Nug

There's only a couple of things that can do this to a spark plug. Looks like severe detonation. Does it ever make a noise like shaking marbles in a coffee can?

At work, I recently removed all of the carpet and interior insulation from a Ford Expedition and threw it all into a dumpster. Mice had pissed in it so much that it had solidified. It's very difficult to explain how God-awful bad that thing smelled, but it was impossible to drive without your head hanging out of the window. I'd even pried a dead one out of the blower motor fan; It was mashed all through the fins, like a hell-ride on a foul hamster wheel.

My sister has an '01 Forester. It has been a never-ending money pit. I don't know all of the details, but both the engine and transmission have been replaced. The replacement engine is used, with a theoretical 100k miles on it. It recently decided to start leaking coolant and oil externally from the head gaskets. A quote to replace the head gaskets and steering rack (leaking, and has play in it) was $4500. Yikes. I told her to dump it in my yard. Yanked the motor, put it on a stand, removed heads, ordered up a pile of parts. OEM headgaskets, that metal breather plate on the back of the engine, a new balancer pulley bolt, belts hoses plugs gaskets head bolts valve stem seals blahblahblah. Anyway, the engine is nice and clean inside, nothing scary, so I check the heads for flatness (less than 0.0015, the thinnest feeler gauge I had), and planned on bolting them back on with no resurface. I planned at this point to replace the valve stem seals, when I run into an interesting and troublesome problem: A few valve seals fell off. There was no guide there for them to be pressed on to. The guides have been moving away from the cam, toward the face of the valve. Every single exhaust guide is doing this, to varying degrees. None of the intakes has budged. So, what has already taken too long (no power for a week due to Hurricane Irene), gets to wait even longer (the machine shops are all backed up because of a week without power, too). I imagine they'll ream out the valve guide bores and press in oversize guides. Anyone else see this happen?

Intelligent input!

If done correctly, you will see gains. For the most gain for the least effort, look into "pocket porting". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBGKP4nqcGE Here's a good article. Read the captions under the pictures, too. http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/hardcore/0602em_cylinder_head_porting/index.html

Certainly any work done to the stock heads would be an improvement. Anyone try porting at home? A good flowing head would make more power with less boost. Less boost=lower temps.

These heads probably don't flow that well. It would take more boost to push air through the ports. More boost = higher temps. anyone try porting or extrude honing?

Dragged home a mile of free 10/3 wire to hook it up. It's too cold to take working in the garage seriously, though.

Sometimes you gotta tear stuff up.

I'd just check real quick that it does have spark. Easy to do, goes a long way. I'd have a tendency to blow compressed air across, not into, the port you think is clogged. Blowing across a hole creates a low pressure area in the cavity, sometimes sucking out any debris. Blow highly compressed air into it, and you'll probably damage it.

This couldn't possibly hurt. It's probably full of junk.

That slug weighs almost as much as the lathe!

After borrowing a diesel pickup and a car hauler trailer, and spending $200 in fuel, that big rump roast Pratt and Whitney is taking up a large chunk of real estate in my garage. It came with a three jaw and a four jaw chuck, faceplates, feed dogs, a steady rest, cutting bits, a cabinet, a thousand drill bits, wrenches, change gears (she ain't no quick change), and a big fat dose of sentimentality. The only thing it lacks is the taper attachment, which it does have provision for. I wonder how hard it would be to make one.

Car is running again with another lifter-ticky 2.2. He's contemplating driving from NJ to AL to catch up with the rally.

http://www.wartburg.misfittoysracing.com/index.html

OK good. The car in question is a 58 Wartburg 311. EJ22, VW rear, Porsche 914 front end. Left on BA/BE Rally this morning, started spewing oil from oil pump area. The head question is rhetorical at this point, as it's questionable if the car will carry on. It's back at home in NJ. The car will be in the 24 Hours of Lemons on the 18-20th if anyone will be near Summit Point WV and wants to see a spectacle.

Can the heads from a 93 2.2 be swapped to a 98 2.2? Got a text from someone on the BA/BE Rally. It may be a serious problem, maybe rhetorical. In any case, will this combo make the engine run? Thanks!

Naval jelly? It's basically phosphoric acid. Tell you what, get some of that in your eye, it'll make you see God. I got some POR15 in my eye, too. Holy crap, that's even worse.

I used it on the floorpan of a VW Beetle. Seemed to hold up better than anything else I've used.

So she did the ecu right. Good deal!

I've had to replace the stub axle, drum, conical washer, and nut on a 4wd wagon once because it was run loose and chewed up the splines. You can't tighten it too much.

I find that if you take a punch to the alignment pins and give them a little whack, they help loosen everything up.

Once the belts are on, you should be able to twist them 90 degrees, this is a general guidance given on many different timing belts. If your idlers seem misaligned, I would replace them.

Broken ring lands? Can't tell from the photo. If so, you are running into detonation.

My friends in NJ use the term "hoonery", FWIW.