I don't have this link and I'll add it to my library. I really appreciate you looking out and I do have the pics of the plugs by cylinder when I was trying to figure this out before going into the motor.

Thanks again!!!

[flyin ryan]

Up to this point everything still looks pretty decent, Craig. Unfortunatly that makes it hard to diagnose . Valve color is a fuel thing, not so much the fuel itself but all the junk put in the fuel by the manufactuer/refinery. Not sure what quality of fuel is available to you out there? Reality is that most stuff that comes out of the pump is very avarage, no matter what part of the country a person's in. It is getting better with Ethanol blends though. Could have a valve seal issue, maybe even a guide, how do the valve stems & back sides of valve heads look when looking down/in to the ports? Gummed up at all?

[LGAFF]

Mine smoked bad(90), switched to 15-45 Mobile 1 and no more issues.