valve job or valve guide?

[jumpman83]

I need one or the other. One of the valves are bent in the H23 head, and they're not in good condition, so that would need a valve job and 1 new valve. The F22 head got messed up when we were taking it off and it needs a new valve guide. Obviously the valve guide would be cheaper, and at this point, $700 in the hole and disgusted I ever started this project, cheaper is better, but that leaves me pissed I wasted $200 on an H23 head I won't be using. However, I don't know what a valve job costs. Sounds expensive, but maybe it would be cheap enough to be worth getting to keep the H23/F22 hybrid? Someone help, anyone have info or insite?

[HondaFan81]

Well, for the shape your received the H23 head, that is probably why you got it for a cheap/fair price. Sounds like you should have expected to have done this work when received, unless you got ripped off and they did not tell you about it.

Anyhow, a valve-job isn't too bad in price. One valve is cheap too just make sure that particular spring, seat locator and/or retainer did not get damaged as well. You will also need to get the head resurfaced. A valve-job and head resurfaced should have been planned on this head anyhow, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Find a local machine shop that does this kind of work, call them up and get a price quote.

I'd do the H23 if you were set on doing this project, but be warned you still have to do more things and spend some more to make it work.

If you're in a fit for money, which it seems...perhaps you are better of going back to stock. But why did you start this project and remove your head not foreseeing any of this??

[jumpman83]

point by point:

-They didn't tell me there was anything wrong with it, just that it had like 30,000 or something miles on it, and once I got it, I didn't realize anything was wrong with it, except one chipped rocker arm, which didn't seem odd to me because I was so psyched about what I finally got. Everything else was in order, so just got the rocker arm, port matched it, cleaned it because there was a lot of sludge in there (came though the intake from the breather line. Bad sign? Yeah, I just realized that now, since I'm finally calmed down for the first time in a week)

-everything else is fine, I wasn't planning on it because of the above reasons, and I hope so because jgenginedynamics wants 180 for their basic valve job.

-P&G, the same place that turned my crankshaft and honed my cylinders last week

-you don't remember commenting on this in my other thread? You gave me a complement for tackling this with my grandpa. I spun a bearing, the bottom end got rebuilt, so I put the other head on since I had already gotten it and this head was coming off anyway, so apearantly it was time to get this one on. My money fit was because I havn't been being very rational the past few days, and sure as hell not in the past few hours up until about the hour before this one, because grandpa keeps pissing me off, I have 4 days until school starts, little things keep going wrong, I was in a car accident this week where my best friend who is struggling to make ends meet right now and therefore doesn't have insurance got his car hit, which totaled it, and I had to watch as his dad, his only remaining resource, jerked his emotions around and manipulated him over the phone for hours on end while there was nothing I could do about it, and just to crown it all, I'm about to get kicked off the track team. So I havn't been thinking things through very well. So what I didn't realize when looking at the fact that I have a $700 debt is that part of that price included a clutch. Actually, that was 1/3 of the cost. Which means that while I was thinking I could have had an F22b in my car for the price of this project which is taking much longer than that option, that's not quite true yet because I still would have had to get this clutch, so the price is actually fine. It's not so much that I'm in a money bind so much as mom is loaning me the money and I hate debt, and I feel like a burden, and I was pissed because I was thinking an engine swap would have been cheaper. We'll find out if that was right after I get the price of the valve job. I'm actually at $425ish right now, not including the clutch, but I've got about $175 worth before I've matched cost save whatever I would need to get it sound enough to go in, and that's only $5 less than JGE, the same amount less it cost to get a hot tank at P&G compaired to JGE. Whatever is done to the head will be my last expense in the project, so in retrospect it may not have been too bad, I'll find out monday. It just sucks that when the engine blew I wasn't ready to put the head on, I still had some parts to get, so this price was a bottom end rebuild, a clutch, and a headswap, and I think I'm still under $900 finished price, so maybe I'm getting off easy, maybe I'm not, I've lost count, lost interest and just want this done, and I would have been totally fine with the cost of this if the price of the surprises had been something like $75 or $100, or something not $348. It probably wouldn't have turned out like this if I were left alone for more of it instead of having people down my back telling me I'm doing something wrong, then saying "oh, nevermind" when they realize what I was doing, or telling me about how I'm working at the wrong time of day or in the wrong place or my work space is such and such a way or if I had more time to get this done. Either would be nice. Or all the other shit, whatever you get the idea, I was fucked by the guy who gave it to me, I'll find out what to do on monday, and I havn't been doing very well lately emotionally speaking, so the price of the engine build is actually fine, I just wasn't thinking well.

[koolkoreanked]

Good luck man.