I had the dowels on my B16 head moved to use on my CRV block, but the shop (or any shop I called) did not have a 14mm mill drill bit, the closest they have is 9/16" which is 14.2875mm.
I just picked the head up from the shop and the dowels move around a bit in the holes, but not really too bad.
Alot of local people who have done this said they havnt had any problems.

Similar experiances on here?

 

We call those people "shade trees not shops.

 

Hrm..well then I guess all 10+ shops I called in Phoenix are not shops but Shade Trees

 

I really think its a matter of attitude, some shops just won't tool up for metric. Probably the 9/16" is satisfactory, however, we'd either make the hole 14mm or we wouldn't do the job. The purpose of a dowel is precision alignment.

 

That is true, and one shop I did take the head to did not want to do the work since they did not have a 14mm.

However liek I said, from speaking with many others who have done the same...a 9/16" works without any problems. I mean it is only .2875mm bigger, or .011"...thats TINY.

 

But it is a gap.

 

Yes...but so what?

If the head ends up .011" over to the right of where its supposed to go...so what? What bad effects will that have? I cant think of any...can you?

 

are you having the chambers enlarged? If so, then that is my point. They won't match up properly and you will have no noticable difference in performance but there will be.

Edit: Or am I just being to picky?


[Modified by Spade, 2:07 PM 1/3/2002]

 

No I am not having the chambers enlarged.

 

i've seen loss of compression from that TINY gap.

 

Loss of compression? Care to explain how the dowel holes would affect this?

 

All I can think of is that the head has the ability to shift while the engine is running.
This was on a b18b so i can only imagine what would happen when you have much
less bore spacing.

 

I would think that if the head shifted that much, the head bolts would be quite loose and you would have other problems. I meant the dowels are there to initially line up the head, head gasket and block...once the head bolts are torqued down there head should not move.

 

Well, the bolts dont have to be loose for things to move.

And i couldnt tell you if a head is able to move or not, because all of the
motors i have assembled the dowels were tight fit and the head wasnt allowed
to move.

 

well i think that hx_guy is right here, i mean if u torqued your head down properly i doubt that it would move. maybe under extreme situations like boost or maybe a very very high compression high revving motor i can see the head moving. besides i thought those pins were just too line the head up on the block not really to hold the head down thats the head bolts job (or studs).


[Modified by sohc_boy, 9:20 AM 1/4/2002]

 

The machine shop did not have a 14mm endmill??? Has that shop ever heard of a boring head or even a reamer? They could have easily used a boring head or a reamer to get a 14mm hole. Sure it takes more time but at least it would have been done properly. .011 might seam like a small amount but to a machinist that is a big gap. Just like Hensley said, dowels are for precision alignment. There is nothing precision about a .011 gap.