OK, here's the story:

 

I'm in the process of rebuilding my ea82, which has 140,000 miles on it. Right now I'm tearing it down and cleaning stuff. So far, I have ordered or have a complete gasket/seal set, main bearings, rod bearings, head gaskets, reground hi-po cams, and piston rings.

 

There are two items that I'm not sure if I need. The first, and REALLY expensive one is the "cam towers", I think they're called. They are the things that hold the cams. 1stsubaruparts.com, where I ordered most of the stuff from, and who has great deals on this stuff, quoted me around $260 per side for these things, and you can't just get the bearings, as they are part of the towers. The guy I talked to said that most of the time these don't need replacing. Is he correct?

 

The other thing that I'm wondering about is valve springs, especially since I'm putting in bigger cams that will exert more pressure. These aren't terribly expensive at $9 per spring, but that does add up since I believe this engine has 16 total springs (8 valves, inner and outer springs). I'm going to take off the old ones and measure their height, etc. as best I can, but should I replace them regardless just for good measure?

 

In both cases, the issue is whether or not it's worth the money. I can afford to buy these things, but I would much rather save the money, since I already have spent $200 on gaskets and seals, $400 on engine parts, and $190 on cams, as well as the $390 Weber last fall, and I'm also going to be buying a lift and tires very soon. Oh yeah, and I still have to get a water pump and maybe an oil pump depending on the condition of the current one.

I would definitely be more worried about getting a new water pump and oil pump before I worried about valve springs.

For sure the oil and water pumps will come before springs. I made sure I can afford those before I decided to drop the money for reground cams.

 

I'm just wondering if these usually "wear out" by losing their tension over time. For this engine, I'm want do everything right, cause it needs to be dependable (up here in the winter, if your car dies, so do you...) and hopefully last another 140k or more.

valve springs are like any other sort of spring....

they wear out over time. just like the springs in a mattress, springs on a strut etc..

 

kelly if I were you and you were really worried about the springs, buy just 1 oem spring and test it. see how much pressure the new one takes to compress compared to your oil ones.. if the new one takes considerable amount more, replace em

dont skimp on the springs. go bring it around to some motorcycle shops and see if you can get some heavy rump roast ones,100lbs from a kawasaki, or something. i did this with a isuzu, but havent tried with a subaru yet.

try ram engines, they have sets of springs that replace the inner and outer with just one spring, they have the same approxamate seat pressure so they won't ruin your seats but they have more stiffness then stock.

http://www.ramengines.com

Just measure the inside of the cam carrier journals and the outer diameter of the cams and compare with subaru specs. They normally don't go bad though unless oil starved. Definately rebuild of replace the lifters though. What about the valves, guides and seats?

Not sure about valves, guides, and seats. I guess I'll just disassemble, clean and inspect everything. Hadn't really thought about that stuff much, are these items normally just replaced when you rebuild?

I tried to post last night, to no avail.

 

You need to do Something with the heads. At least determine that they are perfectly flat. You can also do a ghetto valve job by yourself, by lapping the valves.

 

You can take care of a lot of issues at one by just taking the heads to a machine shop and asking for a valve job. They will clean the heads up, determine if they are flat, check/recondition/replace the valve guides and check/recondition/replace the valves. A three-angle valve job improves airflow and corrects anny valve leakage, necessary for making power, and having a nice, smooth idle. The shop can also check your spring tension and shim the springs up if they are tired. Money ($250ish) very well spent if you ask me.

dont worry about the cam box journals. just keep the original cams with their cam boxes. if anything, clean out the oil passages real good