May 2005, my head was rebuilt with Omni valve train and valves. August 2006 I began to notice some excessive valve train noise. Performed tune up with usual maintenance. No dice. Pop valve cover for inspection. All looked well. A few days later the noise disconintued. It poped up again a couple weeks later in September 06, but more excessive and louder. With my bastard (mix match of different shortblock, head, tranny, ecu, etc) 96 civic, I decided against Local honda dealer, in favor of Jason's (aka St00pid) new shop here in Houston. They poped the valve cover and there it was, a failed Ti Retainer. I wish I had photos, but I forget to get the old parts. Basically there was excessive retainer wear between the one of the #3 exhaust outer spring and the retainer. The retainer was worn so thin that it COMPLETELY SHEARED OFF the spring land, releasing the outer spring to hit the rocker arm. Fortunately the inner spring kept the valve from dropping. That is not all either. Jason's shop, St00pidfast, pulled the head and sent it to the head shop (GTP here Houston) for a thorough inspection and rebuild. When GTP dissassembled the head they found #2 intake outer spring snapped through one of the coils.

My car is purely a daily driver, with a relatively mild build. I am aggressive with my driving habits, but a snapped spring is simply poor quality control. My thoughts are perhaps some contamination or porosity in the wire used for the spring. Who knows, but for a spring to snap like that is very dissappointing As for the Ti Retainer, its safe to say these are wear items, but I have to question why that one wore so excessively, compared to the others which had plenty of meat on them. Poor tolerancing? Unsquare faces? Improper valve lash, *shrug*.

I will say that my Omni flat bottom valves came out shining, needing only to be lapped. Needless to say, Omni valves train did not find its way back into my head. I bit the bullet for Ferrera Mil Spec Endurance springs, cups, retainers and locks. Damn $$$$ But the retainers are much much thicker, and quality control should be magnitudes higher.

All said and done, the motor was retuned and was actually making a few more ponies than before, oddly enough with the cams dialed back to 0,0 from the previous +2,+2 setting

So my recommendation for anyone out there is if you are running Ti Retainers (regardless of brand), please have them inspected from time to time, perhapse on oil change intervals.This cost be over $1500, with most of that being Ferrera valve train. It could have been MUCH worse though.

 

Damn-Thats sucks dude. Thanks for the heads up on this. Im going to check mine when i get outa work.

 

Do you know if the person that originally built the head with the new valves measured the spring height? If one of the spring heights were off a bit it could lead to extra pressure on the retainer.

John

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BryanPendleton &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I will say that my Omni flat bottom valves came out shining, needing only to be lapped. Needless to say, Omni valves train did not find its way back into my head. I bit the bullet for Ferrera Mil Spec Endurance springs, cups, retainers and locks. Damn $$$$ But the retainers are much much thicker, and quality control should be magnitudes higher.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Glad to hear that you had no lasting damage to the engine!

Your story re-affirms my valve train selection for my up coming build:

 

been there with another brand of retainer. driving on a failed outer spring land
on the intake side made for an interesting hiccup at 7200rpm. I went 22K on
some retainers and those suckers came out as thin as .010" in some places

 

friend of mine had something similar happen to his track car (B16 EF). we had noticed that it didn't seem to pull very well passed 7000 rpm, not like you'd expect from a B16 with ITR cams, but it seemed to run fine otherwise, so he never looked into it further.

Anyway, he was changing the oil one day, and noticed some weird curved piece of metal on his magnetic drain plug. turned out to be a piece of valvespring from his crower valvetrain! he had multiple broken valvesprings (mostly inners I think), and his ti retainers were all dangerously thin! and to think, he had been track driving it like this for almost a year! its amazing that he didn't have a catastrophic failure.

for my new build, I'm going to use new OEM retainers.

still trying to settle on a mild valvespring setup though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1fastVX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Do you know if the person that originally built the head with the new valves measured the spring height? If one of the spring heights were off a bit it could lead to extra pressure on the retainer.
John </TD></TR></TABLE>

All install heights where "dialed" in. So seat pressures should have been within tolerance span of spring rates.

 

Isnt the lifespan of titanium retainers suppose to be 15-20k miles?

 

good reason to get buddyclub Ti retainers:

Buddy Club P-1 Racing Titanium Valve Retainers are dsigned to reduce overall valve train mass and yet provide excellent strength for high-revving engines with high lift cams and is coated with PVD black nitride friction redcuding coating to make it last up to 3x longer than uncoated retainers. MSRP $240/set of 16 retainers

 

i had the same exact problem with mine. lucky i pulled the head in time before the valve dropped.

 

some people with rm valvetrain haved this prob too??omni/rocket are like twin for valvetrain parts...

 

Why is everyone so surprised when their 'race only parts' don't last 200k miles? I mean, we aren't even talking about a reputable brand here

 

buff the butts of all your springs at each end on a scotchbrite type buffing wheel and buy one of those 45 degree sandpaper countersink things from goodson for deburring the inner radius. i bet lifespan would double. coatings are a good idea too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mike_belben@yahoo.com &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> buy one of those 45 degree sandpaper countersink things from goodson for deburring the inner radius. </TD></TR></TABLE>

what is a 45 degree sandpaper counter sink?

 

and all they seem to sell is Ti retainers...... are there any places that dont?

 

Bryan, thanks for the posting. Parts failures tend to be very informative. I was wondering if you could post a pic.

I know in aircfraft engines and frames, Ti is a good material because of strength to weight ratio and overall high strength. However, Ti endurance strength is much less than a high strength steel alloy.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nfn15037 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Why is everyone so surprised when their 'race only parts' don't last 200k miles? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nfn15037 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I mean, we aren't even talking about a reputable brand here </TD></TR></TABLE>

How are they not reputable?

 

When I installed my rocket valvetrain, I noticed a couple of them did not sit perfectly flat onto the spring seats. I had to trim the seats a little before I was happy with the fitment. Checking all these details are crucial in valvetrain parts.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Combustion Contraption &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
How are they not reputable?</TD></TR></TABLE>

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by original poster &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
my head was rebuilt with Omni valve train and valves</TD></TR></TABLE>

You find Omni to be a reputable company? Obviously any company has failures but they seem to have more than most. From paper thin coilover lower mounts(which happened to shear off-they revised the mounts), to clutch master cylinders that puked fluid after 2 miles (every single one failed in the 1st batch-again, revised), to non-designed titanium retainers. They seem to be very good at marketing though, I'll give them that much. This is why I prefer specialty manufacturers, companies that specialize in one thing and do it really well.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flesh199 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">some people with rm valvetrain haved this prob too??omni/rocket are like twin for valvetrain parts... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Blox would make it triplets, and buddy club valvetrain is a real close cousin.

 

one big chinese family

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nfn15037 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Why is everyone so surprised when their 'race only parts' don't last 200k miles? I mean, we aren't even talking about a reputable brand here </TD></TR></TABLE>

A valve spring, regardless of what the application is, should last a lifetime, not suffer a "brittle type" fracture. I am surprise? You bet.

Now I do agree to some extent with regard to Ti retainers, as they will ultimately suffer from wear, but I was curious as to what factors may cause such varying wear rates, as mentioned the varience in retainer thickness was big.

I have to swing by the shop in the next week or so, and I will pick up the parts and see if I cannot get some good pics and run a thorough inspection myself.

 

Did anybody try the IB spec valve springs and retainers? according to his site there the best on the market and last longer?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 91integraLSVTEC &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Did anybody try the IB spec valve springs and retainers? according to his site there the best on the market and last longer?</TD></TR></TABLE>


easy to say when you sell the product.

 

Are the Ferreas made of Ti also?