I have had skunk2 Ti retainers in my car for 20K approx and I had discovered a problem this past week. My engine hesitated in the upper rpm band it felt like a misfire. It coughed, I changed my NGKs out. The problem seemed to be ellivated, however a sound as if air was escaping from the motor would insue above 6800rpm on the tach. I was racking my brain then I began to track its behaviour more. I took 1st to 7k and held it the spitting sound came in and then the motor bogged a bit... ahhh yes valve float. I instantly turned home and took off the valve cover. I discovered 2 of my intake valve retainers had work through the outer portion so that only the inner valve spring was driving the valve. I checked everything for free movement and fortumately enough was able to recover 90% of the metal that was left around the valvespring. The Outer Intake springs are freely moving on there so I am not taking the motor past 4K now that I know what it is. I plan on replacing with stock retainers wed night until I can research a better lighter valve retainer. I dont feel like replacing the bitches every 10-15K for safe keeping. Add taller cams and that interval I say would drop to 7500-10K of hard driving miles. It seems that the Crower Ti retainer is more robust on the outer portion that drives the outer spring. This is a good thing since the skunk2 thickness is same as stock when new. Mine that wore through the metal was less than .020" thick. I will be taking them out and posting the wear I put on them along with pics of the new skunk2 retainer side by side. Anyone running this retainer should be aware of the risk, you could drop a valve after 15-20K with them in there be aware of this Pray for me that my car holds up until Wed night... I dont want to have to replace my motor due to a dropped valve...

 

just curious to see what valve springs u were using ?

 

what about keeping the stock retainers??

i remember a thread that rocket (the guy that sells the hondasaver products) said that the stock retainers where better than the titanium cuz titanium had a lil of aluminum on it, and aluminum tends to bend or be maleable. So he said that the stock retainers where the best for reliability because they were almost indestructable.

I'm sure that you want the lighter retainers you can get, but knowing this i don't know what you should do.
I guess that with the stock one's you'll be ok, but i'm sure you don't want to hear that.
Anyway, i don't have any experience with the titanium retainers, so i can't help.

Hope it helps

 

At first when I read the title, I was like "No way in hell are you going to rev up to 15k rpms!" LOL!

But I heard the Crower is just as worse when it comes to valvetrain products.

 

previously for 10K or so I had portflow inners with ITR yellow outers on CTR cams and after a portflow inner spring BROKE, I took em out and reinstalled my full ITR setup with yellows on intake and blues on exhaust for the most recent 10K on GSR cams

 

I have approx 10k miles on my crower valve train and all the parts were inspected in Nov. All stuff looks very good and no signs of any problems for the future

 

I currently have ~30,000 miles on my Ti retainers from Portflow, last time I inspected them they looked perfectly fine. I pulled all of the retainers ~15,000 miles ago and did not note any abnormal wear.

Austin

 

I wouldn't say that stock retainers are indestructable... my machinist found this yesterday when he was doing my valvejob and changing out my retainers..


Don't see that very often do you? The motor was never misshifted, the valves were still in tact, luckily, and valve springs were ITRs.

 

did you ever found out what make it break? was it only one or several of them?

 

Austin: did you prepare the lip of the valvespring for the retainer? I have read that Importbuilders for example reworks the upper portion of the valvespring where the retainer sits so that the edge of the metal will not rub. I was curious if you did anything to make them run longer. Also, if there is any brand of Ti retainer what would you suggest and why?

After much thought it seems to me the design of the skunk2 lends itself to breakage. There are grooves on the topside of the retainer where metal is removed to reduce weight, it seems like it makes the contact area of the metal thinner than it needs to be. Crower seems to have this over the Skunk2 design since the outer lip for the outer spring seems thicker. The portflows if I am not mistaken are FLAT like the stock retainer. I am just deciding what to do, currently I think I putting the stockers back in until I can justify my purchasing another set with what I know now.

