Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

I purchased a CRX with a B16a swap and it has cam gears visible through a hole cut in the side of motor, the previous owner told me it had different aftermarket cams also, but I'm not sure I believe him b/c he told me alot of stuff about the car that wasnt true and the car doesnt seem to be that powerful. from what I been reading from performance books about the b16 its suppose to respond really well to new cams.
so is there a way i can find out if it really has cams besides ripping the head apart? such as hooking up a tool to ECU or maybe on a dyno? i know if there was a external way to find out the intake and exhaust lift time then that would tell me.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

It takes 5 min to pull the valve cover

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

Are those metal shavings I am seeing?? Why in the hell did you buy this car kid!?

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

I was about to comment and say it was Hialeah built but go figure the OP is in West Palm. It takes less than 2min to take off the valve cover.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

oh is it that easy, what about having to replace valve cover gasket? and isnt there something covering the cams?

and I think its just dirt in the cam gears lol I bought it from a guy in Pt St lucie. and I bought it b/c I wanted to learn about cars for hobby purposes. should I clean the gears off and cover the holes up with something?

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

No. there's nothing to cover where the cam gears are cut. If the valve cover gasket isn't torn during removal, you can more than likely re-use it. But have an OEM Honda valve cover gasket and a tube of Hondabond ready just in case

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

ok thanks will do, guess I have some work to do this weekend.
but about the covering of the cams themselves after you remove the valve cover? isnt there some sheet of metal covering the cams?

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

No, only the "bearing caps" that hold them down. You can see the cams just by removing the valve cover

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

LOLZ @ Hialeah build

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

lol man...

you need to pull the cam caps and count the rings and inspect the ends of the cam shafts to get a idea of what cams they are. They can be fake aftermarket cams, stock itr cams b16 cams so you really need to pull of the cam caps to see the ends of the cams to identify them. And if you still cant tell what they are you can have the lobes measured.

I would be more concerned with the metal shavings i see inside the cam gears! looks like its grinding up and is about to break apart which will blow the head! Trust me i had it done on a old gsr motor i built years ago, the titanium cam gears were over torqued and started to get hair line cracks in it and broke apart and blew the head.

And why are you focused on the motors cams? Is it because the motor is not running right? It could be from the cams not being degreed in and tuned properly or not even tuned at all.

You said "from what I been reading from performance books about the b16 its suppose to respond really well to new cams."

What "performance" book is this?? That is not correct at all! any aftermarket cam will require a retune of the motor and cam timing adjustment. Its not a plug and play affair when it comes to installing aftermarket cam shafts. Even if its a stock oem cam its not as easy as to drop them in advance or degree the cams and expect to see gains in hp and performance.

Did the previous owner say the motor was dyno tuned? and did he show you a dyno graph?

If the cam gears are advanced i hope the motor was dyno tuned or else that would be a big cause of poor performance.

Does it have a programmable ems?

Because it seems you bought a half assed built motor that was not tuned.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

dang sounds alot more complicated then i thought. I was thinking if I removed the valve cover that the cams would have some sort of markings on them that I could look up in order to tell what brand/make they were.

the car runs fine. but i wanted to make some more power from it, and after reading "Xtreme Honda B-Series motors" great book for beginners btw! It said alot of power potential lies in the cams so figured it would be the next best step for my car, considering it already had CAI, Headers and exhaust. but I didnt want to spend $500 on cams if the car already has some in it.

the book mentions after any mod they did, they would have the car Hondata tuned but they didnt specificially say if you get cams you need a tune, so thats good to know! I plan on picking up a Hondata s300 to either put into my existing P30 ECU or buying a new ECU with it already installed. just trying to find the best pricing on it now.

the car wasnt dyno tuned to my knowledge. after opening the ECU and taking pics I was told by people on here that it has been socketed but there is no chip in the socket. here is link to post
https://honda-tech.com/forums/engine-management-tuning-124/can-you-tell-me-if-my-ecu-socketed-chipped-3106337/

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

so your saying your cam gears were overtorqued and the cam gears broke apart??

