Well the first 4 warm up laps after building the race car didn't go so well...

Pictures should be fun.

#3 cylinder blew an exhaust valve.

The cylinder walls look INCREDIBLY GOOD.

There was oil & antifreeze mixed. The head gasket looked good, but it must have blown (maybe that's why #3 didn't compress well.).

The other 3 cylinders had 235-230-0-235 compression at the track.







Now - A BIG thanks to Batoutahell for making room in his shop for my little car.

 

Bummer. Do you know why the #2 piston is wet too? Are those valves stock parts? What are your plans as far as replacements?

 

why are your plugs completely brown and dirty, almost rusty looking?

that valve looks a lot like one of my valves (also cyl 3) after nitrous problems melted the valve and valve seat.

sorry to hear about the bad luck

 

Replacement parts are oem acura. This is my original motor & I intend on keeping it reliable.

Next year, my goal is to buy another motor to build for world challenge level power (thus not necessarily as reliable).

As for the pics - I had to baby back over 2 miles to pit entrance. The valve blew apart just after passing the pits & the slowest corner on the track.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BudMan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Replacement parts are oem acura. This is my original motor & I intend on keeping it reliable.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just curious if you have intentions of using something aftermarket...maybe better in quality if your concerned about reliability.

I'm not familiar with the rules for the series you run in. Are you excusively limited to OEM parts?

 

Sorry to hear this happened with your 1st time out with the new Race kaa. It is becoming a normal failure with Bseries.

I just pulled the head off my sister's 97 GSR to find the same.





I checked the head. It is still "straight". Does need 8 guides and 16 new seals and of course the new vavle. Good luck with the fix. Build time for you now?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1997ITR122 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Just curious if you have intentions of using something aftermarket...maybe better in quality if your concerned about reliability.

I'm not familiar with the rules for the series you run in. Are you excusively limited to OEM parts?</TD></TR></TABLE>

My SCCA Region runs World Challenge rules. I can get pretty nutty. However, as mentioned, this original motor is intended to be my back-up & therefore I want it to be VERY reliable. I think 124,000 miles is pretty reliable. Those who have seen me drive know I'm not very nice to my motor.

We pulled the windage tray & oil pickup off & the bottom end looked BEAUTIFUL. Granted - I didn't plastigage the bearings, but I couldn't believe how nice it looked in there with this kind of hard mileage.

 

It took 130k miles to finally take a dump, Jeff. That's pretty good.

 

i can't believe you escaped without major damage jeff. i was thinking about the options of just where those valve pieces could go, and it's either down in the cylinder which would 99% of the time score up your walls, back up into the port, damaging more valves in the same cylinder or lodging itself in the guide seal, or maybe .001% of the time it flies out the exhaust and nothing happens.

it appears as if it went out the exhaust.

you should be able to make topeka shouldn't you? i'd be more than happy to put my stuff on hold if it'll help you make it this weekend, otherwise, i'll see you out there on sunday.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tnord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i can't believe you escaped without major damage jeff. i was thinking about the options of just where those valve pieces could go, and it's either down in the cylinder which would 99% of the time score up your walls, back up into the port, damaging more valves in the same cylinder or lodging itself in the guide seal, or maybe .001% of the time it flies out the exhaust and nothing happens.

it appears as if it went out the exhaust.

you should be able to make topeka shouldn't you? i'd be more than happy to put my stuff on hold if it'll help you make it this weekend, otherwise, i'll see you out there on sunday. </TD></TR></TABLE>

See the carbon tracking on the rim of the block the head may be warped beacause this head gasket has been going for a while.
I would spring for bronze silicon valve guides and new exhaust valves. B series valve guides i have found to not be very reliable myself.
I all ways look at a failure as time to improve a weak spot.

 

Damn, I'm sorry to hear. Looks like the exact same thing that happened to Bbasso's head at We-Todd Expo last year. His happend on #4 IIRC.

