I wouldn't normally post up something like this but I'm in a bind and need help quick. I have the service manual but I left it in my friend's car who is now 200 miles away and too mechanically illiterate to look up a torque spec for me.

While doing the valve adjustment on my EP3, I tightened down one of the vc bolts by hand and the stupid thing still snapped like a twig. I purchased the replacement bolt/stud from honda, this is the part that goes down and acts to hold the cams down (sorry, not too sure about the technical name but it starts as a bolt that holds the cams in place and then there is a stud that acts to hold the VC in place). I think the VC part is torqued to 6 pounds and the cam part is torqued to 16 IIRC but I wanted to double check. Anybody want to be awesom and look this up for me? Thanks

 

You can download an electronic copy of the Helms manual on ephatch.com

 

Thanks for the heads up.

One question though: When I looked it up, it says that the 8mm bolts are torqued to 16lbf, and the 6mm are torqued to 8.7lbf. The bolt on mine seems like its a 12 or something though, its definitly bigger than an 8mm. Am I looking at the wrong thing? If you could take a look at it, its on page 6-38. Thanks

 

So, I just went and double checked this and something is definitly weird. The EP3 manual states that the camshaft holder bolts should be 8mm apparently. All of mine are 12mm, on a bone stock car that only has 12K miles. Any thoughts?

 

To give you guys an idea of what I mean exactly, I'm talking about the bolt on the right side of this photo, with the VC stud out of the top:



According to the EP3 manual, its suppose to be a 8mm bolt but mine is a 12. Any thoughts?

 

ouch..k20's are a pain...that's why I hesitate working on mine...
um..does it matter the year? If I still worked for honda I'd look it up on our comp catalog..
try calling the dealer..

 

Dealers are useless. For those of you who have messed with the K series and have a service manual, when the manual says, for example, "8mm bolts", is it referring to bolts which are removed with a 8mm wrench or those whose threaded part is 8mm wide? This would make a lot more sense, as the "12mm bolts" I keep saying I have seem to be right around 8mm wide for the threaded part. Is that where my confusion is coming from?

 

Just in case anyone is curious, it ended up being 16.7 foot pounds. When honda says "8mm" bolt, they don't mean 8mm head but rather an m8xsomething bolt. I figure this might help someone in the future that has the same problem.

 

LOL, yeah man the 8mm is referring to the threaded part, not the bolt head.

Glad you got it figured out though

 

Haha, now I know. Mitsubishi does theirs the opposite way so that's why I was so confused. I kept thinking "WTF, there's no 8mm bolt here!!"