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I have a lq4 motor with 243 heads and a TSP CAM with a 228/232 cam with .600 lift. Engine has less than 500 miles on it. Valves are supposedly Titanium. Started engine the other day and it ran like crap after hearing a ticking noise. Opened valve covers and found this mess. Heads were checked and springs set up by G&G machine shop in Houston. Car is now in Anchorage and l have no idea where to begin. Oil pressure was good up till failure of valve keeper/retainer failure. Wtf is going on here??
Here is a picture of the heads before install. It appears there are no caps on the tips
Lash caps are a MUST with titanium valves unless they are made with a custom hardened tip such as ferrea does. Stock ls7 heads use titanium valves with lash caps.
Rockers eat away at titanium valve tips. Rapidly. As you see.
Lash caps will change pushrod length and rocker geometry.
True. You have to shim under the rocker pedestal to compensate. In the case of stock style, you put a .050 shim under the pedestal rail. Then your pushrods get ordered slightly longer. Around .050. Then you are good to go.
Lash caps are a MUST with titanium valves unless they are made with a custom hardened tip such as ferrea does. Stock ls7 heads use titanium valves with lash caps.
Rockers eat away at titanium valve tips. Rapidly. As you see.
Do you think l can reuse the springs or should l just replace all valves, springs, and hardware?
You could probably run the springs themselves again. New retainers and locks are a must though. Valves too of course.
Looking at your pictures on my phone it's hard to tell but there might be caps there. The one of the damaged head standing on the floor there are two valves that look unaffected/ maybe have a cap?
You could probably run the springs themselves again. New retainers and locks are a must though. Valves too of course.
Looking at your pictures on my phone it's hard to tell but there might be caps there. The one of the damaged head standing on the floor there are two valves that look unaffected/ maybe have a cap?
l will find out Monday when l get back to Anchorage and take it to a local machine shop. Hope they can save the heads etc as they are already ported and polished. Was dynotuned in that configuration.
Well, after taking the heads to the machine shop l found out that the valves did not have caps inatalled on them. Going back to good old stainless as the heads are still good the shop told me.
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Valve stems wiped out 
