Well, as some of you know I`ve had some recent troubles of cam breakage, timing issues, and just flat out bullshit. I ran Crower 402`s and managed to make several pieces out of them:



During that little venture I bent all intake valves. They were replaced with (thank God they were stainless, and we`ll get to that lil significance later), new valves that were .5 over stocks.

Everything is put back together, everything seems ok, although I never really had a concrete answer as to WHY the cam broke in the first place, I settled for the anser you and everyone else did: Crower did a bad grind. Fine, they say the new cams are better and gave me new ones. Free.

Well last night I was rollin` along, goin thru the gears and all the sudden...cling cling cling...etc. the car died. There was no starting back up, just an awful sound.

I thought I busted another cam! Damnit! Well after a compression test I found 180+ on cyl 4, 180+ on 3 and 0 on 2 and 65 on 1. I looked through the sparkplug hole and I could actually see the damn valve. I knew I was in deep ****.

I proceeded to tear the engine down and found this:

along with a few bent exhaust valves.

I took the springs to my machine shop and and the look on the guys face after he tested it was downright scary. The spring actually BROKE!!!
That would explain the reason I busted a cam. That would explain EVERYTHING. Valve float is the death of any motor, or in my case, 2 deaths in one motor

That`s my tech lesson for today





[Modified by sinister, 11:38 AM 4/4/2003]

 

If it wasn`t for bad luck, you wouldn`t have any. Sorry, Dood.

 

Dayam sorry to see that man.

 

What valve springs were you running?

 

are you over reving?

 

 

I could drop a spaghetti noodle on a plate and it would be straighter than that valve . G-damn!

 

No over revving here, and I`m using crower springs...everything was to spec. I was in the clear

 

bad springs?? any one else have bed luck with crower?

 

sounds like the installed height of the springs/retainers may have been off?

 

time for jun stage 3's!! woo wooo

 

Your valve looks like a mushroom.

But wasn't there some talk about the LMA's needing to be Type-R's....something about binding in the LMA spring?

 

now that is scary.... i got the stage 2 crowers and was just waiting for all the other parts. now i am very hesitant with my project!

 

hmmm i thought because we have OHC style motors that valve float wasnt possible, i thought it was a push rod thing?? i could be mistaken

 

yikes. sorry to hear that man.

 

holy ****!!!!!!!! what kind of springs were you running with your crower setup??? was it all from crower??? portflow??? skunk2??? please do tell...might help others here...thanks

 

That's not valve float, but either way... ouch.

 

eather valve float or a broken retainer.

 

what cuaes the valve to float,springs not keeping up with the cam?

 

what are the specs on the cams?

 

Valve float happens at high RPMs, when the inertia of the valve, rocker assembelly, keeper, and reatiner overpower the springs ability to keep the rocker on the cam lobe. When this happens, there isn't really any sound change, but the car noticeably lacks power, and depending on the severity, you could bend valves, ect.

A VW friend once said, "So, damages aside, it's like VTEC?"

 

what we think happened with mine was, the cams were lofting the valves/retainers just enough so that the retainers were just barely hitting the valve guides at hight rpm. Eventually this "mushroomed" the tops of the guides to the point that it stuck/held the valves in the cylinder and...BANG! Big mess. Installed height off, maybe?

 

not the first time ive heard of crower's breaking timing belts and bending valves.....sorry bro

 

I did some valve floating myself about a week ago. Mine valves were nowhere near as bad as yours (I just SLIGHTLY bent cylinder 3 exhaust valves). Good luck with everything and sorry to hear about your continuous bad luck with your valvetrain

 

Dude, you seriously have to give up on crower. That sucks ***.