Also, anyone researched any companies that perform performance coatings for parts like these? I know Titanium Nitride is used on special tools that recieve rediculous heat and wear I remember MD from Ti making some reference to this some time back. Any input is greatly appreciated

 

The machinist said that it looked like fatigue that caused it to crack. That is the only retainer that did it. Considering they are steel, I'm wondering if it was a flaw in the casting or something. But the retainer itself looks somewhat bent as well.

 

Upon thinking about it...the retainers were in the car with Toda valve springs, and Toda B cams for ~12,000 miles, numerous 9,400 rpm runs, peak hold once say 9,800+...returned to stock cams and stock valve springs, the valvetrain has seen 9,400 rpm more than once(autocrossing), normally only sees 8,600rpm during full throttle runs through the gears.

What I did to prepare the retainers...I had them sent out to be Cryogenically treated, I believe that you can also have one of the coating companies apply a coating for you, i.e. http://www.hpccoatings.com or http://www.swaintech.com

I had forgotten that I had sent them out to be cryo treated, as well as the spec B cams that I sold, the Toda valve springs that I sold, and the Toda cam gears that I still have.

Austin

 

Portflow and ferrea retainers are the only ones i'll recommend

as for the stock retainer breaking, auto b16a retainers are apparently
weaker than others and will break near or above 8000rpm or under stiff
valvetrain.
b18c retainers we have not had any problems with

 

awesome. great info Austin, Steve very much appreciated. first things first, I MUST get those fatigued retainers out of there ASAP and then I will upgrade when I have fully researched it, bought and prepped them. My goal is to run a set of valvesprings with the right retainers, appropriate timing belt and cams for 185-215 at the wheels. I am thinking with the right tuning the skunk2 stage 1 is calling my name. I want to run the "smallest" performance cam in there and still make power, since I totally believe in Honda cams, the biggest I want to go is a 255/250 sized profile. My car will be mainly for the street, so I want good drivability.

Since misshifting is part of the life of most motors, I want to have the ability to recover from one or two a year in a freak case if possible. I have seen missed shifts with these retainers w/o any valve contact! One day I did it 3 times on the highway on CTR cams back in May of last year chasing my friend's Supra on the highway. Fortunately, I have developed a better shifting technique that have reduced the risk of the accidental 3-2 shift at high RPM. I had a valve bending accident from this back in April on the stock retainer... I cant guarantee that the timing belt tension was where it needed to be however. Now that I have that aspect of understanding down, I keep my cold belt deflection to the inside of a 10mm wrench when cold all the time. Thanks again guys... my retainers have seen HELL... the cryotreating idea is very intriguing... and CHEAP!

 

I agree, I have numerous customers who are beyond 20K miles with Portflows without any problems, I have seen some crowers thin out but were caught and changed right on time.

also, regarding the stock steel retainers, the ITR/GSR are the best to use, however if you are one of the many who constantly bang up against their rev limiter, THEY WILL BREAK ...


greg


[Modified by CHEETAH, 11:29 PM 1/7/2003]

 

These are just my opinions, but...
185-210 at the wheels, go with the skunk2 stage 1's, higher compression pistons, a good header(can you guess what I recommend?), and tuning(cam gears and ECU), goal should be acheived while retaining a very high reliability rate...the lower number can be acheived without the pistons, but with the higher compression pistons you should have a very nice torque curve, as well as a nice peak rpm whp number.

I'm still on stock cams with semi stock compression(Mugen headgasket) and thoroughly enjoy my torque curve.

Austin

 

I'm running Portflow now, but those were ITR retainers...

 

Austin: I am currently enjoying an 2001 ITR block, do you think I would be needing taller domed pistons than USDM ITR?

