There is another possibility ... The machine shop is supposed to 'tip'
the valves. IOW, when doing a valve job they should grind a few thou
off the top end of the valve, effectivley making it shorter to
compensate for the material removed from the valve seat and valve face.
Of course in order to do this now, the valves will need to be removed
from the head. If you go this route, just make sure that they don't
take so much off the end of the valve that the bottom of the shim
interferes with the valve keepers.
Regarding re-use of the head gasket I wouldn't reccomend it.
However once on our race car, I had just installed the head on the
block and torqued it down, when one of the bolts at the front of the
head broke. I pulled the head off, (it probably wasn't on for more
than ten minutes) which seperated cleanly from the gasket. Removed the
broken bolt, reinstalled the head using the same gasket (I probably
would have replaced it if I had another on hand).
We had no issues with it, but It was a race car which was torn apart
often for various reasons, so I would not suggest doing this on a
street car ...
YMMV,
Jeff
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 12, 2010, at 10:48 AM, "Watry, Andrew (LNG-SFR)" <[email protected]
> wrote:
If you're using shims that thin it means the valve seats and/or faces
have been cut a lot, perhaps too much. But maybe you know that. Norman
Racing has told me shims down to .030-.035" would be OK if machined
well. I've never gone below .050" myself.
If you've torqued on the head gasket at all I would not be tempted to
reuse. At 15 lbs it falls into that "probably fine" category and is
not
harmed, but be mindful of how much work it is to change if it's not
OK.
Non-Reinz gaskets are only $25.
Andrew
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