I did a valve adjustment on my 1990 Integra LS today (B18 Honda motor), and now it sounds rough... It sounded, and ran great beforehand, I just wanted to do it b/c I was sure it hadn't been done in a while. Anyhow, the problem I ran into while adjusting the valves was this: I set the intake at .007 and the exhaust at .008. while working on pistons 4 and 2, I found that while at TDC, the exhaust side for both would not let me slide the feeler in between the rocker arms and the cam lobes. so I loosed the adjustment screw as much as I could, still, no clearance. I finally adjusted the TDC off a bit, and got some clearance. Called it good, and sealed it all up. Why doesn't my exhaust side leave clearance when at TDC for pistons 4 and 2, when all the rest were adjusted just fine? Anyone having a clue would be welcome to email me any suggestions or help!

 

It sounds like you know what you are doing. I do have a suspision that you aren't at true top dead center. I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Sounds like your following the haynes manual. Just try to do it again and see what you get. there is really no reason that yoou wouldn't have clearance when at top dead. Give it one more try as frustrating as it is. good luck.

 

there is a big reason why at tdc you couldnt get clearence if the valve started sucking into the head it would raise your valve stem height and you wouldnt get clearance but then it would have ran bad before you started. You more than likely were not at tdc on those pistons when doing your adjustments adn you say it runs bad now how does it run does it have a bad idle?more valvetrain noise?If you were not sure you were at tdc then you shouldnt be attempting to do a valve adjustment, you dont do them just for the heck of it either.

 

I am wondering if you adjusted # 2 and 4 out of sequence .. in other words when it was at top dead # 2 you adjusted # 4 and vice versa .
I would recheck the adjustment ,

 

YOU ALL GOT IT WRONG. FIRST OFF YOU NEED SOME GOOD TECH KNOWLEDGE. ANY JOE CANNOT DO THIS. FIRST OFF THE ENGINE NEEDS TO BE COLD. HEAT CAUSES MORE CLEARANCE. COLD CREATES LESS. YOU SET THE CAMS TO THE TOP MARK AND ADJ #1. 1/4 TURN TO THE LEFT AND DO #2. ANOTHER 1/4 TURN TO THE LEFT AND YOU DO #4. FINALLY ANOTHER 1/4 TURN AND YOU GO BACK TO #3. THAT IS THE FIRING ORDER. YOU NEED TO FIX THIS ASAP! IF YOU ARE DRIVING YOUR CAR NOW LIKE THAT, YOU MAY NOT BE DRIVING FOR LONG! PLEASE GO TOYOUR LOCALMASTER TECH.[img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img]

 

This is becoming such an entertaining topic!


Metals, all metals respond to heat by expanding, even liquid metals such as mercury expand with heat. Thus as a valve heats, it gets longer and as the block heats, it gets taller and as the rocker heats it gets wider.


I suspect that most of the guys reading this post do not remember Chrysler's early 60's 413 CI engine. This beast had a cross ram manifold with two 4-barrel carborators mounted one on either sided of the engine. The valve train was endowed with solid lifters, long pushrods, rocker arms and a high lift camshaft nestled comfortablydeep in the big V's valley. Needless to say that was a lot of metal to expandwhen fires of performance furiously raged. The valve train was always adjusted with the engine off and cooled down to friendly levels with lots of clearance.The constant clatter of a 413 was a reminder to the driver to be carefull with the pedal when pressing tothe metal.


Long live hydraulic lifters