6ghatch

So today I get home early from work and pop off my valve cover to have a look at my Skunk2 titanium retainers. With all the talk about titanium retainers failing at somewhere around 20K, I was getting worried. Mine have almost 30,000 miles on them along with Skunk2 valve spings and stage 1 cams, but honestly they don't look that bad! (knock on wood ) The sides seemed almost full thickness! compaired to some of the pics I've seen here on H-T. Most with paper thin sides and sharped edges. So what do you think?




But on another note: my spark plugs look as white as a ghost. The plugs are denso Iridiums. When I had my A/F done it was between 12:1 and 13:1. What else could be the cause?



[Modified by 6ghatch, 6:09 PM 3/18/2003]


[Modified by 6ghatch, 10:36 AM 3/29/2003]

SanoJDm

The valves retainers should last a life time being that they are titianium. Possibly some bad baches were produced from poor quality workmanship. Yours look fine.

The spark plugs look good to me. Normal codition is that the side electrode is brown or likght gray in appearance. It's a little hard to judge from the picture that you posted of the plugs but they should be fine. If any thing I would suggest switching back to NGK factory specified spark plugs.

joe_bocc

Its not the top of the retainer that you have to worry about. Check the bottom where the spring contacts the retainer.

MikeSarr_GSR

dont listen to the 5 post noob. titanium parts are not meant to last, they are meant to be light. the thickness you need to be worried about is where they mate with the spring. did you check the installed heights of your springs? if they are not even you can run into wear issues. I cannot speak for what is what with your car based on the blurry image. you need to change them or you will have a RUDE freakin awakening one day. trust me. I went 22K on mine with hard driving under some tough conditions and two intake outer shims wore through. My next setup may utilize titanium retainers, however the stock ones are fine. there is so much to consider when using aftermarket parts... you really, really need to take caution. the only way to truly inspect retainers is to remove them and look.

6ghatch

Quote from TodaSi

These pics show that the surface of the retainers were so badly worn that you could see the edge was worn paper thin, mine don't look anything like this. I used a mirror to look as best as I could to the underside of the retainers.

So if I'm going throught the trouble of taking them off to inspect the underside, I'd just replace them with the new ones I've got. Also, after talking with someone who had his retainers wear out he mentioned that it could also have to do with the cam profiles you are using. Most of the people who saw premature wear were using something like Toda B's, C's, Jun 3's, ect.




[Modified by 6ghatch, 10:38 AM 3/19/2003]

MikeSarr_GSR

do what you want bro, its your car

6ghatch

I'm not trying to blow you off, I know how titanium works and that they will need to be replaced sometime soon. The reason for my post is so myself and others know what to look for when inspecting Ti retainers. Also, just because someone else with titanium retainers had a failure at 20,000 miles does not mean that everyone with ti retainers should blindly swap them out every 20,000 miles.

So you had some wear out from the keepers?

MikeSarr_GSR

Nah Bro it aint like that. Everyone wants to make claims about how thier setup is better for some reason or another. I know titanium retainers FAIL eventually, fortunately for you, and those that choose to listen... one can benefit from someone who has experienced this failure first hand.

I dont have pics of them, I think they are in a box of spare parts somewhere in my garage. Yes, the outer tier of the skunk2 retainer thinned to the point of being about .010" thick and separated from the inner tier. I had two intake valves running off of the inner tier and inner ITR valvespring with the two outer intake springs loose under the rocker arms. Once I figured this out, I BABIED my car until I could get with Chris, my friend who has the knowledge and the tools to change them out. I found only 2/16 that were decent, the rest were at obvious states of wear. Each retainer had areas where the springs had seated into the retainer itself, galling them out. There was portions of this seat wear that appeared to be melted and galled over time.

They are not to be "blindly replaced," only suggestion was to inspect them properly. The only real way to do this is to remove them. In the future I will be a stickler on my installed heights when I use titanium retainers. Dropping in blindly and going seemed to be an area where I made a mistake. I was running Portflow/ITR outers and due to my lack of experience did not ask the machine shop to set the installed heights up, and did not know to do this. Shimming them all out as necessary to make them PERFECT is a good place to start.

These retainers are nice to add a but more lift as well as the lightened weight... however I dont know that they add that much performance that they are even necessary in a street/sometimes race car its a well known fact that the majority of the weight of the valvetrain is in the stock rocker arms. I would love to have a set of Spoon rocker arms. They are said to be MUCH lighter and stronger than stock units. Then you could use your stock retainers all day with better springs and tall cams with no worries when set up right. Yea, retainers are cheap... but all in all, are they worth the worry...?