Took me a little over 3 hours. Maybe closer to 4, but I didn't check the clock exactly when I started. Not a land speed record by any means, but I feel that since I took my time, and double checked myself several times on everything, that wasn't too bad of a time.

Anyway, I took pictures at every stage. Even propped the head up at a slight angle so I could get pictures before the head came completely off.

Diagnosis:
It's jacked up... bad. The heads of two valves are imbedded into the piston on CC #4. Two exhaust valves if I remember correctly, it was late when I finished... er.. early. One intake valve is bent almost completely sideways and shoved halfway back up into the head. The cylinder is chewed up... and I mean chewed like a dog that got a hold of a fuzzy stuffed kitten that had Dales steak sauce drizzled all over it. There is trash in each of the cylinders. Little melted looking pieces of metal, #'s 1-4. But the valves (outside of looking like they might have hit the pistons themselves on all of them) were all intact. The scoring on the cylinder walls is minimum, but it's on the borderline of able to be "honed" and having to be bored out on two cylinders, #'s 4 and 2. I haven't had a chance to take the head apart because I wanted to get someone with a touch more experience to look at it, and possibley the cylinder walls. I don't want to have to take the block out.

I spoke with Javier from JG Engine Dynamics, and he offered to look at all my pictures and tell me what he think happened and if anything is salvagable. If someone wants to host them, when I get them developed and scanned I'll post them here... although I don't think you want to see it, cause it's NOT a pretty sight. I wasn't really prepared for what I saw.

All in all, I'm pretty proud about what I've learned in the past year or two. I pulled the head off last night, by myself. No help, no panic, no extra hands. Myself. Now, I can answer tech questions with absolute certainty. LOL

Thanks to: Russ for the good deal on the truck and trailer and helping us push random stuff around all weekend.
Fassell for helping me get the car on the jack stands and using his POS jack. Also for pushing and almost losing more tread on your shoe to get the Lude in the garage.
Kristina for loving me and putting up with my antics (it doesn't hurt that she let me keep the car in her garage)
Those who believed in me and anyone else who has given me advice in the past few days.

JG- who is tired this morning after 5 hours of sleep, but satisfied.

 

Damn, who built that motor?

 

JG Luder, I feel your pain. Glad to hear that you have "learned" instead of letting someone else do the work for you. Good luck.

 

Dang, what happened to the motor again? It sounds like it was over revved(?).
Do you have an I.D. micrometer or can you get a hold of one? If so, you can check the cylinder bores yourself to see how out of spec they might be.
Send me the pics man . I haven't had much experience building Hondas but i've built a few Chevrolet smallblocks and a couple of Ford smallblocks (mainly the 302). I "might" be able to recognise a few problems.
hipohonda@aol.com

 

I was at 5200 RPM when things went wrong.

 

dunno the exact issues of what went wrong... well, we know what went WRONG, I just don't know what caused it yet.

 

haha, that's classic.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, but boy is learning priceless.

 

to much lift in the cams? Hey, if your head is completly trashed.. I would like it.. SMSP needs a thrashed H22a head, it would help making the header much easier for Dave...

I took my motor apart a couple months ago, its not really hard, but you really learn a lot doing it, at least I did...

 

Whe is that bitch gonna be back at the tracks - inquiring minds need to know!

 

tell em I'll trade for a good head.

 

I have a couple of H22a heads laying around. SMPS, e-mail me at scottbyars@collectiveracing.net or go to my site http://www.collectiveracing.net look for me on the message board there.

 

Congrats on ripping the head off dude! I'd like to see the pics too if somebody could post them for you or something. Keep us posted on the next step as well. OH yeah, after all that work for it, you deserve another, here

 

so, just out of curiosity, how much actual work have you done on your prelude(s)? are you "new" to the mechanical part of it? do you have any mechanical background? or is it that you have just never taken apart a motor and/or head before? you just mainly do "little" things like adding bolt ons and such. just wondering.

 

Im curous about that too...

 

the reason i ask is that you seem to know a lot about the preludes and it kind of surprised me when you said you had never done that before.

 

Never done it on MY lude. I've torn apart motors before. Old school B20s, H23A, and I actually just rebuilt my Conquest last month. Rings, bearings, valves, springs, retainers etc. Now I'm running 13 psi.

My car is... well, it's a not a normal car. It's not yo' mamma's Prelude as they say.

 

pics plea?

 

have to get them developed first. Patience my dearies... patience. I don't have all the time in the world, I'm a busy, busy man. I had to work on the car from 12-3 am just to pull the head.