Head / Valve work

Well my valve stem seals were giving me a little puff every time on startup since I bought the car, knowing that a little oil burnt each time I wasn't hugely fussed at the time.

I've been on the attack on my car in the last 12 months having now replaced every gasket and seal on the engine, new stock radiator, new oil and water pump, new crank pulley and all belts.

About 8 weeks ago the car started increasing it's smoking habit (probably marlboro levels) and would also give a little puff after it stood in traffic and I pulled away. Didn't affect WOT or power output, but quite frankly I was ashamed with it making people think 'Cor that looks like it's on the way out'.

So with reliability being my main objective with my car I bit the bullet and went out and asked a few traders on how much it would be to sort out my head. I even looked into buying a Stage 1 / 2 head and just having that bolted on but couldn't find out that much on if it was good value for money.

I then decided to go up to AFR and get my work done there after looking around, so far I've not seen a bad word about their work, no disputes, only praise.

I pootled up the 90 mile trip to Gatwick back in June. Discussed with Dude and Matt (muffleman) there about what we'd do, initially just valve stem seals, rear main crank seal, gaskets, ARP head kit, reroute my badly laid out oil feed/drain lines and water lines. Leaving the car with them I got the train back home after discussing a timeframe and a rough budget.

Dude is a good bloke isn't he? He kept me in the loop on my car work at all time, calling or emailing on a daily basis the progress and also where other decisions had to be made (like when we found I really needed the valves redone, not just stem seals).

I had a few issues, the oil drain I bought off a member alas wasn't for a GT35, so spent a little labour finding that out! (Anyone need a PHR oil drain for a T04R?) So had one fabricated whilst it was there (pics to follow).

Anyway, once the head was off it was found the head was badly coked up, Dude said he had never seen one this bad before, so the work went a little further, I upped my budget as the previous owner of my car was of the 'cheapest possible route' frame of mind. I'd paid labour to have the head removed, I may as well get the other jobs that cost a few hundred quid done whilst it's there. So the head was plopped in the acid bath to decoke, the engine bay was steam cleaned as well. Ironically for having such a bad state head, Dude said my cams and the rest looked brand spanking new.

The work took a little longer than initially planned because of all the extras, I apologise to AFR for eating into their TOTB tuning time!

The head was put on last Wednesday and the engine fired up first time, a few tweaks to my boost controller (seems Gain @ 70 is a tad high! ) and all is now well with it.

We've found my idle control valve is shot and AFR think my timing is a little out of whack, as well as running a bit rich at times. We tried turned the boost up to 1.4bar from 1.2 but only saw a whopping ... 7 bhp gain:blink:. I had to take the car back home as they had TOTB and I had the impending MOT to get done.

The car is going back in a few weeks for a remap, I may drop some 650 injectors in there at the same time.

Attached below are the pics I've been sent, you can see how dirty the head was and how bad the valves were (one being mine, one being an unmolested one). I'm glad I bit the bullet and got the work done, it's one less thing on my list and on my mind towards solid reliability. Thanks Dude for the updates and keeping me sane when decisions had to be made. Yes AFR are a long way away from me, but I will be returning to them for my other bits of work and I hope it makes people think to look at the main tuning/build people on here, rather than trying to find a local 'specialist' for major work where intimate knowledge will pay off. Hence why I want to trip all the way up to Chris Wilson sometime for my suspension setup.

It's my car, one that I never intend to sell. I've seen too many old people having lovely Jags, Cobras, Ford Mexicos and classics back in their time that then they sold when they had kids etc, I intend/hope to not ever get out of owning this Supra, I think I'd only buy another to have a total track beast, or a completely immaculate unmolested one. People always seem to regret selling their pride and joy car, so why do it? Even if I have to store this car for a few years when times are tight I'd rather do that and join the 306 commute-mobile collective that we're growing here

Lengthy post? Yeah maybe. But I'm pleased with the work and glad I had it done. Engine now runs a lot sweeter, the exhaust has zero smoke and actually smells like it's runnning a lot cleaner.

