is it possible to pull the head off without tearing down the valve train? i'm going to be getting a shortblock and some cams and i need to rip my head off. is it fairly easy to tear down?

You don't have to remove the valves, springs, retainers, rockers, or lifters to take the head off. You will have to remove the cams though.

Hmmm....uhm....why's that? I'm not being a dick I really don't know.

the reason you have to take the cams out is, they are in the way of the head bolts...
it is very easy to do. it took me and my buddy 4 hours to take the head off and put a new one on..

Technically, just to remove the head, you don't have to remove the cams. You can get the bolts all the way out of the block without the cams interfering, but if you want to take the bolts out of the head (like, to install new ones - you shouldn't reuse stock headbolts) you'll have to remove the cams.

Just an FYI, i've gotten away with reusing stock headbolts. They took 15psi for six months with an MLS gasket before i swapped on a ported head. Take it however you want.

Well your adding cams anyway, so they have to come out anyway, but I would wait till the head is off the car. You can unbolt it with the cams in, you may need a wabble extention to do it though. After the head is off the car, go ahead and pull your old cams to install the new ones.

Another reason to remove stock head bolts is that if you do leave them in even when they are pulled up all the way to the cams they are still very long so you will have to lift the head a ways to get it to clear the block. Now if you have left your manifolds on to get out of removing too much it will cause a clearance issue with the intake manifold and the back of the engine bay. You can still get it out but it'll take some rocking, scrapping, etc.

Yeah, but i think the only real clearance problem we has was with the intake air temp sensor, and after that was removed we managed to get it out pretty easy.

I'm doing it again this weekend. Wanna help?

That would be nice but I'm in College Station this weekend. I may stop by if I'm back at a decent hour but who knows.

Well, taking the head off should be easy.
But then again, it requires the timing belt to be off before the head can be taken off. Correct.

And I am having a REALLY horrible time taking off the timing belt.


Took off the engine mount,
Then the bracket for the engine mount,
Try to take of that stupid generator belt and etc belts
So I can take off the crank pulley,
Then I can take off that stupid timing belt cover with the mount bracker.

FINALLY, I can take off the timing belt and take off the head.

TODAY after fucking 6 hours... I STILL CAN"T TAKE OFF THE TIMING BELT.... wtf....

And you guys said it's easy?????

Gil.

Well, the first time I took my timing belt off (for my cam gear install) it too me close to 11 hours spanning 2 days to complete it going slow and not know what the heck I was doing. Since then I've probably removed the timing belt on 4 or so different 2gNTs pretty close to 10 times at least total. So I've gotten pretty decent at it. I can get it off in about 3 hours or so.

If you are all the way to the front cover you just have to remove the cover, put the crank pulley to TDC and line up the marks on the cam gears, and lastly remove the tensioner. That should be it to get it off after the steps you listed.

well the current plan is to fix the car to an acceptable level and sell it off. prolly go gst or gsx if i don't keep it. i dunno so many different ideas.

yeah i'll just go with new head bolts because if i'm going with high compression pistons and then actually get to boosting things will get pretty tight in there.

what other tools would be needed to do this? a wobble extension was mentioned. what else? do i need a torx set or anything? all i have is a good ratchet set and a few airtools i prolly won't get to use because my compressor always blows the fuse.

Well, mine's off. Verdict - Dino 4, HG 0. Blew through in three places, and close enough in another to make four. Explains my overheating problem, but damn.. the car still ran good. It's been overheating for about six months, made a few passes at the track on it, all the while the HG was blown. Makes me feel good to know i ran a 13.95@105.5 on a blown HG.. heh.

>Well, mine's off. Verdict - Dino 4, HG 0. Blew through in
>three places, and close enough in another to make four.
>Explains my overheating problem, but damn.. the car still ran
>good. It's been overheating for about six months, made a few
>passes at the track on it, all the while the HG was blown.
>Makes me feel good to know i ran a 13.95@105.5 on a blown HG..
> heh.


damn!!! 13.95 on a blown HG!!! I have 160k now so i bet mine is gone. doing it this summer (if anybody would like to help), but don't know when yet. i have wicked blow-by, would a bad HG do that?

If you are removing the head, the timing belt has to come off anyway. You are putting new cams in so pull them off while the engine is in the car, it's much easier that way. You should replace the head bolts so the cams have to come out. There's one set of bolt (second in from hte left) that suck to get to, a 3/8" extension might fit around the hump in the cams and get the bolt loosened, if you use a cheater bar.

But I suggest taking the cams out because you want to get a good even torque on the bolts, and you might not get that if you are working at an angle around the cams.



15.9 @ 86.7mph

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Cams, Hooker Header, ERT/Catco Cat, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC