pulled the valve covers off my 05 gto today and found a decent amount of metal chunks and shavings laying near the head bolts, car runs normally and doesnt tick at all, has had a light smoke on hot starts ever since i got it ~6 months ago
valvoline 10w-40
tsp 220r cam kit
bored .05 over, valve relief’ed wiseco pistons
ported/polished 243 heads
any advice is appreciated

after cleaning out

 

Are you using titanium retainers? They might be fretting against the springs. Steel won't do that.

 

yep, the kit says it comes with titanium retainers, going to assume a spring/ retainer replacement is the way to go?

 

Springs should be OK. Just put steel retainers back in. AND clean up all shavings.

 

after inspecting both sides they all look good and consistent as far as i know,at first when i saw the shavings i looked around to see if there would be any obvious faults but none that i could see.is there any good way to inspect or test any of the parts before disassembly?

 

these 3 pieces seemed weird to me, the brown and black bits are a rubbery material, i suspect the black piece may be from the valve cover grommet where the bolt pokes through, the other 2 im not sure.

 

Looks like a valve seal to me which would also explain the smoking

 

I tend to agreed with ^^^

 

thats what im thinking after i noticed in the last picture there is some rubber on the metal piece. im going to assume its been that way ever since i bought it since its always had the hot start smoke, after looking into the vss replacement it seems like a pretty straightforward job, find a way to keep the valves up(air compressor?),use a spring compressor to loosen/tighten the springs and after taking off the retainers they should pop off, which then the stem seal can slide off and be replaced, right?

 

Not really. You need to take apart the keepers, retainers, and springs to really see what's going on. This is the only good way to see the bottoms of the retainers, where the bits are most likely coming from.

 

No doubt that is valve stem seal material you're seeing and it also looks like peices of stock trunnions. Maybe its just left from a shotty clean up but see if you can get a better look at the valve stem seals. Seeing smoke from a hot start is usally an indicator or worn valve stem seals.

 

good to know,
my plan is to anticipate valve stem failure and order https://www.texas-speed.com/p-5704-t...-seatseal.aspx -pretty similar to what its got now. would there be any harm in reusing the old valve keepers? should only have around 25k on them as thats when the cam was put in. going to go ahead and order the kit because i`ve noticed some small marring on the springs and i know higher lift cams need springs every 20-40k, and being mine is only a 220r im sure they`ve got life left but ill be down there already so might aswell, unless anybody can point me in the direction of a better set of products.

 

I'm with you, Gary. But, if I was the OP, I'd go with Ti retainers again. I've never had Ti retainers do this, but do agree with your prognosis. After looking at a blowup of the pics, with better light, it may be a couple things. I also agree on the seals, but may be the retainers, too. At least youll know, because you can check the underside of the retainer, because youre in there, anyway. For the heck of it, in the future, putting shrapnel on printer paper makes it easier to see...

 

Snap rings on the rockers tell me that the trunnions have been “upgraded”. I’d look at the trunnions also. Some of that metal looks like the Comp trunnion bearing kits to me. Could be that a trunnion or two went to crap, and the resulting play in the rocker caused the bottom of it to get into the valve seal. You should have heard some ticking, but if it’s got aftermarket exhaust, you usually won’t hear anything over it.
edit…cut your oil filter open. It will tell you more than what your seeing here.

 

You can grab a set (intake and exhaust) valve stem seals at your local auto parts store. Felpro Part # SS 70945

 

For racing where you need the last Nth to get ahead, then Ti retainers for sure. But for a street engine there is no real advantage. Titanium is very brittle, and does not always have a good rep for durability.

 

noted, thanks for all the help guys. going to change the oil tomorrow, cut open the filter and share my findings. going to go ahead and order the kit i stated above so i should have pretty good coverage of failing parts, i’ll have to find out next weekend. there is some slight play in the rockers but i’ve heard some play is normal and they all seem consistent, but will give the trunnion a good lookover just to make sure.

 

If you don't tear it all the way down, put in a rare earth magnet Drain plug.
Anything small in the valve cover area will end up in the oil pan..
It will at least catch the ferrous stuff ..

 

just changed the oil and put one in, i cut open the mobil 1 filter and it had a decent amount of small flakes, but really not alot at all, same with the oil. would it be wise to pull the valley cover aswell and see if there’s any material in there?

 

I had the same thing happen a long time ago. The machine shop set the install height wrong and I had really bad valve float. The inner spring acts a like cork screw and yanks the valve seals off when they float.

That's when I learned how to measure/set install height on my own.