would I be able to loosen the cam bolt and retorque it to stock specs without having to hold the crank bolt in place? b/c all the books ive read about installing cams show people torquing down the cams to the camshaft while the motor is outside the car so they say you need a special crank holder tool to make sure the motor doesnt turn over when you torque down the cam bolt

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

I would start with learning to change your own oil, maybe swap plugs, set ignition timing and keep working your way to learning how to work on a car. I'm not trying to be negative, but you sound like you aren't familiar with the proper end of the ratchet to use, much less start swapping cams or tuning. You are souring off stuff like "torque the cam to the camshaft" that's the same thing. They don't bolt together. A cam and camshaft are the same thing.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

that was a typo I meant cam gear to the camshaft

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

Yes.

If your cam gears are cracking! there no good why would you want to keep them lol.
Inspect them with a micro fine glass, it could be debri and dust from the engine bay as well.

In my experience hands on experience is always better than going by the "book". Its good to learn from reading but dont think that info from a book is the best or 100% accurate. The people who struggled to get 200hp 10 years ago and made those how to videos and books are now achieved by engine builders with half the work do to the ever changing market and testing and tuning of theses engines by enthusiast and tuners.

If you really think you can perform the tasks then go ahead but always research and know what your doing when your taking apart your motor especially when your disassembling the head and timing belt.

There are tools you can buy to help with assembling the cams and timing belt from bisi moto or you can buy them from ebay. They hold the cam gears at tdc so you can wrap the timing belt on with out the cams moving or adjust your cam gears when dyno tuning :)

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

do you remember the name of the tool? checked the bisimoto website in the cam gear, camshaft and accessories section and didnt find any tool. thanks for the info

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

nice! thank you sir!

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

That's just dust.

Pull the valve cover and you can measure the lift on the cams.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

I took a magnet to some of the stuff on the cam gears and some of it jumped from my finger to it :/ oh well. I'm going to take off the valve cover and camshaft caps and tighten everything down to spec and hope nothing blows in the next month, till i replace the cams. if the cams are stock which I assume I'll be going skunk2 pro 1 most likely. picking up a s300v2 this week to start, since the cam gears are advanced right now and the cars running rich.
quick opinion from you guys. I've read alot of good things about skunk2 cams, but i see alot of people on here mentioning DDTech cams, which would you go with? I plan on staying NA for about a year or so then going light turbo (around 7-8 lbs of boost)

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

ALSO... another idea, instead of blowing $1100 on skunk2 cams, retainers and springs I have been looking at this on craigslist

"B18c5 head full skunk 2 valvetrain Brian crower stage 3 cams intake manifold included head has full port and polish 5 angle valve job still running $1200 obo"

thinking about offering him $900 without IM, worth it?
only thing holding me back is I've read on here that crower stage 3 are pretty bad. only about good for 8-10 hp after hours of dyno tuning. not sure if the people were trying to run turbo with them, b/c i know the website says they are meant for NA.
I saw a dyno sheet where a guy swapped crower 3 for skunk2 pro's and gained 10HP peak without changing anything else with a MUCH better torque curve as well

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

You have a cylinder head that you know that works. no guess work, no surprises at the door. Stick with it and avoid someone else's project

As for Skunk2 Vs. DDTECH, I like them both. Skunk2 for the usability and reliability, DDTECH for the materials used and the innovation from a small business that's interested in results... Genuinely..

If turboing later, I'd stick with OEM for now until you know what you're trying to do with the turbocharger later. Stating a PSI doesn't tell us anything. 8psi or 51psi, is irrelevant.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

this thread makes my head hurt.

Looks like you bought someone else's problems.....

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

take it somewhere before you mess your car up.

Re: Possible to tell if you have cams without opening valve cover??
 

well what would u want to know, turbo size? what kind of driving characteristics i would want? I mean this is down the road so I havent researched turbo models yet but I'm going to go with a relatively small turbo for good low and mid range power. I really dont want to rip apart the block and spend a large amount of money going to low compression pistons and new rods and crank so I can have a 400hp beast. only looking for around 225hp out of it.