Ok- I've got a Magnum FE 2.0 liter from Japan, 8 valve truck engine. I am rebuilding it. It was really dirty.

So far I got the bottom end rebuilt- just reused stock pistons but thoughly cleaned them and used new rings and bearings, cleaned the block- rehoned the cylinders and painted it black.

Now I got the head cleaned an resurfaced. It has a small corrosion spot next to one of the coolant holes on the sealing side of the head- and the spot did not go away with a resurface. The valves are kind of gummy still- and valve stem seal or valve guide condition is unknown. The head holds pressure and doesn't have any cracks.

So here is my question- what do do with the head. I was thinking about doing a 3 angle valve job- cleaning the valves, installing new stem seals, check the valve guides- replace as needed. To take care of the corrosion spot- I was thinking of grinding it out- tig weld it up- then mill the head again.

Second question- how far can I mill the head? I'm using a Delta Camshaft reground 272 cam- so firstly I'm concerned about piston to valve clearance. Increased compression ratio makes me happy- so that is not a concern for me. Anything else I should be looking out for?

Holla at me ya'll!

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Truck #1-1988 B2200 FE3 bagged bodydropped rx7 IRS MS2. Truck #2- 1992 B2200 stock. Truck #3-1992 B2200 EFI conversion with car efi system. Truck #4- 1993 B2200 auto stock. Truck #5- 1993 B2200 cab plus factory EFI. Truck #6- 1993 B2200 F2T, NOT FOR SALE!

thats about all i know you can do with these heads. I havent ever heard of an aftermarket head. You could have it ported and polished thats afew extra hp.

Corrosion spot? You mean like the coolant became acidic and ate into a spot in the metal?.

I do not recommend shaving the head to the maximum just to get compression, if you warp the head a year or two later your hosed and forced to get a new head. If the block wasn't built I would have recommended having it decked to the maximum and then shave the head only enough to bring it flat. Valve guides don't wear out very much in these, that is more of a V8 thing. The exhaust seats are sure to be badly pitted, it's important that those are cleaned up. 3 angle valve jobs are kind of misleading, many valves have a 3 angle valve stock, that is they have a back cut, the seating surface and angle on the face of the valve that is actually inside the combustion chamber at all times. Really what you want is either a 4 or 5 angle valve job where they adjust the original back cut, put another angle or two behind the seating surface, clean the seating surface itself, and then tweak the angle on the face of the valve.

I haven't heard of anyone having problems with the 272 cam but at least two of us have destroyed a valvetrain in 20k miles or less with cams larger than 272 with complications from oil starvation, valve bounce, and the cam followers ramping off the cam lobes. We aren't sure what destroyed Russ's engine yet, we're thinking he either had too much spring rate or the topline cam he used for a core was a crappy casting. If your going to have valve work done one thing you can do to reduce valve bounce without changing the springs is to reduce the seat angle from the stock 45 degrees down to 44 degrees. Ferrea used to sell performance valves for the 8-valve 626 that was directly interchangable, you might want to look into these as a nice option and they're probably lighter. If they are lighter they will also help maintain better control but I think the main performance changes were not based on weight though. Someone had mentioned installing a .010 or .025" spring shim to slightly increase the spring rate but this should only be attempted if you have checked the install height of the springs and have sufficient height with the reground cam and the thickness of the shim added.

Match porting to the intake manifold will only provide minimal gains, I doubt it would be measurable on a dyno. The only thing I would do to the inside of the ports is blend them with a 60 grit scroll cartridge, you might need a carbide burr to blend the bowl behind the seat but you don't need anything smoother than a 60 grit scroll cartridge to finish the port. Anything smoother, especially on the intake side is a waste, don't waste your time polishing.

Most of the flow gains to be made will be within .400" of the valve seat area, with the right angles your plan for the valve job will give you more than the porting will. That .400" area extends all around the seat, both into the port and the surface of the combustion chamber. You will notice some sharp machine edges close to the valve seat. Install a scrap valve and blend these with your scroll cartridge. This will help valve flow, especially at low lifts, it will also decrease stress risers which will reduce the chances of cracking the head, and will reduce hot spots which can cause detonation.

Some people recommend unshrouding the valves, although in some engines this is highly recommended in our engines it is not because the valve shroud is also the squish area. Without the squish area your going to significantly reduce combustion efficiency which will kill power. However, the edges of the squish area are very sharp and are places were detonation can start so you should either use a scroll cartridge, or 400 grit sandpaper with your finger to get rid of the sharp edge and put a .040"-.060" radius on the edge. The rest of the combustion chamber can just be smoothed out with the scroll cartridge and touched up with something finer if you want.

I've always recommended at least 2 modifications to the oiling in the cylinder head. The first recommendation is if the engine uses an in block oil restrictor, if it has one drill it out to something a little larger. This won't be possable if you've already assembled your block. The second is to increase the amount of oil under #2 intake and exhaust lobes.



Between the #1 bolt hole and the cast wall there is a small opening for oil to flow out from beneath the #2 cam lobes and drain to the back of the head. This causes there to be less oil for these two cam lobes to splash in to help keep them lubricated. With the cylinder head perfectly clean I spray this area few times with brake clean and once dry I mix up a little steel filled epoxy (I use QuickSteel) and make a little dam right there which allows the oil to puddle under #2 cam lobes. The cam lobes for 1, 3, and 4 usually have enough oil puddled under them for the splash to do all it can.

