ok, me and a friend whos a mitsu tech had to tear down my engine cause the last moron to work on it installed the cam seals wrong, dunno how but he did and it leaked all over the timing belt and it jumped timing. Thank god I've got the 8.8:1 compression pistons cause I think they make the engine non-interference, but don't hold me to that. So nothing was messed up, we ported the hell out of the head, lapped the valves, put in new valve guides, installed a new MLS headgasket and the mechanical tensioner from the parts dinosaur on ebay, it runs great minus fact we put the damn headgasket on wrong and there is no oil getting to the head that I can see. My question, it only ran twice, once up to operating temp, and one quickie to let him hear the noise it was making, sounded like really loud lifter knock, are the cam journals ok ? or are they fried ? we used alot of lucas for assembly lube on everything on the top end including the cams and cam journals. The car never moved was wasn't reved much, 99.99% of the run time was at idle. Max of 10 minutes of total run time.

I have a spare head but it's not ported, and has stock sized valves. I'll use it if I have to, but I'd really like to use the one we just finished all the work on. So if anyone else has done this and made out ok or had to replace the head let me know.

Well, about the only way to know for sure is too pull the cams and inspect/mic the journals. Sorry to say, but after all that work, wouldn't you rather be on the safe side. If you ran it for such little time then I'd be willing to bet a $5 spot that you're ok, but no more than that until you pull it apart. Don't lose hope, just do it this weekend and get it over with, you won't even need to pull the head, just the belt and the cams. Good luck, I'll send you some positive hopes.

Yeah that's the plan to pull it apart this weekend to check it out and see if it fried the cam journals or not. I just wanted a general opinion from a few veterans. Thanks for the positive vibes bro, sadly I do have to pull the head off, gotta replace the headgasket thats on backwards........dammit. Oh well we're all only human, but it won't happen a 2nd time. Anyone else with some info or comments ? was hoping DarkOne, DR1665, or Star Turbo Talon would have some input.