Derek

One thing to consider is to hire a tuner to dial it all in. I had Jeff Linfert setup and tune my DOHC with ITBs and he did it all via email. Spending a little money up front getting things setup by a pro and then learning how to tweak may save you some frustration and get you on the road a lot quicker. I would find one in your area if you want to do dyno tuning as well. Derek

Search on hybridz for speedhut gauges. I love mine.

Here is one from mcmaster carr. BST NPT adapter

The word I got from my tuner is you need a MS3 unit to control VCT. There really isn't a lot out there about VCT/VVT with mega squirt. Miata conversions seem to be the most popular.

VCT cam cores are finished. Really happy to have this behind me. I had one set of S7 blanks so there was no room for error. Cross drilling VCT control circuit. Talk about butt clenching. Sounds a little crispy as the drill bit breaks through the other side. S7 tool steel is some pretty tough stuff. Finished VCT circuit. Still have to deburr the holes. Here is a video of the finish pass ending on lobe 6 and starting on lobe 2. I finish them in the firing order so I don't get confused. The noise in the background are 2 other machines that I'm coding and running at the same time so I try and keep things simple:) Next they'r off to Crane for heat treating and OD grinding.

The dual pulley is what's going to mess you up for aftermarket. Probably rebuilding your existing damper is going to be the cheapest route. FYI I sell a 36:1 kit and sensor mount. EDIS Kit for $220.00

Thanks for the info. Probably going to stick with the local guy for now. He's five minutes away and that is nice.

Not sure what your budget is but I sell a kit that will work with some dampers. $220.00 plus shipping. EDIS Kit

Yea I hate guesswork too. It's as simple as "that's how Honda does it". I never considered it because I don't like to change Honda's design much. Looking at it again I don't know if you could make the journals big enough to clear the lobes and not hit the tower bolts. Also it would make plumbing the VCT a little more difficult. Interesting thought though.

Finished machining the cam towers. I already posted some of these on my blog and facebook page but figured I'd go ahed and dump them here as well. First up is really the last but since is the most interesting part I figured I'd lead off with it. So from V3 forward I have been working on making sure that people who wanted to upgrade to VCT down the road wouldn't be stuck buying a whole new head. This has turned out to be pretty difficult but not impossible. Complete redesign of the valve cover and modifying the pattern, new timing cover design and pattern, modification to the front of the head and redesign of the cam towers. Finding room to fit two oil delivery systems was the trickiest part. Here is a shot of two number one towers with the caps off. VCT on top and regular on the bottom. The only modification to the head and cam towers to switch to VCT is to mill two channels from the 6mm holes out to the oil grooves. To be clear you will need VCT cams and all the timing and valving bits. My opinion on VCT is still that it's probably an expensive gadget but I needed a new challenge and figured I'd see if I can make it happen. So if you are planning on a budget build I wouldn't be holding out for VCT:) Here are some in progress pics. Regulars to this thread have seen this stuff before but people seem to like shots of me making chips. Thanks Derek

I would use the faro for sure. Develop guide curves and cross sections from the points. Use those to develop poly surfaces then convert to mesh. If you are trying to improve the flow with CNC machining then the wall thickness data is as important as the actual port shape.

Having done a fair amount of this work in the long run you may be better off getting your data from a touch probe in a mill or a digitizing arm. Getting a proper scan can be really challenging. When I did the Honda head I split the port along the casting part line then created a two piece mold with spacers to make up for the band saw blade kerf. I then made a resin plug and scanned it. Since I wanted something I could develop I ended up pulling curves from the mesh and used them to create my ports. Derek

Yea but you know when a thread is going off the rails

I'm flattered but I can see a conflict since I'm a vendor as well as a user. I nominate JSM. He always seems to have a level headed approach.

Cam core lathe work finished. Gun drilled S7 tool steel. Eight standard and two VCT. My poor little lathe got quite the workout:) These are the fronts of the VCT cams. I'm copying the K20 dimensions as closely as possible. For some reason they use a very shallow feed groove on the cam bearing and a much deeper groove on the phaser end. Number one cam tower with the VCT grooves machined in. The drilled holes lead down to the head and the grooves will line up with the cam when I bore the towers. The letter C is where the intake cam will be. Although that is a coincidence as this is tower 1 set C. The next step is numbering the towers and after that they are machined as sets. I'm doing five sets this run. Making progress! Derek

Thanks for the info. Yes I meant either would do a good job of consistency. Seems like ethanol and dry ice would be easier to manage. I'm going to talk to my local guy. He has the skills for sure it's just that I know the value of technology and precision and his gear is on the older side. My valve seat didn't fail due to lack of technology. It failed because of poor installation and a Serdi won't help that. Derek

I like how they finally timed how long it took to make one of the parts. They really should buy a cheap CNC plasma table though. The guy has mad skills for sure but this is 2017 after all

I believe I called him and he doesn't have a Serdi. He also seemed to take offense that I asked. Maybe I caught him at a bad time. I have a local guy here that can do it with the older style equipment. I'm really thinking about cutting the seat pockets on mine myself. I mean it's in the 4th axis and it should be more accurate than lining up via the guide. A tech at Ferrea told me about mixing dry ice and acetone to shrink the seats. Or I may look at nitrogen. It seems that shrinking the seats in a controlled bath would give predictable results. My guides and seats were installed by someone who was very capable. They were just having a bad day. I'm hoping to minimize that by going with the Serdi. I may be fooling myself though. Thanks Derek

Man that really sucks. I was just exchanging PMs a month or so ago. So sad. My condolences.

Those are all the pics I have. I will say that it is still in perfect shape with no de-lamination and up until I blew the motor it was parked out in the Florida heat every day. Realistically I'm thinking it's better than stock as far as longevity goes. I did the SEM fill the crack method and it just cracked in another place. Anything you paint on is a temporary fix. My experience thermoforming speaker panels made me realize the problem isn't the quality of the cover but the stresses put against it when you install it.

Question for you Florida peeps. I'm looking for a machine shop in central florida with a Serdi valve machine. After my problem with V1 dropping a seat I'm inclined to steer away from any shop that doesn't do seats on a regular basis or with a modern machine. Rebello is hooked up with someone but I really don't want to ship my head across the country and back if I don't have to. Thanks Derek

Caps get a bad rep because they don't fit perfectly and then they are installed poorly. If you look at what I had to do in my thread in order to get it to fit you'll see that there is a ton of material that needs to be removed.

Here is how I did mine.

Silly me:)

Single stage or base/clear. What brand. Absolutely need new hardener. If you are paying to get it done you may have trouble getting the paint shop to get onboard using paint of unknown origins. Derek