I was wanting some educated opinions on what I can/should do about my cylinder head. The #2 spark plug decided it didn't want to come out at the end of the year. It was only about 3 weeks old. I hand tightened it until it was completely threaded, then tightened it with a ratchet, wasn't over tightened. Anyways, the car saw about 10 gallons, 2 weekends, on race gas and then one week of just daily driving on pump gas. I was gettin ready to go back to the track and I was gonna put fresh plugs in and that's when the problem happend. It would turn about 1 - 1 1/2 turns and then get tight. So, I just left it alone until now. No more racing. Pretty much just parked the car. I've got the engine apart, gettin it ready for this season, and I was wondering what you guys think.

Here's a few pics to describe the issue.
Here's a close up of the #2 combustion chamber. Notice how pitted and rought it looks around the plug and valves. I'm guessing detenation to be the cause of this. Yes/No?




Here's how the rest of the combustion chambers look. Definately a lot cleaner/smoother looking.



Now, here's the question. What can I do about this. Can the combustion chambers be cleaned up or even maybe opened up to make more power. The Engine was orginally built by RLZ.. I bought this car from Howard Shoaf's brother, Steven. The car has been outstanding and this has been my only issue. There is some light port work done in the intake runners and that's about it. This is on an 83.5mm AEBS sleeved LS/Vtec. I'm prepared to do whatever I need to get this done right. I will be in contact with RLZ and see what they recomend, but I figured I would post and see what some of the other experience people think. Thanks for your time and help!


Here's a few pics of the tear down just for ***** and giggles and cause I'm bored.










-Chad-

 

damn....nice garage. Wish we all had a garage like that for our tear downs....

Good luck.....

 

hahah... Thanks.. Gotta thank my Loving Dad for that. He is quite the craftsman. He built the whole shop himself. Including all the white painted cabnets and whatnot. He does construction work, so winter time means He gets really bored. lol..

-Chad-

 

wow...for second there i thought it was ur kitchen...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iBrandon &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">wow...for second there i thought it was ur kitchen...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hahah.. That's great.. lol..


-Chad-

 

In my opinion it looks like very extreme detonation. They can be smoothed back out with a polishing bit. What do the tops of your pistons look like?

 

I know it's hard to see in the pics. Those are camera phone pics(except the 2 of the car). lol.. The pistons are fine. they're all smooth as can be.

-Chad-

 

Late night bump...

 

Always use a light dab of Anti-Seize on the plugs when they are going into an aluminum cyl head!

Did you use Anti-Seize????

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gunslinger &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Always use a light dab of Anti-Seize on the plugs when they are going into an aluminum cyl head!

Did you use Anti-Seize????</TD></TR></TABLE>


Sure did.. Always do, cause I change my plugs pretty often. Basically change the oil and plugs every couple of weeks on the car. That's if I've been going to the track. I hand tightened all the way down, like the rest of the plugs. I'm sure detenation just got the bottom threads mar'd up. No other reason why it could be that way. Not that I can think of.. any suggestions?

-Chad-

 

Well im not shure to the cause of it getting stuck I say take it a good machine and they can get it out and maybe they can weld up the area then rethread it to keep this from happening again.

I dont know what to tell youon what exactly caused this but it does look like pre-ignition in just that area!

 

Yeah, it's definately kinda wierd. Anybody else got any info they'd like to share..

-Chad-

 

bump for the night.. Peakboost kit(minus the turbo) will be here tomorrow.... :-)

still gettin the turbo situation worked out. Made some last minute changes.. lol.

-Chad-

 

Bump.. Anybody else have any input?


-Chad-

 

Well, i don't really know any other way other then to take it out. I guess you could drill it, then maybe die grind it out to the threads, all around. Then you could probably get the threads out.

Otherwise, take it out and pray for the best. Run a tap through the threads if they aren't bad, to clean them up.

Just thinking, maybe get the spark plug really hot, and then ice it Have to be very careful of the head though, not sure if you could even pull that one off.

Thats all i got. Oh, if you feel it is detonation, you'll want to get to the bottom of that too, before you crack a sleeve or ringland or something along those lines.

 

I'm gonna let a machine shop deal with removing the spark plug. I'm just mainly concerned with the condition of the combustion chamber and What I can do to have it fixed.

As far as detonation. The headgasket started to leak right before I put the car up for the winter. I would drive for 10-15mins then pull up somewhere and the car would start white smoking and idling kinda rough, it reminded me of my camed Evo or a Wrx. This only happened a few times. My guess is something to do with that. the pistons are perfectly fine and that's what had me thrown off to why the combustion chamber was so porus(sp) in the #2 CC.. I'm just really hoping to find a good machine shop I can trust. They are very few, and far between, in my area.

-Chad-

 

bump.. Hoping to hear soon from some head builders. Anybody else have any ideas of what it's gonna take to fix the combustion chamber??

-Chad-

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by allstokhonda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">bump.. Hoping to hear soon from some head builders. Anybody else have any ideas of what it's gonna take to fix the combustion chamber??

-Chad-</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thats an easy fix just send it over il take care of it for you ..
im thinking the head gasket probally had somthing to do with it ..

How did your tune up look ..
That car was tuned very conservative Howards brother wanted to daily drive it so it would last along time

I know it made 550 WHP withsc61 and ran 10.50 or somthing

 

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

Thats an easy fix just send it over il take care of it for you ..
im thinking the head gasket probally had somthing to do with it ..

How did your tune up look ..
That car was tuned very conservative Howards brother wanted to daily drive it so it would last along time

I know it made 550 WHP withsc61 and ran 10.50 or somthing </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, I got to play with it a few times on race gas. Got some 7.3 @ 105mph at on old crappy track.

They car has ran great since day one. I don't know how well you remember it, but It will be quite different once I'm done with it. Re-doing engine bay, New turbo kit, better fuel system, freshing up the motor for this race season. All kinda of stuff..

Even after the plug problem. I drove it some, just on pump gas, and it never missed, AFR's were dead on, I have an aem wideband o2. I'll be glad to send it out to you. I'll give you a call tomorrow, if that's ok. We can talk a little more in detail. Thanks for the quick reply.

you got pm too.
-Chad-