Question: is the ITR outer or the GSR intake outer the spring of choice>? and why? when looking at the coils side by side I was suprised to see the GSR outers are thicker and seemed to have more tension to them. The ITR inner intake springs are much stiffer and thicker coils than the GSR intake inners. We plan on testing the coil bind rate of both outers tomorrow night by weighing the springs down and measuring the travel. I know the ITR intake outer is taller when uninstalled and has the same amount of coils as the GSR but compressing to coil bind in my hands was easier done than with the GSR intake outer. It seems like to me that it may be worth a closer look. Since the intake valve on the GSR is heavier to begin with than the ITR and still maintains the 8K limit Honda deinately put a worthy spring in there. The weaker link seems to be the GSR inner intake valvespring. Perhaps I could install my ITR inners with it if they prove to be more resistant to coil bind... hmm. I am only running GSR cams currently with the ITR inner/outer on the intake side with the GSR inner/outer on the exhaust with the ITR lost motion units. I had Portflow inners with ITR outers before I bought my new block and head, looking at the wear on the valvetrain components and having a broken inner spring on the intake side... (might have been caused by loss in oil pressure VTEC was slapping in and out and I think that might have damaged the inner valvespring) I also had GSR LMAs in there with CTR cams, Larry Widmer had advised against it with the C1 rocker arm ratio making more lift at the valve. My old motor had some problems to say the least. I would run the Portflow inners, only I dont know why my other one broke. I am not crazy about running the old springs I have for fear that I got a "bad batch." Any thoughts on the GSR outer spring has anyone actually test compared them with the ITR? I just want a valvetrain that is more resistent to a hard or missed shift... its a bad feeling
when the revs come back down and the motor shudders...


[Modified by MikeSarr_GSR, 12:27 AM 1/8/2003]

 

to prevent the spring form digging into the ti-retainers and causing accelerated wear, you guys need to prep the spring. you need to chamfer the inside diameter of both the inner and outer springs, the side with the bigger end coil. this will remove the sharp edge that will dig into the retainer. this only needs to be done on the retainer side. also lap the spring on the side that the retainer will go on, so its smooth and flat. this is basically what we do at the shop that i work at, on heads that uses ti-retainers

 

Unfortunately I broke a stock GSR retainer and dropped an intake valve. So even the B18C retainers are susceptible to breakage. The problem with titanium retainers wearing out seems to be becoming more commonplace, possibly because more people are using them. I have both a set of the Crower and the Skunk2 titanium retainers, no problems yet. Reports of retainer wear have me concerned however; perhaps someone can design an improved retainer made of an as yet untried alloy?

 

I know domestics enjoy ones made from chromoly steel that are
both light and very strong, I have not seen them as of yet for
B or H series applications.

01/09/03

took them out tonight, replaced with stock retainers. the skunk2s came out
in various states of wear, none in any way consistent to themselves. for some reason they all recieved different wear patterns somehow.


[Modified by MikeSarr_GSR, 4:17 AM 1/10/2003]

 

What bout valve spring's binding, if someone used the ITR outer springs with cams that have more than 12mm lift the ITR springs will bind and once that happens something is going to brake. I'm not sure what cams you guys were using but I’m kind of surprised that no one would bring this issue up.

 

The LMAs tend to come more into play as a first weakest link in the chain when upgrading cams on a B16/17/18C1. The ITR/CTR LMAs have about .020 more movement in them and do not bottom out as fast, which is majorly important
and highly overlooked. valve float due to springs binding under normal usage comes mainly when the timing belt becomes looser than necessary and one misses a shift and goes sky high. whatever retainer you use I would inspect them every 3-6months for wear, its not the hardest thing to do. if you were running wilder cams, however definately use the springs that manufacturer reccommends. especially toda... I have my eye on the skunk stage 1 cams using stock ITR springs and LMAs (which I have) and a beefed up inner spring (need) and prepped Ti retainers. I have already seen a portflow inner spring break under valvetrain bind so I am a bit squeamish on that product, however I might spring for another full set or talk to the guys out there to see if what I experienced can be de-fluked by swapping my set out N/C. I also plan on upgrading to a stronger timing belt, I plan on a 9200 rev limit with a stock '01 ITR block using ARP headstuds and rod bolts. at some point this year I hope to have all this taken care of with a decent catch can setup, header, skunk2 intake mani/ITR TB, prelude injectors and hondata tuning. I am looking for roughly 185-200whp tuned for peak efficiency hopfully I will be able to maintain 20+MPG. It should be fun to see if it can be done. Most of the parts I will be getting second hand as they become available.
Oh, well thats y $.02