Hi guys:

I just got the H22 out for its first break-in run and more problems keep coming at me! Engine made a strange noise and we immediately shut it off. Took the car to our garage and checked the timing belt, timing and the cam gears. Timing was perfect, the timing belt was fine and the cam gears were set at where we had them initially, which was -1 EX, 0 IN. We took the head off and noticed that the intake/exhaust valves from piston #3 had touched each other. The exhaust valve is bent and won't know until the head is taken apart to see if there was more contact elsewhere. From simple observation, looks like only a set of valves from piston #3 touched each other. Our setup includes JUN cams, valvetrain, Type S std bore pistons, port/polished.welded chambers cylinder head and stock honda head gasket.

Has anyone experienced this before? What could have attributed to this happening? Why just one specific area and not all valves?

Any input will be appreciated.

 

Without knowing about these cams, there's really only two answers.

1. Large diameter valves were installed.
2. Cam timing is wrong, no matter how many times it was measured...

Probably "2."

 

Factory honda valves were used. The damage was to just one set of valves though. I would assume as i don't know too much on this that if cam timing was off then i would have had the same results on all valves, right? What do you think?

 

That's pretty strange... I wonder if someone somehow machined those valve seats wrong so they're offset. That seems impossible since they do tat based off the valve guides.

Hopefully so pros here can help...

 

There is a valve guide in that same area where the valves collided that seems to be leaking some oil. Could there be a link to this? Could there be some kind of offset? The car wasn't running enough time to tell if there was oil passing through and burning out via the exhaust. But you can notice there is oil. I don't know if the problem is the valve seal or the valve guide.

 

Could a rocker arm have gotten stuck open?

Obviously there was a valve that was stuck open and didn't close before the next one started opening.

It could be the cam timing; are you sure it wasn't the piston that hit them?

 

Pistons have no markings whatsoever. For sure it was not the piston that hit the valve. There is only one exhaust valve in that area that you can tell for sure is bent and has a marking to the side edge of the valve, indicating contact with its corresponding intake valve. All the other valves look perfectly intact.

 

Oh yeah... duh, if a valve stuck open, it can certainly be hit by the other. That's most certainly what happened. Was a valve job done? Valves adjusted? Valve guides replaced? Stem seals okay?

 

The cylinder head that was installed is a newly built H22 head. Full port/polish with welded chambers and also had genuine honda valve seals installed. Valve guides were not replaced. Valves were adjusted after installing the redone cylinder head If nothing happened to the other valves than a stuck open valve might have been the cause of this. Considering we only retarded the exhaust cam gear 1 degree.