My integra was making a funny noise. Alot of those that replied said it might need valve adjustment. i was thinking the worse and maybe my connecting rod was fractured. But guess what. I took off my valve cover-didnt see nothing. Then I took off the intake camshaft cover-and what do i find?- gouges on each outer cylinder wall. None on the exhaust side-but all on the intake side. I just found out what was making the noise. The valves or component was digging a trench in in my cylinder head. Now what do i do. The valve stems looks pretty straight from the spring up. But i was thinking, I had a mech. do some work on the car earlier. And could he have misplaced the exhaust cam with the intake cam? Is that what is causing the valves to hit the side of the walls. If not, what could it be? Thanks for any input.

 

Uhhh say again?

The cams only fit one way or the car won't crank, cause the distributor is turned by the intake cam on a keyway that ONLY exists on the intake cam..

BTW, you CANNOT see cylinder walls by jsut pulling the cams, unless you've got some badass FibreOptics tools...

 

I have no idea what you just said...
But what kind of work did you have your mechanic do before this all happened?

 

Damn, i don't know what can cause that damage then? I'm sorry It wasnt on the the cylinder wall-it was on the outer part of the head, adjacent to the valves. I had the car repaired because there was a clanking noise in the engine. He inspected my rods and pistonsand he said they were fine-even chanbged out my main engine bearings.He also told me that the lifters neede replacement and valves to be adjusted. Drove fine for one day, then the noise came back-i believe he didn't set the timing right. But yea, there are deep grooves in that area directly across the cams(on the wall); metallic flakes are present when you run your fingers through the scratches. I dont know what to do. should i just get a new head. or salvage the engine-it only has 70000 mi on it. Oh and now i have a problem starting the engine-like it needs to be running in this condition anyway. I have aftermarket cams-if that helps.Thanks-i cant stand a beautiful car not running right.

 

"With all that done, you can now prep the head for installation of the new camshafts. The first step is to run a bead of assembly lube along the cam journals on the head. Then be sure to install the correct cam on the correct side"-on C-speedracing.com/howto/caminstall. are you sure it can't be put on wrong?

 

Did he tear down the engine when he inspected the rods and pistons? That's the only way I know how to inspect them. The "lifters" need replacement ? There are no lifters in Integra's; the camshafts drive the rocker arms directly. Your "mechanic" is highly suspect in my book. I have never heard of the kind of damage you are describing-if you posted pics it might help. Someone else may have experienced this phenomena.