An additional modification I do on my own heads is to cut a rounded channel about 1/8 - 3/16" deep in the oil dam at the back of the head near the rear oil return passage. A lot of oil puddles at the back of the head a properly sized channel can slightly increase the drainage enough to lower this level and reduce the possibility of oil getting down the rear valve seals.

An additional idea has been tossed around to drill an extra oil jet into the intake rocker arm to lubricate the exhaust cam lobes but at the moment I do not know if the rocker shafts have oil holes in the right places to try it.

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Ferrea still makes the valves as well as the 1mm oversize valves which would be good on the exhaust side, check IPP, they are $25.50 each, the stock size ones are part number F1833P and the oversize ones are F1834P for the exhaust valves.

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Stock block and head, bored 0.040 over with a shaved deck. Holley 5200, Pacesetter header, 2" exhaust, Accel coil and 8.2mm wires, mechanical rocker arms, Probe crank pulley, electric fan and too much compression for its own good. '85 RX7 GSL LSD, lightened flywheel, Miata transmission and dual exhaust soon

Jim, tig and mill is the normal procedure for head corrosion, BUT, where is this corrosion? unless it's under a firing ring or really bad, it probably doesn't matter. Post a photograph maybe?

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After reading what Ohm said bout the valves I checked them out on IPP and it surprised the crap out of me thats alot to pay for 1mm oversized valves. In total you would have $250 in valves. Is the price worth the performance gain? I was thinkin bout changing them out in my head before I saw the price.

No, probably not considering after all the other work you would need to do to the head, machine and parts ect, you would be pretty close to the cost of an FE-3 swap if you are rebuilding the bottom end as well and the FE-3 is a much better place to start.

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Stock block and head, bored 0.040 over with a shaved deck. Holley 5200, Pacesetter header, 2" exhaust, Accel coil and 8.2mm wires, mechanical rocker arms, Probe crank pulley, electric fan and too much compression for its own good. '85 RX7 GSL LSD, lightened flywheel, Miata transmission and dual exhaust soon

Bloody inflation, When I first found out they made them they were $16 a piece, then they were $20, now their $25 and companies wonder why their sales keep dropping.

Ferrea is a high end racing valve maker though, they are in direct competition with Del West, we baught valves from both at the race team and at Victory One Performance some of our biggest competition was from Ferrea. The cost is high but the quality is about the best you can get. The forgings are one piece construction, the keeper groove is cold rolled and not cut, the alloys are all highly speciallized, and the valve stems are centerless ground to tollerances < .00005"

I agree though, now that the prices have been jacked up they probably aren't worth it. Installing the stock sized ones on the exhaust side only may help some, I think they are tulip shaped valve which should help with the exhaust flow even though the valve is the same size.

I don't bother with much valvetrain work any more, if I can't do it with a die grinder it's not worth the money in this engine, lol.

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Well the reason im shying away from the FE3 is that I dont know much about them and I really want to stay carburated. Plus betime I bought the megasquirt which im sure is expensive It would prolly cost bout the same.

Also about the valve the all 1 mm thing really makes no sense i would come alot closer to buying them if they were more than 1mm over stock.

You don't have to use megasquirt to swap an FE3, if you can get the harness and ECU you can just swap all of that stuff in, but you won't be able to do any tuning to it. Megasquirt is cheap compared to a haltec, and pocket change to motec, lol. Fredio's DIY-EFI system is probably much cheaper than megasquirt but isn't as developed yet.

Um... how much extra lift are you getting out of your cam? I'll bet it's about .040" more than stock and 1mm rounded to the nearest thousanth is .040" and that extra .040" from the cam is only helping for a few degrees of rotation. An extra .040" on the diameter of the valve starts helping the performance as soon as the valve starts to open. Even with the extra duration of the cam I'll bet going 1 mm oversize on both valves will give you more power and be more reliable than your cam, but it would be at a higher cost as well.

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You could run carbies on an fe3 - go for it, if that is what you want. A barrel per cylinder would sound and go awesomely :-)

You'd need a computer for the ignition, though.

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ITB FE3 *Drools*

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Fixed! :-)

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Lol, you were using it in the states when you were here... I don't think he wants to flip a switch in his glove box to turn on the computer though...

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yeah the corrosion spot is right next to the water jacket- not near the compression chambers. I appreciate all the information, and it has been interesting to read through everything.

In the end- I decided to just bolt the head back onto the engine- it's good enough. Real power is made on the FE3 for sure. This engine is actually going to replace the FE3 in my red lowrider . I am taking it out so it can go into another truck that is stock- that way I can actually use the power without bottoming out all thetime or wheel hopping with air suspension.

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Truck #1-1988 B2200 FE3 bagged bodydropped rx7 IRS MS2. Truck #2- 1992 B2200 stock. Truck #3-1992 B2200 EFI conversion with car efi system. Truck #4- 1993 B2200 auto stock. Truck #5- 1993 B2200 cab plus factory EFI. Truck #6- 1993 B2200 F2T, NOT FOR SALE!