Probably a dumb question...My father has been a machinist since he graduated high school...hes 47 now. sadly all his work was in industry so he knows very little about automotive machine work. I picked up on some stuff not an expert tho. I'm building a lsvtec for my coupe. i have already balanced the rods and pistons, we don't have a crank grinder so i must take it somewhere. I need a valve job for the head but i have no idea how too, is there any type of guide or website i can go to? i'm just a diy person, plus i'm trying to cut cost. i have access to a brigdeport and a lathe. any help would be great thanks.

 

crank grinding is not something you want to do to a honda crank unless you like spun bearings. there is a fine layer of some kind of heat treatment on all the journals that you will remove if you have it ground. just a light miro polish will do the trick as long as the crank is not damaged. you can do that yourself with some 600-800 grit fine sand paper.

as for the valve job. that is deffinatly something you need a expeinced machine shop to do. unless you have the machine to properly cut the correct valve seat angles there is nothing you can do to get a perfect seal. even if you do find a website that will show you step-by-step it will be with a proper valve/seat grinding machine.

 

most automotive machine work is done on machines built for a specific task, like boring and honing mills for blocks, decking mills, valve grinders, ring gap grinders, etc... you can do some stuff on a manual mill and lathe, but for most of the critical stuff you need the specialized equipment.

 

As was already mentioned, you don't really want to anything to a Honda crank other than polish it; the journals are hardened. If your crank is bad, source another one.

As far as valve and seat refacing, there's stuff available that doesn't require dedicated machinery. Neway seat cutters (they also offer a valve refacer) work excellent.

If your primary goal is to cut costs, then it's going to be WAY cheaper to send it out to the local machine shop. Purchasing specialized tools is going to run you a pretty big tab.