I pulled my Lunati dual springs to measure my ptv clearance to insure that my motor was good to go for my car and I found rust developing under the retainer on the spring. They were put in a few months ago and I had not cleaned any coating off. They were lightly oiled when the heads went on. Any suggestions as to what I should do? Clean em up or pop for new springs?

 

Clean and run. Looks to be no biggie. If there was rust chunks on the coils then the porosity would cause a weakness but that little bit of moisture induced surface crud on the bottom will be of no concern.

 

Probably what ill do. Still waiting for a response from Lunati...sent them an inquiry a couple days ago. Makes me a little angry because they are practically new and the motor hasn't run. Anyone else have suggestions or dealt with this before? Ive read mixed things on other forums.

 

I see you said the car hasn't ran. It looks like the oil has ran off it from sitting and if the weather there is like it is in indiana going from hot to cold in the same day that can cause this. I had this happen on my s10 swap when it sat for a while. After I found this I started the truck every few days and never had it happen again.

 

Sounds plausible. We've had a couple days like that where it will be warm during the day and cold at night. I was thinking maybe the summer humidity may have caused it. There was still a little residual oily coating on them when I took em out though. Regardless of what I do they are getting coated in a thick oil or sprayed with comp's valvetrain assembly spray stuff.

 

Sounds like a good ideal. That's what I would do.

 

Run it

 

do not run them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will drop a valve!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Reasoning behind this?

 

Not to be an *** but I have more VS knowledge than anyone else in this thread.

Rust creates pits, pits create stress risers, stress risers create early failures. Would you take a brand new set of VS and beat the crap out of them with a hammer? Throw them on the ground? Leave them out in the rain?

 

I personally wouldn't run them either. As stated, the very small stress risers can wreak havoc in the future. Unless you fully inspect and know that the rust is located in a very low stress area for the coil spring, I wouldn't use them. I would also leave the set you have on the car until the motor is in the car and closer to firing, then swap them out to help prevent this from happening again.

I live near the ocean in New England and you must be very careful of this type of thing happening around here. When I had my motor apart, every night before stopping work I would oil on each cylinder liner to prevent any rust from starting. If you just leave them exposed for a few days, the cylinders will start pitting. I also store the car in a bag with desiccant in the winter to prevent corrosion. The tell tale is the national corrosion experiment run at the lighthouse about 5 miles up the coast from me

 

Well I am just going to get some new springs...rather be safe than sorry. Christmas gift to me haha. For the price of springs I'd rather just go that route instead of dealing with the cost of potential problems. Ill leave the springs in until a day or so before the motor fires...good idea.

 

Sounds like a good plan. Nothing wrong with leaving them in there now as valve holders, lol.

 

Start the engine and continue.

 

Exactly what I was thinking...got some valve holders for the future too hah

 

Throw your money away if you want

 

How much experience do you have with valve springs?

 

I'll take them off your hands when you get the new springs.

Any word from Lunati?

 

Im going to keep em around for a while. No word from Lunati. Sent an email to their tech support on 11/26. Pretty lame that they didn't get back to me. It would have most likely been better to call but still... I'm pretty sure I've read their customer service has lacked recently.

 

Yeah its usually better to just call, but that's still no excuse for not returning an email, especially an email from a paying customer!