I recently bought a semi built h22 that the previous owner said it had a rod knock, during the tear down the mains and rod journals looks to be normal but further inspection of the head I see that under the vtec (middle) rockers has been grinded down along with the LMA, is this because of a tight valve adjustment or the cams are too big?

Specs on motor:
H22a
Mahle 11.5 pistons
Eagle rods
Blox b cams
Blox valve springs
What looks to be k20 retainers
Skunk2 pro cam gears
Ported head.

Here are some crappy phone pics I took of the valve train.

Could this be why the previous owner thought it was a rod bearing?

 

i cant remember exactly but i believe something like that is done to prevent damage from vtec damagaing the rockers or something, if you ask 98vtec or nah2b theyll know.

 

The bottom of the rocker is worn down from pushing up against the lma. To me it seems like when vtec is engaged the lobes on the cams are bottoming out the lma.

 

Hmm. If the LMAs are hitting the rockers then it's possible you have B VTEC LMAs and not H22. Only way to confirm or deny this theory is to measure a B series LMA and compare to what's installed in the head.

H22 are shorter than B series.

 

Forgot to mention they are hydraulic lma not spring type but I have an extra h22 head that has hydraulic lma also, did they came hydraulic and spring type?

 

switched to spring type in 99 or 98... needs a shim to run them in an earlier head though

 

I thought you only need shims if they were going to be installed in a b series.

 

search speed of science.

 

Correct. Which is why if a B series LMA was used in a H22 there would be clearance issues. Have you taken the LMA's out of the head and measured / compared to a known H22 and B series LMA? That would eliminate the guess work all together.