I recently purchased a lsv (GSR head) pretty cheap to start a turbo build. Once I removed the head and had a closer look there is some scarring on some journals and the caps that hold them down. I did do some searching on the site here and found some good info but the posts were so old the links for the pics were dead.

Here are some pics that show the worst damage. There is a couple of spots where there is a slight scratch in the material only on the head and caps. The camshafts only have what looks like discoloration. (Link to pics, I couldnt resize and they were huge >.<). http://imgur.com/a/QgqVi

Derp sry forgot to ask a question lol. How bad is this can I run the head as is. I Plan on a 650+ build.

 

that doesn't look that at all.
Honestly for cylinder heads with +100k miles on them you can't expect much better than that.

The only times i've seen cleaner cam caps on dohc vtec motors where on auto prelude h22 enignes or jdm lower milage b16/b18c engines.



before you do anything else to the head, I would:
- throughly clean head, camshaft, caps, bolts, rail
- apply 30w oil onto cam caps , install cam & torque down properly
- turn cam with cam gear, it should turn freely

GL

 

Ok thanks for the reply. Ill give that a shot today. The only thing that really bothers me is there is some ridges where if i pass my nail over the scratch it hangs. But thats only on 2 spots.

 

They don't look bad at all if those are the worst ones. I would use red scotchbrite on the cam journals to clean anything off that may be stuck. As far as the head goes, you could VERY carefully use a fine round file to ONLY lift off the high spots. Be soo delicate as files work with each stroke. You are only removing the high spots, not anything else and don't try to make it look good with the file. You can make it look good with a red scotchbrite pad.