I did a valve adjustment today and noticed a couple lobes had some marks on them similar to these. This was the worst of them, though. Should I be worried, or is this normal wear? BTW, stock cams with 53K on them.

 

that is called valve lash...
i got that ish too...

do u have scrapes on ur rocker arms?

 

Don't know, I didn't pull the cams out...

 

No it is not.

 

ahh, that isn't normal. especially with 53k miles. look at your rocker arms and see what's causing that.

 

I never saw marks like that before, Hey sgT are you looking? what do you think?


[Modified by 01PYITR, 1:16 AM 6/16/2002]

 

Did you wait 53k miles to change your oil, too?

 

Valve lash is the clearance between the cam and rockerarm, or the valve stem and rockerarm, to compensate for thermal expansion.

 

I agree with Sackdz. Almost looks like some oil starvation there.

 

Actually, that was my second adjustment. I did the first around 30K and didn't notice anything unusual then. I used .006 for the intake and .007 for exhaust. The pic is cylinder 1, exhaust side. I have some pics of the others, I will post later today.

I've run Mobil 1 since the first oil change. When I checked them before I adjusted them, they didn't seem too bad. Would this be a result of over or under tightening?

A thought just occured to me... If they looked fine before my 1st adjustment, maybe I adjusted them wrong and caused the damage myself. Maybe I should get someone to show me what "slight drag" on the feeler guage is supposed to feel like.

Another question: Is the concern the round-ish discolorations, or just the vertical marks. And why is the Vtec lobe the worst? You can't even adjust those.

About my cams or yours?

 

This is one of MY OEM-cams... destroyed after 25000km.

Get some high-quality cams like JUN`s, just my opinion.

Your cam looks bad to me. I can`t believe your engine is running smoothly.

Take a look at your rockers.. I guess they look the same, just mirrored.

How does your oil look ? Are there small silver particles in it ? Take your head to a professional shop to LET your valves adjust. There are a lot of things I do on my own (tuning etc.), but when it comes to pulling screws of internals, I realize I am a guy who has done this maybe only a few times in my life, maybe it`s the first time.

So I let these things be done by someone who has done this thousands of times before.. just for peace of mind and for warranty-ideas.

 

Hard to tell from the photo but the lobes do not look good, you need to check the rockers to see if the hard plating has wrn off.If you still had .006-.008 clearance you did nothing wrong, just some improper hardened parts, I have seen it before, even Honda suppliers make bad batches some times. Rockers are over $1000.00 a set so I would check them now.

 

Bryan will shut up and let Sakai do the talking

I do know that when my cams were out, I didnt notice any markings.

I dont know that I would be that worried. I wish I could tell you what is causing this. Come Monday all the "regulars" will see the pics and offer their advice.

 

Did you ever drive your car hard from a cold start? Maybe ya didn't let the cams oil up before you started driving it hard?

 

Okay. here are each of the cams on the exhaust side. I took all of the pics at the same time, so you're not seing them at TDC for each cylinder. They don't look that bad in these shots do they? It's only when I get zoomed in with my electron microscope.









As far as being rough on the car bafore it is warmed up, no, I drive gently til she's ready. I don't, however, let it idle for an extended period before driving off.

If my camera still worked I would take some more shots, but unfortunately I can't.

 

Bolt it all back up and adjust it to the middle of the allowed range, for the intakes, and the exahusts.
Looks like you may be ok from now on but just need to keep an eye on it for comparison (#4 definately seems noticable, #3 not as much).

Ben Schaeffer warned me about tightening the valves too much, and this might be the result. Ed

 

They look OKAY, nothing i havent seen before. But given your spark plug
change interval, i'd like to see what your oil change interval is.

 

Alright, alright. I'm really not a bad guy. I change my oil and filter every 3K, which is why I can't figure out what happened here. Sometimes I may go over by a bit, but not much, and sometimes, like when I'm headed to the track, I change it early. I just didn't realize plugs were such a wear item.

 

you know, I think Yoshi had this same problem. He might be able to help?

 

How often do you check your oil? It is very important that you check your oil at least weekly because you could be low on oil and not even know it. I know that oil starvation can cause scaring on camshafts. And if the engine continues to run low on oil it can even sieze up.

 

I completely forgot my cams till this post. Mine don't look as bad though

 

Now you got me worried. I did the valve adjustment to the minimal clearances as well.

 

TTT