 

glad this hasn't gotten ya down. GL on the re-build

BTW, how's that splitter for the front bumper coming along?

 

Same thing happened to me last year, also without damage. Stupid ghey B-series engines...

 

How'd the drive home go last night? Hopefully we can get her back together before next weekend.

[Comp97GSR]: who was very surprised that valve pieces didn't mess with the cylinder walls.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BudMan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Well the first 4 warm up laps after building the race car didn't go so well...

Pictures should be fun.

#3 cylinder blew an exhaust valve.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, good news that the rest of the motor is in good shape. Best of luck with that.

What kind of tuning do you have, out of curiosity? OEM ECU?

Also, is #3 the only one without carbon buildup on the valves? You should probably send your injectors to RC to get balanced, you know, while you've got some spare time.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chris F &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Well, good news that the rest of the motor is in good shape. Best of luck with that.

What kind of tuning do you have, out of curiosity? OEM ECU?

Also, is #3 the only one without carbon buildup on the valves? You should probably send your injectors to RC to get balanced, you know, while you've got some spare time.</TD></TR></TABLE>

would like to hear about ecu setup as well.. also, did you have any aftermarket valve train parts at some point? cam gears?

 

It could be the picture but it looks like the liner is seperating from the block on #3. You should triple check to make sure the liner is not cracked. This could have been letting coolant into the combustion chamber and burnt the valve.

 

doh sorry to hear that jeff

and I was just about to give you **** for not being like the rest of the ITRCA admins and getting an S2K..

sorry to hear, hope the repair goes smoothly.

 

It's just the picture.

 

perfect example of a burnt valve. oh well, that sucks man. you know the #1 cause of burnt valves is too tight valve adjustment. make SURE you adjust the valves on a dead cold motor, otherwise your results will not be accurate. i'm not saying that's the reason your valve burned.. but just a heads up to people out there. i can't tell you how many of these i've seen over the years on b-series and d-series motors that come into the dealership.

oh, and the reason you guys aren't seeing any other damage to the motor, is because that piece of the valve is now in your exhaust system somewhere.


budman- don't bother replacing guides, or even seals. just get 1 new valve, lap it in and replace the headgasket. clean both surfaces nicely. it'll be fine.

 

Time to answer some additional questions:

1) I was running a Hondata ECU which was running me a smidge leaner than my old Field setup. My mistake in rule book reading had me ditch my field (which I need to find again to hook up when I flip in the stock ecu) to go with the hondata for a better long term setup. My region allows open electronics & I didn't HAVE to switch to the s100 inside the case, but I wanted to. Oh well.

This may have caused me to be just a bit hotter than normal & I'll have to check to see if the knock sensor was being used or not.

2) I wanted to have the entire head refreshed before the season. However, I didn't want to "fix what's not broken". So I decided to wait until something broke. Guess what...something finally broke.

I have always enjoyed the fact I beat the snot out of my motor & laugh at the guys blowing large $$ only to get passed during my previous hpdes. I guess that claim now has to stop at 124,800 before the original motor had to be opened. No biggie - I got by pretty easy.

Thanks for the comments. 2 valves & a headjob coming up!

 

When was the last time the valves were adjusted? Reason I ask, and people forget is that if they tighten, you tend to burn valves like what you have pictured there. I'm currently working on a friends GS-R who has the exact same thing, he burnt #3. No damage to anything else except the valve head. Just something to think about. I figure you of all people though would have done the adjustment before you went out to the track...

 

Good question. The car had maybe 2000 miles since the last workup. I adjusted them before the last expo & the car just hasn't been driven other to work & back a few times. Maybe 4 tanks of gas in the last year since Expo 5.

Once I knew it was changing to a race car, all other uses stopped. It sat in the shop during the build process.

I'll check to see if there are any loose nuts, but I doubt it for this one.

 

ouch jeff.. sorry to hear it.. glad the damage appears to be minimal though!