And while I was at it I also switched over to arp studs, some nice viton seals where suppose to come with them, but they didn't
So I searched everywhere I could local trying to find Viton seals for my size needed, 11/32 valve with a .530 boss.
Tell that to the Autozone clerk and see the look you get. lol I checked all the cylinder head shops without any luck.
Just a lot of "We will call you back" Finally found a shop that had some in the size, but they where not the viton ones.
But he assured me they where just as good or better. So I got them and ran home and got the head together and on the car.
Even had enough time to get the good stuff installed and hooked up anda bottle filled.
Car fired up and ran perfect, but it had been and was raining and I still had slick on the car from the previous track outing,
so the test drive was short and sweet. I was good to go!
Loaded up the car and headed out to the track which is just a brisk 2 hour drive going around 85mph the whole way.
Got the the track early and did some tweaking on the idle air control and worked out a bouncing idle that had been bugging me since I switched cams.
Well I decided to turn the boost down a little bit, so I went for a quick jog through the pits to see what the boost was set at. (I was about the only one there since I was about an hour early) And one the way back I noticed smoke poring from my exhaust!!!!!! Well poop on me.
John was there (Johns88slvrTbird on turboford) he brought me the valve seals that I wanted. Thanks again for those. So we both started to try and figure out what was going on. First we pulled the plugs, they where black but nothing horrible. So then we started maybe the turbo went out. He had a spare holset so that wouldn't of been to bad. But we went ahead and pulled the valve cover and sure enough damn near all the valve seals had come loose and where just along for the ride on the valves.. Poop on me again.
So then we went into how and the hell are we going to get this fixed while at the track. We tossed around the idea of pulling the head. But damn that is a big job and we only had a few hours. I we decided to try and fix them with the head on the car. And needless to say it kicked our ass. I got the hood off and the timing belt and gear off while John ran to the parts store to get whatever valve spring compressor they had.
Only thing available was the type that clamps around the spring and screws down from the top. Well double springs and those just don't go together. We tried and tried and tried. Did I mention that we tried.
We finally gave up and called it a day. I was done before most people got started.
Sure was a pretty day.
So I loaded up with my tail between my legs and headed back home.
I have three more tries before the track closes down for the winter. so hopefully one of those days will turn out better than this one.
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