It passed the MOT with no faults on two days ago So I'm chuffed.

Maybe I'll do a project thread sometime after I've documented all I've done and get myself organised.

AFR , sincerely.

Left on my list to fit shortly that I have sat at home :

Full polybush replacement kit

2 x Fluidyne transmission oil coolers

Refurbed clear lenses (off Scott M) + HID Kit

My to do list :

6-speed or uprated AT

Bosch pump

Greddy throttle body

More Earls + hosings

Simplify my engine bay where I can

OEM suspension refurb + probably a trip to CW

Brake master cylinder + OEM caliper refurb

Sorry car, you've had a few years of neglect, but times are changing.

Excellent work. Looks like a nice healthy engine again. It's definately worth travelling a bit further to find a specialist. I still haven't sorted out the issues since I got my car back from the garage but have a few more ideas as to the causes and will be going back this afternoon. I look forward to seeing it mate. Let me know if your still free tomorrow evening. Weather unfortunately looks like it might be hammering it down tomorrow though.

Good work, and good writeup!

Would that really be considered badly coked? Here's how mine looked when I took it off recently after a BHG...

top effort.

Some people resent spending money on their cars, and drive away from big repair bills with a bad taste in their mouths. I however, get a warm smugness that my car is now a little bit more mint than it was before

The problem was that the exhaust ports were really bad, one of them was noticeably smaller dude to the amount of carbon in it and the valves themselves (exhaust) were just covered, If a lump of that came off and found its way to the turbo at full chat it could well do some damage.

Excellent write up, nice to see people happy with garage services.

As for spending money, IMO, its wise to spend money on this sort of thing, getting all the original items back up to perfect condition rather than bolting lots of tit-tat on.

Glad you're happy mate, makes a difference having all the engineering facilities on site, chemical washes, vapour blaster, seat cutting machine etc etc

Great write up bud,what milage did your engine have on it and was it milage or neglect that caused the problems ?

really good write up.

i need to get my valve stem oil seals done soon as the same thing is happening to me on start up.

How much roughly does this cost etc.

thanks

Really good write up.

Top work AFR.

How much roughly does this cost etc

I would be interested to know this as well please as i need mine doing!

Looks like great work!

If you don't mind me asking what sort of price did you end up paying for this? Sounds ike brilliant service to me

PS lol didn't see the other posts asking the same thing!

My mileage is now 109k, I think many are getting valve stem seals being an issue now at that mileage, the other bits were probably down to the neglect/bad setup, which I am now remediating.

As an example of the bad workmanship I found whilst working on my car I even found speaker wire without insulation running next to the fuel line when I re-wired the stereo. Where the cable wasn't long enough two bits were twisted together and had a bit of cellotape keeping them together I think I also traced and stripped about 15 wires behind the dash that didn't actually lead anywhere, they were just left in there and the dash put back on. I think some of those were blowing fuses and earthing against the body

It's been a long road of love with my car, but it's been getting there over the past 20 months of owning this one. I want to get back to the care-free reliability levels of my previous NA!

I'll PM the people here who've asked about the costs of the work, if you haven't got all the tools and knowledge at your disposal I think this is worthwhile.

vapour blaster, seat cutting machine

Your just making stuff up now

Your just making stuff up now

Does sound like it doesn't it mate

The vapour blaster is the nuts tho ! Brings parts up like new. Like this http://www.timwalkerrestorations.co.uk/Tim%20Walker/vapour_blasting.htm

We do actually have a Sunnen valve guide and seat machine, cuts lovely multi angle valve seats

I didn't mention the flux capacitor recalibrator or the BPUomatic

 

We do actually have a Sunnen valve guide and seat machine, cuts lovely multi angle valve seats

 

I didn't mention the flux capacitor recalibrator or the BPUomatic

Shhhhh the 88mph mod was meant to be a surprise

for Suprapod!

Will call you in a week or so Matt to discuss

the other bits we didn't manage to get round to.